Epistemic commitment

Epistemic commitment

Epistemic Commitment is an obligation, which may be withdrawn only under appropriate circumstances, to uphold the factual truth of a given proposition, and to provide reasons for one's belief in that proposition.Epistemic means 'of, or relating to knowledge'. An epistemic commitment of some kind, on the part of the participants, underlies most arguments. Each participant in the argument would have a position that he was expressing, and an underlying epistemic commitment fundamental to his reasoning.

An example of epistemic commitment: Prima states that whales are gentle creatures, and as such, should never be killed.Secunda replies that killer whales are not gentle, in fact, they eat seal pups. Prima, instead of revising her general opinion of whales based on new information from Secunda, asserts that killer whales must not be actual whales, because a 'true whale eats plankton'. Prima has now redefined 'whale' to serve her argument. If Secunda shows Prima a biology textbook which asserts that killer whales are, in fact whales, then Prima might decide to withdraw her epistemic commitment to her original statement about whales. Or not.

ee also

*No true Scotsman

References

* http://www.media.unisi.it/cirg/fp/issa06.pdf


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