Epistemic dilemmas have attracted a lot of attention recently. To a first approximation, epistemic dilemmas are cases in which any possible doxastic response of an agent will violate an epistemic requirement. Epistemic dilemmas thus parallel moral dilemmas, where any course of action available to an agent will breach a moral requirement. Despite the surge of interest in epistemic dilemmas, few attempts have been made to connect epistemic dilemmas to a wider range of issues in epistemology and normative theorizing, such as the genuine possibility of rational defeat, normative conflicts, or the nature of epistemic normativity. The point of this project is to fill this lacuna. It is centered aroung the following three questions:
This project is generoulsy funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft).
- Are epistemic dilemmas inescapable? Or is there a principled way to solve the puzzle raised by epistemic dilemmas for theories of epistemic rationality or justification?
- How do epistemic dilemmas relate to normative conflicts and what an agent ought to do simpliciter? Is there a coherent notion of what an agent ought to do simpliciter or all-things-considered in the first place?
- What do (apparent) epistemic dilemmas and normative conflicts teach us about epistemic reasons and normativity?
This project is generoulsy funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft).