Disclaiming epistemic Akrasia: arguments and commentaries

• Main Author: Veronica S. Campos
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina 2020-11-01
• Series: Principia: An International Journal of Epistemology
• Subjects: epistemic akrasia; akrasia of belief; theoretical irrationality; epistemic irrationality.
• Online Access: https://periodicos.ufsc.br/index.php/principia/article/view/70659

In many ways one’s quest for knowledge can go wrong. Since the publication ofAmélie Rorty’s article “Akratic Believers”, in 1983, there has been a great deal of discussion asto one particular form of flaw in reasoning to which we, as less-than-perfect rational entities,are continuously prone to in our epistemic endeavors: “epistemicakrasia” (an analog, withintheoretical reason, of the weakness of will that is commonly thought to affect practical rea-son). The debate that article gave rise became, then, split between authors to whom the ideaof epistemicakrasiapromotes an interesting diagnosis of some of our intellectual imperfec-tions, and their opponents, those who disclaim the very possibility of the phenomenon. Inthis paper I’ll examine, and present original objections to, four of the main arguments put for-ward by the latter, showing that none of them have consistently ruled out all the legitimatelyconceivable forms of the phenomenon.