Why do people sometimes refuse to update on clear evidence, and what would a properly functioning epistemology say we ought to believe when the evidence is right in front of us?
My links: https://linktr.ee/frictionphilosophy.
1. Guest
Mona Simion is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Glasgow where she is also deputy director of the COGITO Epistemology Research Centre. Her work focuses on a range of topics, including epistemology, ethics, language, and feminist philosophy.
Check out her book, "Resistance to Evidence"!
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1009298526
https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/resistance-to-evidence/147AC15A7EA89095A820FF16B1D0525A
2. Book Summary
In Resistance to Evidence, Mona Simion (University of Glasgow) argues that a central epistemic problem of our time is not just believing on insufficient evidence, but failing to believe (or suspending) when sufficient, undefeated evidence is easily available—a distinctive kind of epistemic failure she calls ‘resistance to evidence’. She frames this as “positive epistemology”: a project aimed at articulating epistemic obligations to update and form beliefs in response to available evidence (a counterpart to the familiar evidentialist worry associated with W. K. Clifford). The first part of the book links philosophical normativity with the empirical literature and offers a taxonomy of resistance cases (spanning testimony, perception, inference, bias, motivated reasoning, etc.), then pressures standard accounts of what evidence one has (and of permissible suspension, responsibility, and vice) for lacking the resources to explain why paradigmatic resistance is epistemically impermissible.
The second part builds Simion’s positive alternative: an epistemology grounded in proper function. Our cognitive systems, she proposes, have an epistemic function of generating knowledge, and epistemic norms “drop out” of that function; on this picture, resistance to evidence is an input-level epistemic malfunction—a failure to take up the right inputs (evidence and defeat) that the system could have easily taken up. She then develops a unified framework: evidence is understood as knowledge indicators—facts one is in a position to know that raise the evidential probability of a proposition for the subject—so resistant agents malfunction by failing to uptake these indicators. Likewise, defeaters are ignorance indicators—facts one is in a position to know that lower the evidential probability of the proposition (and so can undermine justification when ignored). With these pieces in place, she argues that permissible suspension and doxastic justification should be explained in terms of whether the relevant belief/suspension is produced by properly functioning knowledge-generating processes that appropriately respond to knowledge and ignorance indicators.
The final part draws broader lessons. First, even if epistemic justifiers can be treated as epistemic “oughts,” Simion argues this doesn’t imply that epistemic life is riddled with genuine dilemmas; rather, it yields a more modest picture on which the epistemic domain (like other normative domains) often involves conflict without widespread dilemma. Second, she applies the framework to scepticism, engaging neo-Moorean responses to arguments associated with G. E. Moore and debates involving Fred Dretske, Timothy Williamson, and Jim Pryor; she proposes a “new” radical neo-Mooreanism on which the sceptic’s stance counts as resistance to evidence, yet can still seem somewhat reasonable because it involves impermissible suspension while nevertheless satisfying certain contrary-to-duty epistemic obligations. Finally, she offers a distinctive account of disinformation with practical implications: disinformation needn’t be false, but is (roughly) content disposed to generate ignorance in a context under normal conditions—so purely fact-checking strategies will systematically miss many disinformation mechanisms. In her concluding policy-oriented remarks (with Cambridge University Press in view), she argues that effective interventions must often focus on polluted epistemic environments—e.g., improving the quantity and quality of reliable evidence flow (including trusted sources) and, for more isolated malfunction cases, supporting cognitive flexibility training to reduce rigid resistance.
3. Interview Chapters
00:00 - Introduction
01:07 - Purpose of book
06:03 - Varieties of evidence resistance
09:25 - Unified account
15:07 - Williamson’s reply
18:19 - Ideal epistemic agents
22:30 - Problems with ideal agents
29:18 - Blameless resistance?
37:59 - Epistemic error and blame
39:43 - Semantic issues
46:23 - Vagueness
47:36 - Evidence and defeat
1:02:03 - Functional account
1:12:19 - Compatibility with other accounts
1:16:59 - Resistance to evidence
1:23:45 - Sufficiency
1:32:28 - Natural language
1:37:27 - Shiftiness
1:43:21 - Worry for view
1:54:22 - Inquiring vs. updating
1:58:13 - Fallibilism
2:04:44 - Defeater defeaters
2:08:59 - Getting probability one
2:13:30 - Information and disinformation
2:19:55 - Ignorance
2:25:30 - Value of philosophy
2:29:39 - Conclusion
