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Dotson, Kristie. Accumulating Epistemic Power
2018, Philosophical Topics 46 (1):129-154.
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Added by: Clotilde Torregrossa, Contributed by: Corbin Covington
Abstract: On December 3, 2014, in a piece entitled 'White America's Scary Delusion: Why Its Sense of Black Humanity Is So Skewed,' Brittney Cooper criticizes attempts to deem Black rage at state-sanctioned violence against Black people 'unreasonable.' In this paper, I outline a problem with epistemology that Cooper highlights in order to explore whether beliefs can wrong. My overall claim is there are difficult-to-defeat arguments concerning the 'legitimacy' of police slayings against Black people that are indicative of problems with epistemology because of the epistemic power they accumulate toward resilient oblivion, which can have the effect of normalizing oppressive conditions. That is to say, if one takes the value of lessening oppression as a key feature of normative, epistemological conduct, then it can generate demands on epistemological orientations that, in turn, generate wrongs for beliefs and, more specifically, beliefs as wrongs.

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Lackey, Jennfer. Acting on Knowledge
2010, Philosophical Perspectives 24 (1): 361-382.
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Added by: Jie Gao
Summary: This paper argues that there are various kinds of cases in which a subject clearly knows that p, yet it is not epistemically appropriate for her to use the proposition that p in practical reasoning, to act as if p, or act on p. Knowledge is not, therefore, always sufficient for epistemically justifying practical rationality, unlike what says in the sufficiency condition of the knowledge norm of practical reasoning. In addition, it offers a diagnosis of what is salient in the above cases and suggests a broad feature that needs to be accounted for in any view of the norm governing practical rationality.

Comment: This is a nice paper arguing against the knowledge norm of practical reasoning, in particular the sufficiency condition. It is suitable for teaching on epistemic norms and pragmatic encroachement in a upper-level undergraduate course on epistemology.

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Lackey, Jennfer. Norms of Assertion
2007, Noûs 41 (4): 594–626.
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Added by: Jie Gao
Introduction: I shall argue that the Knowledge Norm of Assertion is false. In particular, I shall show that there are cases in which a speaker asserts that p in the absence of knowing that p without being subject to criticism in any relevant sense, thereby showing that knowledge cannot be what is required for proper asser- tion. I shall then develop and defend an alternative norm of assertion - what I shall call the Reasonable to Believe Norm of Assertion - that not only avoids the problems afflicting the Knowledge Norm of Assertion but also more fully and co- herently accommodates our general intuitions about both asserters and their assertions.

Comment: This is an important paper on the norm of assertion, in which Lackey criticises the knowledge norm and argues for a reasonable-to-believe norm. It is a must-have teaching material for upper level undergraduate courses on epistemology or philosophy of language, sessions on assertion or epistemic norms.

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