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A Plea for Epistemic Monism

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Epistemic Pluralism

Part of the book series: Palgrave Innovations in Philosophy ((PIIP))

Abstract

I discuss here epistemic pluralism not in the sense of a form of relativism or of contextualism , but as the meta-epistemological view that there cannot be a unified view of justification and of knowledge . After examining a few motivations for this view, I distinguish three versions of it. The first claims that the concept of justification is ambiguous and that the internalist version is compatible with the externalist one (epistemic compatibilism). The second rests on the idea that our main epistemic concepts answer different desiderata, which depend on our purposes in various epistemic practices. The third is a version of functionalism about justification . I argue that each of these versions actually presupposes a unified conception of epistemic goods . So the pluralism is only apparent. I consider two test cases to confirm this verdict: pragmatic encroachment and epistemic injustice. The conclusion is that there are no good reasons to renounce the traditional view of epistemic monism.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre de Recherches sur les Arts et le Langage, Ecole Des Hautes études En Sciences Sociales, 96 Boulevard Raspail, 75006, Paris, France

    Pascal Engel

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  1. Pascal Engel
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Correspondence to Pascal Engel .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Philosophy, University of California Irvine, Irvine, California, USA

    Annalisa Coliva

  2. Yonsey International Campus, Underwood International College, Incheon, Korea (Republic of)

    Nikolaj Jang Lee Linding Pedersen

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Engel, P. (2017). A Plea for Epistemic Monism. In: Coliva, A., Jang Lee Linding Pedersen, N. (eds) Epistemic Pluralism. Palgrave Innovations in Philosophy. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65460-7_4

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