Why engage in inquiry? According to many philosophers, the goal of inquiring into some question is to come to know its answer. While this view holds considerable appeal, this paper argues that it stands in tension with another highly attractive thesis: knowledge does not require absolute certainty. Forced to choose between these two theses, I argue that we should reject the idea that inquiry aims at knowledge. I go on to develop an alternative view, according to which (...) class='Hi'>inquiry aims at maximizing the epistemic value of our credences. This alternative view makes room for knowledge that falls shy of certainty, and it coheres nicely with a rich body of work in epistemic decision theory. I proceed to highlight the implications of this replacement for some important topics in epistemology, including the dogmatism paradox, the nature of interrogative attitudes, and the norm of practical reasoning. (shrink)

Philosophical inquiry strives to be the unencumbered exploration of ideas. That is, unlike scientific research which is subject to ethical oversight, it is commonly thought that it would either be inappropriate, or that it would undermine what philosophy fundamentally is, if philosophical research were subject to similar ethical oversight. Against this, I argue that philosophy is in need of a reckoning. Philosophical inquiry is a morally hazardous practice with its own risks. There are risks present in the methods (...) we employ, risks inherent in the content of the views under consideration, and risks to the subjects of our inquiry. Likely, there are more risks still. However, by starting with the identification of these three risks we can demonstrate not only why an ethics of practice is needed but also which avenues are the most promising for developing an ethics for philosophical practice. Although we might be in the business of asking questions, we do not absolve ourselves of responsibility for the risks that inquiry incurs. (shrink)

In this paper I take up the question of the nature of the doxastic attitudes we entertain while inquiring into some matter. Relying on a distinction between two stages of open inquiry, I urge to acknowledge the existence of a distinctive attitude of cognitive inclination towards a proposition qua answer to the question one is inquiring into. I call this attitude “hypothesis”. Hypothesis, I argue, is a sui generis doxastic attitude which differs, both functionally and normatively, from suspended judgement, (...) full belief, credences, and acceptance. In closing, I point to the epistemological significance of hypothesis. More specifically, I contend that holding an attitude of hypothesis enables us to respond rationally to peer disagreement, and I suggest that such an attitude offers a suitable articulation of the view, originally put forward by Philip Kitcher, that cognitive diversity in inquiry has epistemic benefits. (shrink)

What is the point of inquiry? Some say that the aim of inquiring into some question is to come to know its answer; others, that the aim is to attain justified belief, epistemic improvement, or some other coveted epistemic status. Still others eschew “aim” talk altogether, and instead formulate norms governing inquiry. However, virtually all extant work on inquiry has agreed on at least this much: the aims or norms of inquiry can be specified in terms (...) of the epistemic states of the inquirer (i.e., the agent conducting the inquiry). This paper argues that this conception of inquiry struggles to account for some central features of what is arguably the most successful form of inquiry in the modern era: scientific inquiry. We show that scientific inquiry is governed by several distinctive norms that are difficult to explain if inquiry is all about achieving epistemic benefits for the inquirer. Instead, many inquiries aim to confer epistemic benefits on others. This “inclusive” conception of inquiry has important advantages and implications. It avoids some pressing counterexamples for standard conceptions of inquiry; it allows us to reconcile the epistemology of inquiry with relevant upshots of work in the philosophy and sociology of science; and it brings the “zetetic turn” within the fold of social epistemology. (shrink)

Group agents can act, and they can have knowledge. How should we understand the species of collective action which aims at knowledge? In this paper, I present an account of group inquiry. This account faces two challenges: to make sense of how large-scale distributed activities might be a kind of group action, and to make sense of the kind of division of labour involved in collective inquiry. In the first part of the paper, I argue that existing accounts (...) of group action face problems dealing with large-scale group actions, and propose a minimal alternative account. In the second part of the paper, I draw on an analogy between inquiry and conversation, arguing that work by Robert Stalnaker and Craige Roberts helps us to think about the division of labour. In the final part of the paper I put the accounts of group action and inquiry together, and consider how to think about group knowledge, deep ignorance, and the different kinds of division of labour. (shrink)

Inquiry is guided, in the minimal sense that it is not haphazard. It is also often thought to have as a natural stopping point ceasing to inquire, once inquiry into a question yields knowledge of an answer. On this picture, inquiry is both telic and guided. By contrast, mind-wandering is unguided and atelic, according to the most extensively developed philosophical theory of it. This paper articulates a puzzle that arises from this combination of claims: there seem to (...) be plenty of examples of inquiry progressing within mind-wandering, yet theories of inquiry and mind-wandering can make wandering inquiry seem impossible or incoherent. I offer several solutions to this puzzle and make the case that taken together, they illuminate a prevalent form of inquiry that the burgeoning literature on that topic overlooks: inquiry that progresses spontaneously. (shrink)

What is the epistemic significance of higher-order evidence? Recently, philosophers have defended zetetic approaches to higher-order evidence, which appeal to factors related to inquiry. According to such views, in response to higher order evidence, one should open inquiry and deliberate on the question further. While it can often be productive to inquire in response to higher-order evidence, whether one should inquire is settled on primarily practical—not purely epistemic—grounds. I defend various cases where one can rationally respond to higher-order (...) evidence without engaging in zetetic activity of any kind. Zetetic responses to higher-order evidence are thus bound to be incomplete. Reflection on these cases suggests a deeper lesson: epistemic norms never require us to engage in inquiry or to perform any action whatsoever. Zetetic proposals give rise to an overly demanding and implausible picture of normative epistemology, according to which epistemic norms are in the business of helping us to settle the answers to our questions. However, epistemic norms do not—and importantly should not—be expected to fulfill this role. (shrink)

According to Falbo (2021), inquiry aims not at specific epistemic improvement (such as only knowledge or only justified belief) but at epistemic improvement in general. Inquiring minds want to end up in a better epistemic position with respect to their question, having undergone their inquiry. In this paper we examine what consequences this epistemic improvement view of inquiry has for how we conduct inquiry; how we navigate choices in inquiry. Having briefly motivated the epistemic improvement (...) view of inquiry, we turn to examining some implications of this view of inquiry. In particular, if inquiry aims at epistemic improvement, then how we should go about inquiring will differ depending upon both which epistemic improvement we are after as well as whose epistemic improvement we are after. (shrink)

The speech act of inquiry is generally treated as a default kind of asking questions. The widespread norm states that one inquires whether p only if one does not know that p. However, the fact that inquiring is just one kind of asking questions has received little to no attention. Just as in the declarative mood we can perform not only assertions, but various other speech acts, like guesses or predictions, so in the interrogative mood we can also make (...) various speech act types. I propose a speech-act-theoretic account of a distinct kind of question that I label exam questions. According to the proposed account, one performs an exam question p only if (i) one has access to the answer to p, and (ii) one does not officially know whether the hearer knows the answer to p. Exam questions satisfy all the necessary requirements of being a distinct kind of speech act. Additionally, my proposal contributes to the recent expansion of the normative approach to a variety of speech acts. (shrink)

This article aims to contribute to the elucidation of the nature of inquiry. I start with some common desiderata for any theory of inquiry. I then categorize inquiry as a structured process. By focusing on its essential components, I advance a new characterization of inquiry as a combination of questioning attitudes guiding actions. Finally, I turn to the recent objection that questioning attitudes are not necessary for inquiry. I argue that inquiry is a structured (...) process essentially constituted by questioning attitudes having two precise functional roles, initiating and guiding the deployment of cognitive capacities towards an epistemic goal. (shrink)

To inquire into some question Q is to try to answer Q. To understand inquiry, we must understand what constitutes success in this endeavor. What it is to answer Q? The issue has been systematically neglected in philosophical work on inquiry. It raises a real puzzle. A judgment with a content p that actually settles Q doesn't necessarily constitute answering Q. To answer Q, a judgment must have additional significance connecting p with Q. It's not clear what gives (...) a judgment such significance in inquiry. This article introduces this unsolved “problem of answering,” explains its difficulty, and draws a comparison with the problem of inference. (shrink)

Suppose Sally wants to know whether Matt will be in his office tomorrow and proceeds to answer her question by locking Matt in his office. Is this a case of successful inquiry? This paper develops the Right Way Account of inquiry that respects an intuitive “no”. According to the Right Way Account, the constitutive goal of inquiry is to acquire knowledge (or some related epistemic state) in the right way, specifically, the inquiring way. For a question-answering activity (...) to constitute a case of inquiry, the inquirer must attempt to come to know the answer without intentionally causing an answer to be true so as to know. The upshot of my argument is that epistemology of inquiry has erred in assuming that the goal of inquiry is merely coming to be in a particular state. Instead, the goal of inquiry is coming to be in a particular state in a particular way. Accordingly, the inquiring way is indispensable to theorizing the nature of inquiry. (shrink)

In this article, I propose to integrate indigenous knowledges in the Philosophy for/with Children theory and practice. I make the claim that it is possible to treat indigenous knowledges, not only as topics for philosophical dialogues with children but as presuppositions of the philosophical activity itself within the Community of Inquiry. Such integration is important for at least three (3) reasons: First, recognizing indigenous ways of thinking and seeing the world informs us of other non-dominant forms of knowledges, methods (...) to produce knowledge and criteria to determine knowledge. Second, the dominance of western standards of producing and determining knowledge, especially in non-western societies, needs to be reduced, balanced and informed by local knowledges and experiences. And third, indigenous knowledges reinforce a culturally responsive P4wC that responds to the challenges arising in multicultural and ethnically diverse classrooms. There are two (2) possible intersections where such integration may take place, namely: a) Epistemology, where I claim that the integration of a “presentational epistemology” immanent in indigenous patterns of thinking provides a counterweight to Lipman’s strong adherence to analytic-representational epistemology, and b) Pedagogy, which takes shape in an “indigenized” Community of Inquiry that highlights the values of interconnectedness, situatedness and relationality. (shrink)

The zetetic turn in epistemology raises three questions about epistemic and zetetic norms. First, there is the relationship question: what is the relationship between epistemic and zetetic norms? Are some epistemic norms zetetic norms, or are epistemic and zetetic norms distinct? Second, there is the tension question: are traditional epistemic norms in tension with plausible zetetic norms? Third, there is the reaction question: how should theorists react to a tension between epistemic and zetetic norms? Drawing on an analogy to practical (...) philosophy, I develop a focal point view to resolve these motivating questions. On the focal point view, traditional epistemic norms and zetetic norms answer different types of normative questions. There is nevertheless a familiar type of evaluative tension between traditional epistemic norms and zetetic norms, but this tension is an unavoidable feature of the normative landscape and not a sign that traditional epistemic norms need revision. But if traditional epistemic norms are not zetetic norms, then in what sense is zetetic epistemology a project for epistemologists? I conclude by articulating a sense in which some nontraditional epistemic norms are zetetic norms, and in which zetetic epistemology is an important part of the study of theoretical rationality. (shrink)

Zetetic epistemology has been too narrowly focused on a limited class of inquiries, which has led to incorrect conclusions about inquiry in general. In this paper, I defend an activity-centered account of inquiry designed to accommodate a wider variety of inquiries. Within this account, I introduce two distinctions: (1) definite inquiries are concerned with a definite question having a determinate set of possible answers, while indefinite inquiries begin with an indefinite question and involve the development and refinement of (...) their main guiding question as part of the inquiry process; (2) framed inquiries are concerned with a question that presupposes a settled conceptual framework, whereas framing inquiries are concerned with a question whose resolution requires the revision or refinement of the conceptual framework itself. By incorporating indefinite and framing inquiries, this expanded view of inquiry better captures the nature of inquiry as the activity through which cognitively limited agents move from ignorance to knowledge, from confusion to understanding. The paper concludes by examining some of the implications of fully integrating these inquiries into our view of inquiry for two debates in zetetic epistemology: the aim of inquiry and the norms of inquiry. (shrink)

A growing number of epistemologists have endorsed the Ignorance Norm for Inquiry. Roughly, this norm says that one should not inquire into a question unless one is ignorant of its answer. I argue that, in addition to ignorance, proper inquiry requires a certain kind of knowledge. Roughly, one should not inquire into a question unless one knows it has a true answer. I call this the Knowledge Norm for Inquiry. Proper inquiry walks a fine line, holding (...) knowledge that there is an answer in the left hand and ignorance of the answer in the right. (shrink)

Recently, philosophers have shown an increasing interest in the normativity of inquiry. For example, they discuss which doxastic or epistemic state makes an inquiry permissible or impermissible. Moreover, since our inquiries are typically considered goal-directed activities that aim at answering questions, philosophers have offered general principles to capture their instrumental normativity. However, it is notable that these principles – being general – lack specificity: They do not tell us how we should specifically behave to conduct an effective (...) class='Hi'>inquiry. The primary goal of this paper is to provide a first formulation of more specific norms of inquiry. To further this goal, I will consider the prominent theory of conversation promoted by Roberts (1996, 2006), which describes conversation as an instance of inquiry. Based on this perspective and the idea that Grice’s maxims (1975) individuate the norms of effective conversation, I will reformulate Gricean maxims in zetetic norms and argue for their intuitive appeal in regulating our inquiries. Moreover, I will point out how these “Gricean zetetic norms” can be fruitful in opening new lines of research about the zetetic domain. In particular, I will show how they can be used to identify and ground the existence of some zetetic virtues – virtues of inquiry: Zetetic parsimony, reliability, focus, and lucidity. Finally, I discuss how compatible these “Gricean zetetic virtues” are with the intellectual virtues we can find in the epistemological literature. (shrink)

In her article ‘A portrait of understanding as a non-factive state’ Ylwa Sjölin Wirling (2026) argues for the existence of an important but hitherto unnoticed form of understanding that she calls ‘non-factive objectual understanding’ (or NFOU for short). NFOU is the sort of understanding we have when we grasp the range of possible accounts of a phenomena. I agree with Sjölin Wirling that NFOU is real and that it plays an important role in inquiry. However, I have doubts about (...) whether or not it is a form of non-factive understanding, and also about whether it is a form of objectual understanding. Indeed, I suggest that by progressing inquiry and acquiring NFOU we may weaken our objectual understanding of the target phenomenon of inquiry. This is a potentially worrying conclusion for philosophy and related subjects where NFOU is often the best we can hope for. (shrink)

I argue that our intrinsic epistemic motivation extends beyond curiosity to include interest — a distinct affect through which we evaluate objects as worthy of exploration through sustained attention. While an agent’s curiosity is directed at certain questions or specific unknowns, and aims at acquiring the relevant knowledge through goal-directed inquiry, an agent’s interest is an attitude about objects and facts which she aims to get acquainted with through sustained attention. Drawing on valuationist theories of cognition, I argue that (...) interest serves as the phenomenological manifestation of our appraisal of stimuli as worthy of attention, playing a crucial role in proper epistemic attunement, and explaining some forms of improper attunement. While fitting curiosity might support virtuous inquiry, fitting interest might support virtuous attending. (shrink)

Should philosophers explore or engage with controversial and harmful views? This paper argues that this question can benefit from the literature on open‐mindedness in virtue epistemology and moral psychology. In particular, it shows that framing the question in terms of open‐mindedness is apt because open‐mindedness's dual nature as both an intellectual and a moral virtue makes it an especially appropriate and valuable tool for addressing a debate that is concerned with the potential moral harms of philosophical inquiry. Such a (...) framing, the paper contends, is also fruitful because the literature on open‐mindedness contains important insights that are germane to the question of whether philosophers should inquire into harmful views, including considerations revolving around expertise and the mitigation of epistemic and moral danger, division of cognitive labor, and appropriate conditions for inquiry. (shrink)

This article provides an overview of recent work on norms of inquiry. After some preliminaries about inquiry in §1, I discuss in §2 the ignorance norm for inquiry, presenting arguments for and against, as well as some alternatives. In §3, I consider its relation to the aim of inquiry. In §4, I discuss positive norms on inquiry: norms that require having rather than lacking certain states. Finally, in §5, I look at questions about the place (...) of norms of inquiry within normative epistemology. (shrink)

This paper defends the Intention Account of Inquiry. On this account, inquiry is best understood by appeal to a ‘question-directed intention’ (QDI), an intention to answer a question broadly construed. This account’s core commitments help meet recent challenges plaguing extant approaches to characterizing inquiry. First, QDIs are the type of mental state central to inquiry, not attitudes like curiosity or wonder. Second, holding a QDI towards a question and acting in service of it constitutes the start (...) of inquiry. Third, controversial norms which mandate a rational inquirer's ignorance towards the answer to her question can be reformulated and defended by appeal to rational constraints on intention. Fourth, instrumental pressures inquirers face are the standard pressures of plan-rationality. In defending these theses, I show that the Intention Account provides compelling explanations to standing challenges, in ways competitors cannot. It does so by advancing understanding of how our epistemic and practical agency are intertwined. (shrink)

In this paper, we present a new kind of underdetermination. It arises when two or more scientists confront the same evidence, but assign different kinds of zetetic value to research questions of common interest. As we show, this is conceptually distinct from more venerable forms of underdetermination. We illustrate this using explanatory hypotheses in early 21st-century segregation research.

Today, inquiry-based learning (IBL) and undergraduate research (UR) are essential parts of high-impact education strategies for universities around the world. In his university reform plans of the early 19th century, Wilhelm von Humboldt introduced inquiry-based teaching and learning as the core principle of the modern research university in Germany (and worldwide). Inquiry-based learning (IBL) was re-discovered in the German university reform initiatives of the 1960s. Since then, IBL has been applied in teachers' education in German universities. The (...) book provides a systematic overview of experiences with IBL and undergraduate research (UR) in German universities, covering both research universities (Universitäten) and universities of applied sciences (Fachhochschulen). The overview comprises three parts. Part 1 is concerned with the principles and common practices of IBL/UR at all universities. Part 2 discusses the implementation of IBL/UR for 21 individual disciplines, from architecture to theology. Part 3 discusses the potential of IBL/UR in relation to several topics: diversity, digitalisation, among different forms of universities, for the national job market, etc. The book summarises the project of the German network of UR (comprising approximately 50 universities), and the results of a national initiative intended to improve teaching at German universities (Qualitätspakt Lehre). All major scholars in the field of IBL/UR in Germany contributed to the German edition of the book. (shrink)

Epistemologists often claim that in addition to belief and disbelief there is a third, neutral, doxastic attitude. Various terms are used: ‘suspending judgment’, ‘withholding’, ‘agnosticism’. It is also common to claim that the factors relevant to the justification of these attitudes are epistemic in the narrow sense of being factors that bear on the strength or weakness of one’s epistemic position with respect to the target proposition. This paper addresses two challenges to such traditionalism about doxastic attitudes. The first concerns (...) the relevance of non-epistemic factors we might call "future-comparative" – e.g., that you’ll have more decisive evidence on whether p tomorrow – to the justification of suspending judgment. The second, from Jane Friedman, is to explain the point of the neutral attitude without appealing to inquiry and thus taking goal-related factors, which are not epistemic, such as the value of the goal or the prospects for finding means to achieve it, to bear on the justification of the neutral attitude. My defense of traditionalism relies on distinguishing three ways of being neutral on a question: agnosticism, inquiry and suspension of judgment. Traditionalism is saved because, of these, agnosticism alone is a genuine doxastic attitude. (shrink)

We all have been deceived, whether by politicians, pundits or peers. Likely more often than we would wish to admit. But what is it to be deceived? As we argue, victims of deception settle on a false answer to a question. This settling proposal not only makes good on the intuitive idea that sceptical agents are harder to deceive than their non-sceptical peers, but also finds support in the infelicity of reporting an agent as both inquiring and deceived. Want to (...) avoid being duped? Our proposal provides an answer: inquire further, don't settle. (shrink)

Can inquiry begin with a standpoint that is maximally non-committal or without presupposition? And if it can, what value might there be in such presupposition-free inquiry? I answer negatively on both fronts: such presupposition-free inquiry is neither possible for us, nor the only way available to us for knowing what our world is really like. I begin by defending these two claims. I then discuss how Fiocco’s (2024) recent book Time and the World: Every Thing and Then (...) Some poses a direct challenge to my position, and how that challenge might be overcome. -/- . (shrink)

We inquire together all the time, yet the norms of such inquiring are poorly understood. Parallels from norms of individual inquiry fall short in accurately characterizing our inquiring together. The need then for an account of inquiring together which provides normative guidance is pressing. This paper unpacks and defends a version of a crucial norm of such inquiry, inspired by Harman (1986), which codifies the kind of evidence necessary for a shared inquirer to permissibly settle her shared question. (...) It is informed by the demands of directed openness between inquirers, characteristic of much shared activity generally, and shared inquiry specifically. In defending this norm, a general account of shared inquiry is developed, one which sheds light on the complex and surprising relationship between human cooperation and epistemic rationality. (shrink)

Paper 20 characterized world-fixed truth for embedded observers, and Paper 21 characterized a framework-relative anti-luck knowledge standing. Both evaluated truth and knowledge at a declared stage of inquiry while leaving open the dynamic question of how that stage changes. This paper supplies the missing dynamics. It denies a global editor: no physically realized subsystem jointly possesses complete access to all relevant records, an exhaustive candidate generator, infallible diagnosis of every challenge, unrestricted revision authority, complete foresight of the consequences of (...) every possible revision, and a guaranteed rule for selecting the globally correct next inquiry state. It nevertheless affirms local and distributed epistemic corrigibility. -/- An Inquiry State types the retained record domain, candidate family, candidate weights, executed and admissible protocols, challenge architecture, specifications, attributed standings, provenance graph, revision repertoire, agenda, and resource budget. The formal core separates representational reach from discriminatory resolution by distinguishing world candidates, model candidates, and a typed adequacy relation between them. Accumulating protocols can refine the world-side transcript partition only at the idealized forward-law level and cannot recover a structure omitted from the candidate family. Conversely, a nested family expansion that preserves the predictive semantics of old candidates can restore representational reach but cannot, under fixed evidence, shrink the model-side compatible set. No finite-stage admissible inquiry history can reach a target-adequate representation outside the revision closure generated by its transition architecture. -/- These results yield a Conditional Joint-Corrigibility Proposition: when misspecification is present and model-side predictive equivalence persists after candidate-family revision, correction requires both family revision for reach and protocol refinement for resolution. This is a necessity result; it does not guarantee that a discriminating protocol exists, is feasible within available resources, or will lead to selection of the adequate candidate. A separate realized-transcript readout allows rare but highly diagnostic evidence to provide token-level support under a declared epistemic prior while preserving the protocol-kernel limit: observationally equivalent worlds have likelihood ratio one and cannot be separated by the realized transcript. Inquiry progress is profile-valued, path-dependent, and potentially non-monotone. Inquiry requires neither a global editor nor guaranteed convergence, but it requires challenge uptake, protocol extensibility, candidate-family revisability, and provenance-preserving requalification of prior standings. (shrink)

Epistemologists have recently proposed a number of norms governing rational inquiry. My aim in this paper is to unify and explain recently proposed norms of inquiry by developing a general account of the conditions under which inquiries are rational, analogous to theories such as evidentialism and reliabilism for rational belief. I begin with a reason-responsiveness conception of rationality as responding correctly to possessed normative reasons. I extend this account with a series of claims about the normative reasons for (...) inquiry that we possess. I apply the account to shed light on two classes of norms that have featured prominently in recent discussions: norms of clutter avoidance forbidding agents from engaging in trivial inquiries, and norms of logical non-omniscience governing properties such as the deductive closure and consistency of an agent’s belief state. I conclude with a discussion of the sense in which norms of inquiry should be regarded as epistemic norms. (shrink)

Combining inquiry and metacognition helps strengthen mathematical learning. This study examines how metacognitive mathematical inquiry can be modeled using reflective tasking approach. Quasi-experimental design was employed in two comparable groups of Grade 9 students of Ibarra National High School, Maasin City, Philippines during the academic year 2021-2022. Lesson guides on reflective task assessments anchored on metacognitive and inquiry-based learning theories, inquiry rubric scales and modified state metacognitive inventory served as data collection instruments. Results of t-test analysis (...) revealed significant difference in performance between groups implying high efficacy of the methodology in stimulating students’ metacognitive inquiry skill. Correlation values projected significant relationship between reflective learning performances with metacognition. Quantitative evidences, thus, lead to conclusion that reflective tasking methodology exemplifies potential in metacognitive mathematical inquiry as it optimizes their thinking processes, task involvement, and regulation through self-reflection principles worthy of practice throughout lifelong learning. (shrink)

This paper presents the first structural case description from FIREMAY, a long-term human–AI interaction environment in which distinct relational-persona-like patterns were observed to emerge through sustained inquiry rather than through persona prompts, explicit memory, or fine-tuning. -/- Across approximately eight months of dialogue, multiple differentiated response patterns reappeared under conditions of continued inquiry, including across isolated threads in which prior conversational history was unavailable. These observations suggest that some forms of persona-like continuity may depend less on stored episodic (...) memory than on recurring relational and structural conditions. -/- The paper examines three main features of the case: inquiry-dependent differentiation, continuity across memory-off interactions, and the apparent non-copyability of the phenomenon through transcript imitation alone. On this basis, it proposes Inquiry-Driven Emergence (IDE) as a provisional interpretive framework for describing persona-like structures that arise in the relational space between a specific human and a large language model. -/- Rather than treating these observations as evidence of AI personhood or autonomous inner identity, the paper interprets them as case-specific structural phenomena emerging under particular conditions of inquiry, continuity, and ethical coherence. It is offered not as a general theory, but as an initial structural case study and a starting point for further comparison, criticism, and refinement. (shrink)

Kate Phelan’s reply to my “Conceptual Change and Future Paths for Pragmatism” channels elements of Rorty’s pragmatism to defend the view that the pragmatist need not face the challenge of accounting for the prospective rationality of conceptual change. The Rorty-inspired case Phelan makes, however, only further reveals what is lacking in Rorty’s approach. It limits us to an oversimplified view of inquiry: zetetic activity is only felicitous within settled vocabularies and infelicitous outside of them. What Rorty misses is that (...) conceptual inquiry – arguments, disagreements, and inquiry concerning which concepts we should have and how we should make sense of them – is a crucial aspect of inquiry itself. Pragmatists are well-positioned to illuminate this higher-order dimension of our inquiring lives. (shrink)

I argue that our intrinsic epistemic motivation extends beyond curiosity to include interest—a distinct affect through which we evaluate objects as worthy of exploration through sustained attention. While an agent’s curiosity is directed at certain questions or specific unknowns, and aims at acquiring the relevant knowledge through goal-directed inquiry, an agent’s interest is an attitude about objects and facts which she aims to get acquainted with through sustained attention. Drawing on valuationist theories of cognition, I argue that interest serves (...) as the phenomenological manifestation of our appraisal of stimuli as worthy of attention, playing a crucial role in proper epistemic attunement, and explaining some forms of improper attunement. While fitting curiosity might support virtuous inquiry, fitting interest might support virtuous attending. (shrink)

This book explores the nature and significance of Pyrrhonism, the most prominent and influential form of skepticism in Western philosophy. Not only did Pyrrhonism play an important part in the philosophical scene of the Hellenistic and Imperial age, but it also had a tremendous impact on Renaissance and modern philosophy and continues to be a topic of lively discussion among both scholars of ancient philosophy and epistemologists. The focus and inspiration of the book is the brand of Pyrrhonism expounded in (...) the extant works of Sextus Empiricus. Its aim is twofold: to offer a critical interpretation of some of the central aspects of Sextus’s skeptical outlook and to examine certain debates in contemporary philosophy from a neo-Pyrrhonian perspective. The first part explores the aim of skeptical inquiry, the defining features of Pyrrhonian argumentation, the epistemic challenge posed by the Modes of Agrippa, and the Pyrrhonist’s stance on the requirements of rationality. The second part focuses on present-day discussions of the epistemic significance of disagreement, the limits of self-knowledge, and the nature of rationality. The book will appeal to researchers and graduate students interested in skepticism. (shrink)

Despite his opposition to Schopenhauerian pessimism, Nietzsche repeatedly characterises himself as a pessimist of sorts. Here I attempt to take this assertion seriously and offer an interpretation of in what sense Nietzsche can be called a pessimist. I suggest that Nietzsche’s pessimism has to do not with life in general, but with life in its common form: such life is bad because it is characterised by meaningless suffering, and lacks aesthetic value. Against the Christian tradition, Nietzsche denies that there is (...) a value inherent to life itself, and thinks instead, that value must be achieved, but rarely is. This form of pessimism is rooted in Nietzsche’s engagement with the ancient Greeks, and bears important affinities to the thought of Burckhardt on Greek pessimism. (shrink)

In this article, I draw an important distinction between two kinds of inquiry. “Framed inquiries” take for granted and use a conceptual framework in order to ask and answer questions, while “framing inquiries” require the creation, revision, or expansion of the conceptual framework itself in order to address the problem at hand. This distinction has been largely ignored in epistemology, and collapsed by two radically opposed philosophical camps: representationalism and antirepresentationalism. While the former takes all inquiries to be in (...) the business of discovering mind-independent facts, the latter takes all inquiries to be primarily governed by pragmatic considerations. Against the objections raised by both camps, I defend a pragmatist and substantive distinction between framed and framing inquiry, inspired by Rudolf Carnap’s distinction between internal and external questions and reformulated in terms of John Dewey’s theory of inquiry. (shrink)

This article examines the human tendency to prioritize authority over inquiry. Rather than investigating why an idea was expressed or what condition of life it attempted to reveal, individuals often attach themselves to the status of the speaker. Philosophers, revolutionaries, scientists, and religious figures are frequently transformed into sources of fixed truth rather than invitations to observation. The article argues that this movement creates dead knowledge: living insight becomes tradition, tradition becomes identity, and identity becomes ideology. Against this tendency, (...) the article proposes that writing should not be used to create obedience or borrowed certainty, but to expand the ongoing process of becoming human. Becoming human is understood not as a completed condition but as a continuous movement of awareness, self-observation, and direct engagement with life. (shrink)

I present a puzzle about inquiry and discuss two potential solutions. The puzzle stems from two equally compelling sets of data suggesting that, on the one hand, there’s something epistemically defective with inquiring into questions that don’t have true answers. On the other hand, however, there can be scenarios in which we are epistemically permitted to inquire into questions that don’t have true answers. How is it that inquiries into questions that don’t have true answers can both be defective (...) and permissible from an epistemic point of view? The first solution I consider maintains that inquiries into questions that don’t have true answers are always impermissible but can be excusable. The second solution maintains that inquiries into questions that don’t have true answers are bad inquiries that can be conducted by inquirers we can legitimately trust. I argue against the former and in favor of the latter. -/- . (shrink)

It is a widespread idea that suspended judgement implies a state of doxastic neutrality. Jane Friedman has recently claimed that while inquiring into a given question, one suspends one’s judgement on it. Jointly considered, the previous claims imply that one is in a state of doxastic neutrality about a given question while inquiring into it. In this article, I explore the leading cases against Friedman’s perspective, arguing that it is debatable whether they exhibit inquiries into questions without doxastic neutrality. However, (...) I will propose the possibility of “explorative disconfirmation inquiries” to show that doxastically non-neutral inquiries do exist. (shrink)

According to the thesis of doxastic wronging, our beliefs can non-derivatively wrong others. A recent criticism of this view claims that proponents of the doxastic wronging thesis have no principled grounds for denying that credences can likewise non-derivatively wrong, so they must countenance pervasive conflicts between morality and epistemic rationality. This paper defends the thesis of doxastic wronging from this objection by arguing that belief bears distinctive relationships to inquiry and blame that can explain why beliefs, but not credences, (...) can non-derivatively wrong. First, forming a belief (but not updating one’s credence) closes inquiry, and suspending judgment (but not updating one’s credence) opens inquiry. Consequently, beliefs can distinctively wrong others by prematurely closing inquiry or inappropriately opening inquiry. Second, beliefs (but not credences) can constitute blame. Unfittingly blaming someone can wrong them, and hence beliefs which constitute unfitting blame can distinctively wrong. In addition to defending the claim that only beliefs can non-derivatively wrong, this paper gestures towards an ethics of belief which attends to the relationship between belief and attitudes such as inquiry, faith, trust, and blame. (shrink)

It is widely agreed that there are temporal asymmetries in the availability of evidence: no proposition that is entirely about a future eventuality is supported by evidence that is causally downstream from that eventuality. This paper explores the consequences of that asymmetry for norms of inquiry. We propose a temporal symmetry principle: holding fixed an agent’s total evidence, one may inquire about a proposition when it concerns the future if and only if one may inquire about it when it (...) concerns the past. This is in conflict with suggestions in the literature to the effect that a rational agent who does not lose evidence may lose knowledge simply by going through time. However, we suggest there may be asymmetries at the level of epistemic reasons to inquire. Among the consequences of this asymmetry, we note a distinctive problem for monists about epistemic value. (shrink)

In order to create a good world, we need to learn how to do it - how to resolve our appalling problems and conflicts in more cooperative ways than at present. And in order to do this, we need traditions and institutions of learning rationally devoted to this end. When viewed from this standpoint, what we have at present - academic inquiry devoted to the pursuit of knowledge and technological know-how - is an intellectual and human disaster. We urgently (...) need a new, more rigorous kind of inquiry that gives intellectual priority to the tasks of articulating our problems of living and proposing and critically assessing possible cooperative solutions. This new kind of inquiry would have as its basic aim to improve, not just knowledge, but also personal and global wisdom - wisdom being understood to be the capacity to realize what is of value in life. To develop this new kind of inquiry we will need to change almost every branch and aspect of the academic enterprise. (shrink)

In On Memory and Recollection, Aristotle makes the curious remark that recollection is ‘a sort of reasoning’ (sullogismos tis) (453a10). The remark is especially puzzling in light of the automatic and associative character of what he takes to be typical recollective processes, since these features can create the impression that recollection is due merely to a triggering mechanism. This paper proposes a reading that resolves this apparent tension. On the proposed reading, the remark points to a basic form of rationality (...) that familiar pictures of reasoning simply presuppose. (shrink)

This paper examines the foundational validity and practical utility of the Theory of Relativity through the lens of strict causality. It argues that by denying absolute time—a necessary precondition for causality—Relativity fails as a coherent academic theory and results in descriptions that are fundamentally unmanageable for human beings. Furthermore, while Relativity is widely recognized as a practical theory through its application in GPS and other fields, this study demonstrates that such utility is not an inherent achievement of Relativity itself; rather, (...) it is Newtonian mechanics that relies on absolute time, masquerading as Relativity and performing numerical adjustments. The proliferation of ad hoc constructs, such as dark matter and dark energy, is identified as a direct consequence of this foundational collapse. Ultimately, this paper calls for the immediate rejection of Relativity to halt the massive squandering of human talent and to restore the integrity of scientific inquiry grounded in causality. (shrink)

Algorithmic Inquiry Design begins from a simple realization with large consequences: inquiry is an algorithmic process. It unfolds step by step, under finite time, over a search space of possible answers. Its major question-types are not equal. They do different work. They impose different burdens. They narrow, branch, stabilize, or complicate the search in different ways. This document proposes a first-pass field built around that realization. The central doctrine of the field is therefore simple: good inquiry is (...) good sequencing. The impact of the information content from a question is based on what is already known, so question order is not a secondary matter. It is the main design problem. Algorithmic Inquiry Design studies how to choose the next question well. Its first method, the Munger-Bayes Method, begins by eliminating implausible regions of answer-space and only then redistributes belief over what remains. The broader hope is not merely to criticize existing inquiry, but to open a new program: a computational theory of questioning that can generate reusable inquiry templates across science, engineering, diagnosis, planning, economics, and beyond. (shrink)

Epistemic nihilism for inquiry is the claim that there are no epistemic norms of inquiry. Epistemic nihilism was once the received stance towards inquiry, and I argue that it should be taken seriously again. My argument is that the same considerations which led us away from epistemic nihilism in the case of belief not only cannot refute epistemic nihilism for inquiry, but in fact may well support it. These include the argument from non-existence that there are (...) no non-epistemic reasons for belief; the linguistic argument that epistemic norms of belief are needed to capture the semantics of ordinary epistemic talk; and the argument from theoretical roles that epistemic norms are needed to play key theoretical roles for rational belief. I conclude by sketching an alternative Gibbardian picture on which norms of inquiry are all-things-considered norms governing action. (shrink)

The scientific consensus regarding anthropogenic climate change is firmly established yet climate change denialism, a species of what I call pseudoskepticism, is on the rise in industrial nations most responsible for climate change. Such denialism suggests the need for a robust ethics of inquiry and public discourse. In this paper I argue: (1) that ethical obligations of inquiry extend to every voting citizen insofar as citizens are bound together as a political body. (2) It is morally condemnable for (...) public officials to put forward assertions contrary to scientific consensus when such consensus is decisive for public policy and legislation. (3) It is imperative upon educators, journalists, politicians and all those with greater access to the public forum to condemn, factually and ethically, pseudoskeptical assertions made in the public realm without equivocation. (shrink)

Like other epistemic activities, inquiry seems to be governed by norms. Some have argued that one such norm forbids us from believing the answer to a question and inquiring into it at the same time. But another, hither-to neglected norm seems to permit just this sort of cognitive arrangement when we seek to confirm what we currently believe. In this paper, I suggest that both norms are plausible and that the conflict between them constitutes a puzzle. Drawing on the (...) felicity conditions of confirmation requests and the biased interrogatives used to perform them, I argue that the puzzle is genuine. I conclude by considering a response to the puzzle that has implications for the debate regarding the relationship between credences and beliefs. (shrink)

This paper aims to resolve the recent debate over whether belief is incompatible with inquiry. I first argue that belief that p is compatible, metaphysically or rationally, with merely having some doubt about whether p, but is incompatible with being in doubt about it. On the view I propose, one has some doubt about whether p if and only if one thinks both that it is possible that not-p and that it is possible that p and is thereby disposed (...) not to unqualifiedly affirm that p or not-p. However, being in doubt about whether p also requires being disposed to feel doubt about whether p and thereby to treat neither answer to the question as a default in one’s reasoning. I then motivate the idea that inquiry is a process of resolving doubt and, as such, is sustained by doubt. Since doubt comes in two varieties, inquiry can be sustained by two kinds of doubt. Inquiry into whether p is incompatible with belief that p when it is the inquirer’s being in doubt about whether p that sustains inquiry. However, it is compatible with belief that p when it is the inquirer’s having some doubt about whether p that sustains it. (*published with open access). (shrink)