![]() On the other hand, it is hard to see how not caring about the facts or the evidence can be anything other than an obstacle to gaining knowledge. On the one hand, n ot caring about the facts is an attit ude for which a person can be criticised. Epistemic vices are reprehensible character traits, attitudes or thinkin g styles that obstruct the gaining, keeping or sharing of knowledge. It’s easy enough to see that epistemic insouciance is an epistemic vice. Epistemic insouciance is the attitude that makes one a bul lshitter and causes one to spout bullshit. Bullshit is not an attit ude and nor is being a bullshitter, that is, being disposed to spout bullshit. This not caring is an intellectual attitude, and it is this attitude that the notion of epistemic insouciance tries to capture. The bullshitter, Frankfurt says, just doesn’t care whether the things he says describe reality correctly. As Frankfurt famously observed, even a liar is resp e ctful of the truth since it matters to him that his statements aren’t true. The main intellectual product of epistemic insouciance is bullshit in Harry Frankfurt’s sense. It is a particular for m of not giving a shit. Epistemic insouciance me ans v iewing the need to find actual evidence in support of one’s views as a mere inconvenience, as something that is not to be taken too seriously. It means being overly casual and nonchalant about the challenge of finding answers to complex questions, partly as a result of a tendency to view such questions as less complex than they really are. E pistemic insouciance of the kind displayed by Trump mean s not carin g about whether one’s claims have any basis in reality or any evidential backing. S and U K are anything to go by it is one of the defin ing epistemic vices of our age. This looks like a straightforward example of an epistemic vice, though not one that unti l now has been named by philosophers. His insouciance was what might be called epistemic insouciance. What Trump displa yed in his encounter with Trudeau was a casual lack of concern about the facts. The dictionary defines insouciance as a casual lack of concern. According to the Post Trump boasted about telling Trudeau that America has a tr ade deficit with Canada even though he had no idea whether that was true. The Washington Post recently reported that President Trump ‘bragged that he made up facts’ at a recent meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |