Autonomous Knowledge: Radical Enhancement, Autonomy, and the Future of Knowing

by Adam Carter

A central conclusion developed and defended throughout the book is that epistemic autonomy is necessary for knowledge (both knowledge-that and knowledge-how) and in ways that epistemologists have not yet fully appreciated. The book is divided into five chapters. Chapter 1 motivates (using a series of twists on Lehrer's TrueTemp case) the claim that propositional knowledge requires autonomous belief. Chapters 2 and 3 flesh out this proposal in two ways, by defending a specific form of history-sensitive externalism with respect to propositional knowledge-apt autonomous belief (Chapter 2) and by showing how the idea that knowledge requires autonomous belief―understood along the externalist lines proposed―corresponds with an entirely new class of knowledge defeaters (Chapter 3). Chapter 4 extends the proposal to (both intellectualist and anti-intellectualist) knowledge-how and performance enhancement, and in a way that combines insights from virtue epistemology with research on
freedom, responsibility, and manipulation. Chapter 5 concludes with a new twist on the Value of Knowledge debate, by vindicating the value of epistemically autonomous knowledge over that which falls short, including (mere) heteronomous but otherwise epistemically impeccable justified true belief.

176 pages, Hardcover

Published May 1, 2022

About the author

I like to tell stories. Sometimes they have to be big, sometimes they work better small. I like to write serials which can be read without reading all the ones which came before. There's nothing more off-putting than a book you can't understand! I work in as many genres as possible and read anything I can get my hands on, but have an especial love of Edgar Rice Burroughs and Alexandre Dumas. They both understood stories should be fun. Primarily I enjoy exploring characters; and the best thing about continuing fiction is gradually changing characters with whom the reader can laugh and cry and love and hate. And finally I think every book has room for humour, especially when it's inappropriate.