The value of knowledge has always been a central topic withinepistemology. Going all the way back to Plato’sMeno,philosophers have asked, why is knowledge more valuable than mere truebelief? Interest in this question has grown in recent years, withtheorists proposing a range of answers. But some reject the premise ofthe question and claim that the value of knowledge is‘swamped’ by the value of true belief. And others arguethat statuses other than knowledge, such as justification orunderstanding, are distinctively valuable. We will call the generalquestion of why knowledge is valuable thevalue problem.

• 1. Value problems
• 2. Reliabilism and the Meno Problem
• 3. Virtue Epistemology and the Value Problem
• 4. Understanding and Epistemic Value
• 5. The Value of Knowledge-How
• 6. Other Accounts of the Value of Knowledge
• 7. Weak and Strong Conceptions of Knowledge
• 8. The Value of True Belief
• 9. The Value of Extended Knowledge
• Bibliography
  • Works Cited
  • Other Important Works
• Academic Tools
• Other Internet Resources
• Related Entries

1. Value problems

In Plato’sMeno, Socrates raises the question of whyknowledge is more valuable than mere true belief. Call thistheMeno problem or, anticipating distinctions made below,theprimary value problem.

Initially, we might appeal to the fact that knowledge appears to be ofmore practical use than true belief in order to mark this differencein value. But, as Socrates notes, this could be questioned, because atrue belief that this is the way to Larissa will get you toLarissa just as well asknowledge that this is the way toLarissa. Plato’s own solution was that knowledge is formedin a special way distinguishing it from belief: knowledge, unlikebelief, must be ‘tied down’ to the truth, like themythical tethered statues of Daedalus. As a result, knowledge isbetter suited to guide action. For example, if one knows, rather thanmerely truly believes, that this is the way to Larissa, then one mightbe less likely to be perturbed by the fact that the road initiallyseems to be going in the wrong direction. Mere true belief at thispoint might be lost, since one might lose all confidence that this isthe right way to go.

The primary value problem has been distinguished from thesecondary value problem (Pritchard 2007: §2). Thesecondary value problem pertains to why knowledge is more valuable,from an epistemic point of view, thanany proper subset ofits parts. Put otherwise, why is knowledge better than any epistemicstanding falling short of knowing? This includes, but is notrestricted to, mere true belief. To illustrate the distinction,consider a possible solution to the primary value problem: knowledgeis justified true belief, and justified true belief is better thanmere true belief, which explains why knowledge is better than truebelief. If correct, this hypothesis successfully answers the primaryvalue problem. However, it requires further development to answer thesecondary value problem. For example, it requires further developmentto explain why knowledge is better than justified belief.

Of course, on many standard theories of knowledge, knowledge is notdefined as justified true belief. For instance, according to sometheorists, knowledge is undefeated justified true belief (Lehrer &Paxson 1969); on other widely discussed accounts, knowledge is truebelief that is non-accidental (Unger 1968), sensitive (Nozick 1981),safe (Sosa 1999), appropriately caused (Goldman 1967), or produced byintellectual virtue (Zagzebski 1996). This puts us in a position toappreciate what some theorists callthe tertiary valueproblem. The tertiary value problem pertains to why knowledge isqualitatively better than any epistemic standing fallingshort of knowledge. Consider that if knowledge were onlyquantitatively better than that which falls just short—forinstance, on an envisioned continuum of epistemic value—then itwould be mysterious why epistemologists have given such attention tothis particular point on the continuum.

Why does knowledge have this “distinctive value” notshared by that which falls just short of knowledge (Pritchard 2009:14)?

Not all theorists accept that the value problems are genuine. Forexample, in light of the literature on the Gettier problem, sometheorists deny that the secondary value problem is genuine. On thisapproach, whatever is added to justified true belief to rule outGettier cases does not increase the value of the agent’sintellectual state: it is of no consequence whether we haveGettier-proof justified true belief rather than mere justified truebelief (Kaplan 1985). Of course, Gettier cases are peculiar andpresumably rare, so in practice having Gettier-proof justified truebelief is almost invariably confounded with having mere justified truebelief. This could lead some theorists to mistake the value of thelatter for that of the former. Other theorists deny that the primaryvalue problem is genuine. For example, on one approach, knowledge justis true belief (Sartwell 1991). If knowledge is true belief, thenknowledge cannot be better than true belief, because nothing can bebetter than itself. However, the definition of knowledge as truebelief has not been widely accepted.

2. Reliabilism and the Meno Problem

The first contemporary wave of work on the value problem largelyconcerned whether this problem raised a distinctive difficulty forreliabilist accounts of knowledge—i.e., those views whichessentially define knowledge as reliably-formed true belief. Inparticular, the claim was that reliabilism was unable to offer ananswer even to the primary value problem.

A fairly clear statement of what is at issue here is given in a numberof places by Linda Zagzebski (e.g., 2003a; cf. DePaul 1993; Zagzebski1996; Jones 1997; Swinburne 1999, 2000; Riggs 2002a; Kvanvig 2003;Sosa 2007: ch. 4; Carter & Jarvis 2012). To begin with, Zagzebskiargues that the reliability of the process by which something isproduced does not automatically add value to that thing, and thus thatit cannot be assumed that the reliability of the process by which atrue belief is produced will add value to that true belief. In defenseof this claim, she offers the analogy of a cup of coffee. She claimsthat a good cup of coffee which is produced by a reliable coffeemachine—i.e., one that regularly produces good cups ofcoffee—is of no more value than an equally good cup of coffeethat is produced by an unreliable coffee machine.

Furthermore, as this line of objection goes, true belief is in therelevant respects like coffee: a true belief formed via a reliablebelief-forming process is no more valuable than a true belief formedvia an unreliable belief-forming process. In both cases, the value ofthe reliability of the process accrues in virtue of its tendency toproduce a certain valuable effect (good coffee/true belief), but thismeans that where the effect has been produced—where one has agood cup of coffee or a true belief—then the value of theproduct is no greater for having been produced in a reliable way.

Elsewhere in the literature (e.g., Kvanvig 2003), this problem hasbeen called the “swamping problem”, on account of how thevalue of true belief ‘swamps’ the value of the true beliefbeing produced in a reliable (i.e., truth-conducive) way. Soexpressed, the moral of the problem seems to be that wherereliabilists go awry is by treating the value of the process as beingsolely captured by the reliability of the process—i.e., itstendency to produce the desired effect. Since the value of the effectswamps the value of the reliability of the process by which the effectwas achieved, this means that reliabilism has no resources availableto it to explain why knowledge is more valuable than true belief.

It’s actually not clear that this is a problem that is specificto reliabilism. That is, it seems that if this is abona fideproblem, then it will affect any account of the value of knowledgewhich has the same relevant features as reliabilism—i.e., whichregards the greater value of knowledge over true belief asinstrumental value, where the instrumental value in question isrelative to the valuable good of true belief. In particular, it willaffectveritist proposals about epistemic value which treattruth as the fundamental epistemic good. See Kvanvig (2003:Ch. 3) for discussion of how internalist approaches to epistemicjustification interface with the swamping problem; see Pettigrew(2018) and Pritchard (2019) for responses to the swamping argument onbehalf of the veritist.

Furthermore, as J. Adam Carter and Benjamin Jarvis (2012) have argued,there are reasons to be suspicious of a key premise driving theswamping argument. The premise in question, which has been referred toas the “Swamping Thesis” (Pritchard 2011), states that ifthe value of a property possessed by an item is instrumentallyvaluable only relative to a further good, and that good is alreadypresent in that item, then it can confer no additional value. Carterand Jarvis contend that one who embraces the Swamping Thesis shouldalso, by parity of reasoning, embrace a corollary thesis which theycall the Swamping Thesis Complement, according to which, if the valueof a property possessed by an item is instrumentally valuable onlyrelative to a further good, and that good has alreadyfailedto be present in that item, then it can confer no additional value.However, as they argue, the Swamping Thesis and the Swamping ThesisComplement, along with other plausible premises, jointly entail theunpalatable conclusion that non-factive epistemicproperties—most notably, justification—areneverepistemically valuable properties of a belief. See Dutant (2013) andBjelde (2020) for critical responses to Carter and Jarvis’ lineof reasoning and Sylvan (2018) for a separate challenge to theswamping argument, which rejects its tacit commitment to epistemicinstrumentalism (cf., Bjelde 2020). For an overview of the key movesof the argument, see Pritchard (2011).

However, even granting the main elements of the swamping argument,there are moves that the reliabilist can make in response (see, e.g.,Goldman & Olsson 2009; Olsson 2011; Bates 2013; Roush 2010; cf.Brown 2012; Davis, & Jäger 2012; Hovarth 2009; Piller 2009).For example, it is surely open to the reliabilist to argue that thegreater instrumental value of reliable true belief over mere truebelief does not need to be understood purely in terms of instrumentalvalue relative to the good of true belief. There could, for instance,be all sorts ofpractical benefits of having a reliable truebelief which generate instrumental value. Indeed, it is worth notingthat the line of response to theMeno problem sketched byPlato, which we noted above, seems to specifically appeal to thegreater practical instrumental value of knowledge over mere truebelief.

Moreover, there is reason to think that this objection will only atbest have an impact onprocess reliabilistproposals—i.e., those views that treat all reliablebelief-forming processes as conferring a positive epistemic standingon the beliefs so formed. For example,agent reliabilism(e.g., Greco 1999, 2000) might be thought to be untouched by this sortof argument. This is because, according to agent reliabilism, it isnot any sort of reliable process that confers positive epistemicstatus to belief, but only those processes that are stable features ofthe agent’s “cognitive character”. The mainmotivation for this restriction on reliable processes is that itexcludes certain kinds of reliable but nonetheless strange andfleeting processes which notoriously cause problems for the view (suchas processes where the reliability is due to some quirk in thesubject’s environment, rather than because of any cognitivetrait possessed by the agent herself). Plausibly, however, one mightargue that the reliable traits that make up an agent’s cognitivecharacter have some value independently of the instrumental value theypossess in virtue of being reliable—i.e., that they have somefinal or intrinsic value. If this is right, then this opens up thepossibility that agent-reliabilists can evade the problem noted forpure reliabilists.

Zagzebski’s diagnosis of what is motivating this problem forreliabilism seems, however, explicitly to excludesuch a counter-response. She argues that what gives rise to thisdifficulty is the fact that the reliabilist has signed up to a“machine-product model of belief”—see especially,Zagzebski (2003a)—where the product is external to the cause. Itis not clear what exactly Zagzebski means by this point, but shethinks it shows that even where the reliable process is independentlyvaluable—i.e., independently of its being reliable—itstill doesn’t follow that the value of the cause will transferto add value to the effect. Here again the coffee analogy is appealedto: even if a reliable coffee machine were independently valuable, itwould not thereby confer additional value on a good cup of coffee.

Perhaps the best way to evaluate the above line of argument is toconsider whatis required in order to resolve the problem itposes. Perhaps what is needed is an ‘internal’ connectionbetween product and cause, such as the kind of internal connectionthat exists between an act and its motive which is highlighted by howwe explicitly evaluate actions in terms of the motives that led tothem (Zagzebski 2003a). On this picture, then, we are not tounderstand knowledge as a state consisting of a known belief, butrather as a state which consists of both the true beliefandthe source from which that true belief was acquired. In short, then,the problem with the machine-product model of belief is that it leadsus to evaluate the state of the knowledge independently of the meansby which the knowledge was acquired. If, in contrast, we have aconception of knowledge that incorporates into the very state ofknowledge the way that the knowledge was acquired, we can avoid thisproblem.

Once one effects this transition away from the machine-product modelof belief, one can allow that the independent value of the reliableprocess can ensure that knowledge, by being produced in this way, ismore valuable than mere true belief (Zagzebski 2003a). In particular,if the process by which one gained the true belief is an epistemicvirtue—a character trait which is both reliable andintrinsically valuable—then this can ensure that the value ofthe knowing state in this case is more valuable than any correspondingstate which simply consisted of a true belief.

Other commentators in the virtue epistemology camp, broadly conceived,have put forward similar suggestions. For example, Wayne Riggs (2002a)and Greco (e.g., 2003) have argued for a ‘credit’ versionof virtue epistemology, according to which the agent, in virtue ofbringing about the positively valuable outcome of a true belief, isdue credit as a result. Rather than treating the extra value ofknowledge over true belief as deriving simply from the agent’sattainment of the target true belief, however, Riggs and Greco insteadargue that we should regard the agent’s knowing as the state theagent is in when she is responsible for her true belief. Only in sodoing, they claim, can we answer the value problem. Jason Baehr(2012), by contrast with Riggs and Greco, has argued that credittheories of knowledge do not answer the value problem but, rather,‘provide grounds for denying’ (2012: 1) that knowledge hasvalue over and above the value of true belief.

Interestingly, however, other virtue epistemologists, most notablyErnest Sosa (2003), have also advocated a ‘credit’ view,yet seem to stay within the machine-product picture of belief. Thatis, rather than analyze the state of knowing as consisting of both thetrue belief and its source, they regard the state of knowing asdistinct from the process, yet treat the fact that the process isintrinsically valuable as conferring additional value on any truebelief so produced. With Sosa’s view in mind, it is interestingto ask just why we need to analyze knowledge in the way that Zagzebskiand others suggest in order to get around the value problem.

The most direct way to approach this question is by consideringwhether it is really true that a valuable cause cannot confer value onits effect where cause and effect are kept separate in the way thatZagzebski claims is problematic in the case of knowledge. Onecommentator who has objected to Zagzebski’s argument by queryingthis claim on her part is Berit Brogaard (2007; cf. Percival 2003;Pritchard 2007: §2), who claims that a valuable cause can indeedconfer value on its effect in the relevant cases. Brogaard claims thatvirtue epistemologists like Zagzebski and Riggs endorse this claimbecause they adhere to what she calls a “Moorean”conception of value, on which if two things have the same intrinsicproperties, then they are equally valuable. Accordingly, if truebelief and knowledge have the same intrinsic properties (which is whatwould be the case on the view of knowledge that they reject), itfollows that they must have the same value. Hence, it is crucial tounderstand knowledge as having distinct intrinsic properties from truebelief before one can hope to resolve the value problem.

If one holds that there is only intrinsic and instrumental value, thenthis conception of value is compelling, since objects with the sameintrinsic properties trivially have the same amount of intrinsicvalue, and they also plausibly have the same amount of instrumentalvalue as well (at least in the same sort of environment). However, theMoorean conception of value is problematic because—as WlodekRabinowicz & Toni Rønnow-Rasmussen (1999, 2003) havepointed out—there seem to be objects which we value for theirown sake but whose value derives from their being extrinsicallyrelated to something else that we value. That is, such objects arefinally—i.e., non-instrumentally—valuable withoutthereby being intrinsically valuable. For criticism of this account offinal value, see Bradley (2002).

The standard example in this regard is Princess Diana’s dress.This would be regarded as more valuable than an exact replica simplybecause it belonged to Diana, which is clearly an extrinsic propertyof the object. Even though the extra value that accrues to the objectis due to its extrinsic properties, however, it is still the case thatthis dress is (properly) valued for its own sake, and thus valuednon-instrumentally.

Given that value of this sort is possible, then it follows that itcould well be the case that we value one true belief over anotherbecause of its extrinsic features—i.e., that the one truebelief, but not the other, was produced by a reliable cognitive traitthat is independently valuable. For example, it could be that we valueforming a true belief via a reliable cognitive trait more than a meretrue belief because the former belief is produced in such a way thatit is of credit to us that we believe the truth. There is thus acrucial lacuna in Zagzebski’s argument.

A different response to the challenge that Zagzebski raises forreliabilism is given by Michael Brady (2006). In defense ofreliabilism, Brady appeals to the idea that to be valuable is to be afitting or appropriate object of positive evaluative attitudes, suchas admiration or love (e.g., Brentano 1889 [1969]; Chisholm 1986;Wiggins 1987; Gibbard 1990; Scanlon 1998). That one object is morevaluable than another is thus to be understood, on this view, in termsof the fact that that object is more worthy of positive evaluation.Thus, the value problem for reliabilism on this conception of valuecomes down to the question why knowledge is more worthy of positiveevaluation on this view than mere true belief. Brady’scontention is that, at least within this axiological framework, itis possible for the reliabilist to offer a compelling storyabout why reliable true belief—and thus knowledge—is morevaluable than mere true belief.

Central to Brady’s argument is his claim that there are manyways one can positively evaluate something, and thus many differentways something can be valuable. Moreover, Brady argues that we candistinguishactive frompassive evaluativeattributes, where the former class of attitudes involve pursuit of thegood in question. For example, one might actively value the truth,where this involves, for instance, a striving to discover the truth.In contrast, one might at other times merely passively value thetruth, such as simply respecting or contemplating it.

With this point in mind, Brady’s central thesis is that on thereliabilist account knowledge is more valuable than true beliefbecause certain active positive evaluative attitudes are fitting onlywith regard to the former (i.e., reliable true belief). In particular,given its intrinsic features, reliable true belief is worthy of activelove, whereas an active love of unreliable (i.e., accidental) truebelief because of its intrinsic features would be entirelyinappropriate because there is nothing that we can do to attainunreliable true belief that wouldn’t conflict with love oftruth.

This is an intriguing proposal, which opens up a possible avenue ofdefense against the kind of machine-product objection to reliabilismconsidered. One problem that such a move faces, however, is that it isunclear whether we can make sense of the distinction Brady drawsbetween active and passive evaluative attitudes, at least in theepistemic sphere. When Brady talks of passive evaluative attitudestowards the truth, he gives examples like contemplating, accepting,embracing, affirming, and respecting. Some of these attitudes are notclearly positive evaluative attitudes, however. Moreover, some of themare not obviously passive either. For example, is to contemplate thetruth really to evaluate itpositively, rather than simply toconsider it? Furthermore, in accepting, affirming or embracing thetruth, isn’t oneactively positively evaluating thetruth? Wouldn’t such evaluative attitudes manifest themselves inthe kind of practical action that Brady thinks is the mark of activeevaluative attitudes? More needs to be said about this distinctionbefore it can do the philosophical work that Brady has in mind.

A further, albeit unorthodox, recent approach to the swamping problemis due to Carter and Rupert (2020). Carter and Rupert point out thatextant approaches to the swamping problem suppose that if a solutionis to be found, it will be at the personal level of description, thelevel at which states of subjects or agents, as such, appear. Theytake exception to this orthodoxy, or at least to its unquestionedstatus. They maintain that from the empirically justified premise thatsubpersonal states play a significant role in much epistemicallyrelevant cognition, we should expect that they constitute a domain inwhich we might reasonably expect to locate the “missingsource” of epistemic value, beyond the value attached to meretrue belief.

3. Virtue Epistemology and the Value Problem

So far this discussion has taken it as given that whatever problemsreliabilism faces in this regard, there are epistemological theoriesavailable—some form of virtue epistemology, forexample—that can deal with them. But not everyone in thecontemporary debate accepts this. Perhaps the best known sceptic inthis respect is Jonathan Kvanvig (2003), who in effect argues thatwhile virtue epistemology (along with a form of epistemic internalism)can resolve the primary value problem (i.e., the problem of explainingwhy knowledge is more valuable than mere true belief), the realchallenge that we need to respond to is that set by the secondaryvalue problem (i.e., the problem of explaining why knowledge is morevaluable than that which falls short of knowledge); and Kvanvig saysthat there is no solution available tothat. That is, Kvanvigargues that there is an epistemic standing—in essence, justifiedtrue belief—which falls short of knowledge but which is no lessvaluable than knowledge. He concludes that the focus of epistemologyshould not be on knowledge at all, but rather onunderstanding, an epistemic standing that Kvanvig maintainsis clearly of more value than knowledgeand those epistemicstandings that fall short of knowledge, such as justified truebelief.

What Kvanvig says about understanding will be considered below. Firstthough, let us consider the specific challenge that he poses forvirtue epistemology. In essence, Kvanvig’s argument rests on theassumption that it is essential to any virtue-theoretic account ofknowledge—and any internalist account of knowledge as well, forthat matter (i.e., an account that makes a subjective justificationcondition necessary for knowledge possession)—that it alsoincludes an anti-Gettier condition. If this is right, then it followsthat even if virtue epistemology has an answer to the primary valueproblem—and Kvanvig concedes that it does—it will notthereby have an answer to the secondary value problem since knowledgeis not simply virtuous true belief. Moreover, Kvanvig argues that oncewe recognize what a gerrymandered notion a non-Gettierized account ofknowledge is, it becomes apparent that there is nothing valuable aboutthe anti-Gettier condition on knowledge that needs to be imposed. Butif that is right, then it follows by even virtue epistemic lights thatknowledge—i.e., non-Gettierized virtuous true believing—isno more valuable than one of its proper sub-sets—i.e., merevirtuous true believing.

There are at least two aspects of Kvanvig’s argument that arepotentially problematic. To begin with, it isn’t at all clearwhy the anti-Gettier condition on knowledge fails to add value,something that seems to be assumed here. More generally, Kvanvig seemsto be implicitly supposing that if an analysis of knowledge is uglyand gerrymandered then that is itself reason to doubt that knowledgeis particularly valuable, at least assuming that there are epistemicstandings that fall short of knowledge which can be given an elegantanalysis. While a similar assumption about the relationship betweenthe elegance (or otherwise) of the analysis of knowledge and the valueof the analysandum is commonplace in the contemporary epistemologicalliterature—see, for example, Zagzebski (1999) and Williamson(2000: chapter 1)—this assumption is contentious. For criticaldiscussion of this assumption, see DePaul (2009).

In any case, a more serious problem is that many virtueepistemologists—among them Sosa (1988, 1991, 2007), Zagzebski(e.g., 1996, 1999) and Greco (2003, 2007, 2008, 2009)—hereafter,‘robust virtue epistemologists’—think that theirviewcan deal with Gettier problems without needing to add anadditional anti-Gettier condition on knowledge. The way this isachieved is by making the move noted above of treating knowledge as astate that includes both the truly believing and the virtuous sourceby which that true belief was acquired. However, crucially, for robustvirtue epistemologists, there is an important difference between (i) abelief’s being true and virtuously formed, and (ii) abelief’s being truebecause virtuously formed.Formulating knowledge along the latter lines, they insist, ensuresthat the target belief is not Gettiered. Even more, robust virtueepistemologists think the latter kind of formulation offers theresources to account for why knowledge is distinctively valuable.

To appreciate this point about value, consider the following‘performance normativity framework’ which robust virtueepistemologists explicitly or implicitly embrace when accounting forthe value of knowledge as a true belief because of virtue.

Notice that, if knowledge is a cognitive performance that is anachievement, then with reference to the above set of claims,the robust virtue epistemologist can respond to not only the secondaryvalue problem but also the tertiary value problem (i.e., the problemof explaining why knowledge is more valuable, in kind and not merelyin degree, than that which falls short of knowledge). This is becauseknowledge, on this view, is simply the cognitive aspect of a moregeneral notion, that of achievement, and this is the case even if meresuccesses that are produced by intellectual virtues but which are notbecause of them, are not achievements. (Though, see Kim2021 for a reversal of the idea that knowledge involves achievement;according to Kim, all achievements, in any domain of endeavour, implyknowledge).

As regards thevalue thesis, one might object that somesuccesses that are because of ability—i.e., achievements, onthis view—are too trivial or easy or wicked to count as finallyvaluable. This line of objection is far from decisive. After all, itis open to the proponent of robust virtue epistemology to argue thatthe claim is only that all achievementsqua achievements arefinally valuable, not that the overall value of every achievement isparticularly high. It is thus consistent with the proposal that someachievements have a very low—perhaps even negative, if that ispossible—value in virtue of their other properties (e.g., theirtriviality). Indeed, a second option in this regard is to allow thatnot all achievements enjoy final value whilst nevertheless maintainingthat it is in the nature of achievements to have such value (e.g.,much in the way that one might argue that it is in the nature ofpleasure to be a good, even though some pleasures are bad). Since, asnoted above, all that is required to meet the (tertiary) value problemis to show that knowledge is generally distinctively valuable, thisclaim would almost certainly suffice for the robust virtueepistemologist’s purposes.

In any case, even if the value thesis is correct—and indeed,even if the achievement and dimensions of evaluation theses are alsocorrect—the robust virtue epistemologist has not yetsatisfactorily vindicated any of the aforementioned value problems forknowledge unless knowledge is itself a kind of achievement—andthat is the element of the proposal that is perhaps the mostcontroversial. There are two key problems with the claim thatknowledge involves cognitive achievement. The first is that theresometimes seems to be more to knowledge than a cognitive achievement;the second is that there sometimes seems to be less to knowledge thana cognitive achievement.

As regards the first claim, notice that achievements seem to becompatible with at least one kind of luck. Suppose that an archer hitsa target by employing her relevant archery abilities, but that thesuccess is ‘gettierized’ by luck intervening between thearcher’s firing of the arrow and the hitting of the target. Forexample, suppose that a freak gust of wind blows the arrow off-course,but then a second freak gust of wind happens to blow it back on courseagain. The archer’s success is thus lucky in the sense that itcould very easily have been a failure. When it comes to‘intervening’ luck of this sort, Greco’s account ofachievements is able to offer a good explanation of why the success inquestion does not constitute an achievement. After all, we would notsay that the success was because of the archer’s ability in thiscase.

Notice, however, that not all forms of luck are of this interveningsort. Consider the following case offered by Pritchard (2010a: ch. 2).Suppose that nothing intervenes between the archer’s firing ofthe arrow and the hitting of the target. However, the success is stilllucky in the relevant sense because, unbeknownst to the archer, shejust happened to fire at the only target on the range that did notcontain a forcefield which would have repelled the arrow. Is thearcher’s success still an achievement? Intuition would seem todictate that it is; it certainly seems to be a success that is becauseof ability, even despite the luckiness of that success. Achievements,then, are, it seems, compatible with luck of this‘environmental’ form even though they are not compatiblewith luck of the standard ‘intervening’ form.

The significance of this conclusion for our purposes is that knowledgeis incompatible withboth forms of luck. In order to seethis, one only needs to note that an epistemological analogue of thearcher case just given is the famous barn façade example (e.g.,Ginet 1975; Goldman 1976). In this example, we have an agent who formsa true belief that there is a barn in front of him. Moreover, hisbelief is not subject to the kind of ‘intervening’ luckjust noted and which is a standard feature of Gettier-style cases. Itis not as if, for example, he is looking at what appears to be a barnbut which is not in fact a barn, but that his belief is truenonetheless because there is a barn behind the barn shaped object thathe is looking at. Nevertheless, his belief is subject to environmentalluck in that he is, unbeknownst to him, in barn façade countyin which every other barn-shaped object is a barn façade. Thus,his belief is only luckily true in that he could very easily have beenmistaken in this respect. Given that this example is structurallyequivalent to the ‘archer’ case just given, it seems thatjust as we treat the archer as exhibiting an achievement in that case,so we should treat this agent as exhibiting a cognitive achievementhere. The problem, however, is that until quite recently manyphilosophers accepted that the agent in the barn façade caselacks knowledge. Knowledge, it seems, is incompatible withenvironmental luck in a way that achievements, and thus cognitiveachievements, are not (see, for example, Pritchard, e.g., 2012).

Robust virtue epistemologists have made a number of salient pointsregarding this case. For example, Greco (2010, 2012) has argued for aconception of what counts as a cognitive ability according to whichthe agent in the barn façade case would not count as exhibitingthe relevant cognitive ability (see Pritchard 2010a: ch. 2 for acritical discussion of this claim). Others, such as Sosa (e.g., 2007,2015) have responded by questioning whether the agent in the barnfaçade case lacks knowledge, albeit, in a qualified sense.While Sosa’s distinctive virtue epistemology allows for thecompatibility of barn façade cases withanimalknowledge (roughly: true belief because of ability), Sosamaintains that the subject in barn façade cases lacksreflective knowledge (roughly: a true belief whosecreditability to ability or virtue is itself creditable to asecond-order ability or virtue of the agent). Other philosophers(e.g., Hetherington (1998) have challenged the view that barnfaçade protagonists in fact lack (any kind of) knowledge. In aseries of empirical studies, most people attributed knowledge in barnfaçade cases and related cases (Colaco, Buckwalter, Stich &Machery 2014; Turri, Buckwalter & Blouw 2015; Turri 2016a). In onestudy, over 80% of participants attributed knowledge (Turri 2016b). Inanother study, most professional philosophers attributed knowledge(Horvath & Wiegmann 2016). At least one theory of knowledge hasbeen defended on the grounds that it explains why knowledge isintuitively present in such cases (Turri 2016c).

Even setting that issue aside, however, there is a second problem onthe horizon, which is that it seems that there are some cases ofknowledge which are not cases of cognitive achievement. One such caseis offered by Jennifer Lackey (2007), albeit to illustrate a slightlydifferent point. Lackey asks us to imagine someone arriving at thetrain station in Chicago who, wishing to obtain directions to theSears Tower, approaches the first adult passer-by she sees. Supposethe person she asks is indeed knowledgeable about the area and givesher the directions that she requires. Intuitively, any true beliefthat the agent forms on this basis would ordinarily be counted asknowledge. Indeed, if one could not gain testimonial knowledge in thisway, then it seems that we know an awful lot less than we think weknow. However, it has been argued, in such a case the agent does nothave a true belief because of her cognitive abilities but, rather,because of herinformant’s cognitive abilities. If thisis correct, then there are cases of knowledge which are not also casesof cognitive achievement.

It is worth being clear about the nature of this objection. Lackeytakes cases like this to demonstrate that one can possess knowledgewithout it being primarily creditable to one that one’s beliefis true. Note though that this is compatible, as Lackey notes, withgranting that the agentis employing her cognitive abilitiesto some degree, and so surely deservessome credit for thetruth of the belief formed (she would not have asked just anyone, forexample, nor would she have simply accepted just any answer given byher informant). The point is thus rather that whatever credit theagent is due for having a true belief, it is not the kind of creditthat reflects abona fide cognitive achievement because ofhow this cognitive success involves ‘piggy-backing’ on thecognitive efforts of others.

4. Understanding and Epistemic Value

As noted above, the main conclusion that Kvanvig (2003) draws from hisreflections on the value problem is that the real focus inepistemology should not be on knowledge at all but on understanding,an epistemic standing that Kvanvig does think is especially valuablebut which, he argues, is distinct from knowing—i.e., one canhave knowledge without the corresponding understanding, and one canhave understanding without the corresponding knowledge. (Pritchard[e.g., 2010a: chs 1–4] agrees, though his reasons for takingthis line are somewhat different to Kvanvig’s). It is perhapsthis aspect of Kvanvig’s book that has prompted the mostcritical response, so it is worth briefly dwelling on his claims herein a little more detail.

To begin with, one needs to get clear what Kvanvig has in mind when hetalks of understanding, since many commentators have found theconception of understanding that he targets problematic. The twousages of the term ‘understanding’ in ordinary languagethat Kvanvig focuses on—and which he regards as being especiallyimportant to epistemology—are

when understanding is claimed for some object, such as some subjectmatter, and when it involves understanding that something is the case.(Kvanvig 2003: 189)

The first kind of understanding he calls “objectualunderstanding”, the second kind “propositionalunderstanding”. In both cases, understanding requires that onesuccessfully grasp how one’s beliefs in the relevantpropositions cohere with other propositions one believes (e.g.,Kvanvig 2003: 192, 197–8). This requirement entails thatunderstanding is directly factive in the case of propositionalunderstanding and indirectly factive in the case of objectualunderstanding—i.e., the agent needs to have at least mostly truebeliefs about the target subject matter in order to be truly said tohave objectual understanding of that subject matter.

Given that understanding—propositional understanding at anyrate—is factive, Kvanvig’s argument for why understandingis distinct from knowledge does not relate to this condition (as wewill see in a moment, it is standard to argue that understanding isdistinct from knowledge precisely because only understanding isnon-factive). Instead, Kvanvig notes two key differences betweenunderstanding and knowledge: that understanding, unlike knowledge,admits of degrees, and that understanding, unlike knowledge, iscompatible with epistemic luck. Most commentators, however, havetended to focus not on these two theses concerning the differentproperties of knowledge and understanding, but rather onKvanvig’s claim that understanding is (at least indirectly)factive.

For example, Elgin (2009; cf. Elgin 1996, 2004; Janvid 2014) and Riggs(2009) argue that it is possible for an agent to have understandingand yet lack true beliefs in the relevant propositions. For example,Elgin (2009) argues that it is essential to treat scientificunderstanding as non-factive. She cites a number of cases in whichscience has progressed from one theory to a better theory where, wewould say, understanding has increased in the process even though thetheories are, strictly speaking at least,false. A differentkind of case that Elgin offers concerns scientific idealizations, suchas the ideal gas law. Scientists know full well that no actual gasbehaves in this way, yet the introduction of this useful fictionclearly improved our understanding of the behavior of actual gasses.For a defense of Kvanvig’s view in the light of these charges,see Kvanvig (2009a, 2009b; Carter & Gordon 2014).

A very different sort of challenge to Kvanvig’s treatment ofunderstanding comes from Brogaard (2005, Other Internet Resources).She argues that Kvanvig’s claim that understanding is of greatervalue than knowledge is only achieved because he fails to give a richenough account of knowledge. More specifically, Brogaard claims thatwe can distinguish between objectual and propositional knowledge justas we can distinguish between objectual and propositionalunderstanding. Propositional understanding, argues Brogaard, no morerequires coherence in one’s beliefs than propositionalknowledge, and so the difference in value between the two cannot liehere. Moreover, while Brogaard grants that objectual understandingdoes incorporate a coherence requirement, this again fails to mark avalue-relevant distinction between knowledge and understanding becausethe relevant counterpart—objectual knowledge (i.e., knowledge ofa subject matter)—also incorporates a coherence requirement. Soprovided that we are consistent in our comparisons of objectual andpropositional understanding on the one hand, and objectual andpropositional knowledge on the other, Kvanvig fails to make a soundcase for thinking that understanding is of greater value thanknowledge.

Finally, a further challenge to Kvanvig’s treatment of knowledgeand understanding focuses on his claims regarding epistemic luck, andin particular, his insistence that luck cases show how understandingand propositional knowledge come apart from one another. In order tobring the luck-based challenge into focus, we can distinguish threekinds of views about the relationship between understanding andepistemic luck that are found in the literature:strongcompatibilism (e.g., Kvanvig 2003; Rohwer 2014),moderatecompatibilism (e.g., Pritchard 2010a: ch. 4) andincompatibilism (e.g., Grimm 2006; Sliwa 2015). Strongcompatibilism is the view that understanding is compatible with thevarieties of epistemic luck that are generally taken to underminepropositional knowledge. In particular, incompatibilists maintain thatunderstanding is undermined by neither (i) the kind of luck thatfeatures in traditional Gettier-style cases (1963) cases, nor with(ii) purely ‘environmental luck (e.g., Pritchard 2005) of thesort that features in ‘fake barn’ cases (e.g., Goldman1979) where the fact that one’s belief could easily be incorrectis a matter of being in an inhospitable epistemic environment.Moderate compatibilism, by contrast, maintains that whileunderstanding is like propositional knowledge in that it isincompatible with the kind of luck that features in traditionalGettier cases, it is nonetheless compatible with environmentalepistemic luck. Incompatibilism rejects that either kind of epistemicluck case demonstrates that understanding and propositional knowledgecome apart, and so maintains that understanding is incompatible withepistemic luck to the same extent that propositional knowledge is.

5. The Value of Knowledge-How

The received view in mainstream epistemology, at least since GilbertRyle (e.g., 1949), has been to regard knowledge-that and knowledge-howas different epistemic standings, such that knowing how to dosomething is not simply a matter of knowing propositions, viz., ofknowledge-that. If this view—known asanti-intellectualism—is correct, then the value ofknowledge-how needn’t be accounted for in terms of the value ofknowing propositions. Furthermore, if anti-intellectualism is assumed,then—to the extent that there is any analogous ‘valueproblem’ for knowledge-how—such a problem needn’tmaterialize as the philosophical problem of determining what it isabout knowledge-how that makes it more valuable than mere truebelief.

Jason Stanley & Timothy Williamson (2001) have, however,influentially resisted the received anti-intellectualist thinkingabout knowledge-how. On Stanley & Williamson’sview—intellectualism—knowledge-how is a kind ofpropositional knowledge, i.e., knowledge-that, such that(roughly)S knows how to φ iff there is a waywsuch thatS knows thatw is a way forS toφ. Accordingly, if Hannah knows how to ride a bike, then this isin virtue of her propositional knowledge—viz., her knowing ofsome wayw thatw is the way for her (Hannah) toride a bike.

By reducing in this manner knowledge—how to a kind ofknowledge—that, intellectualists such as Stanley have acceptedthat knowledge-how should have properties characteristic ofpropositional knowledge, (see, for example, Stanley 2011: 215), ofwhich knowledge-how is a kind. Furthermore, the value of knowledge-howshould be able to be accounted for, on intellectualism, with referenceto the value of the propositional knowledge that the intellectualistidentifies with knowledge-how.

In recent work, Carter and Pritchard (2015) have challengedintellectualism on this point. One such example they offer to this endinvolves testimony and skilled action. For example, suppose that askilled guitarist tells an amateur how to play a very tricky guitarriff. Carter and Pritchard (2015: 801) argue that though the amateurcan uncontroversially acquire testimonial knowledge from the expertthat, for some wayw thatw is the way to play theriff, it might be that the expert, but not novice, knowshowto play the riff. Further, they suggest that whilst the amateur isbetter off, with respect to the aim of playing the riff, than he wasprior to gaining the testimonial knowledge he did, he would likewisebe better off further—viz., he would have something evenmore valuable—if he, like the expert, had the lick downcold (something the amateur does not have simply on the basis of hisacquired testimonial knowledge) (Ibid: 801).

The conclusion Carter and Pritchard draw from this and other similarcases (e.g., 2015: §3; see also Poston 2016) is that the value ofknowledge-how cannot be accounted for with reference to the value ofthe items of knowledge-that which the intellectualist identifies withknowledge-how If this is right, then if there is a ‘valueproblem’ for knowledge-how, we shouldn’t expect it to bethe problem of determining what is it about certain items ofpropositional knowledge that makes these more valuable thancorresponding mere true beliefs. A potential area for future researchis to consider what an analogue value problem for knowledge-how mightlook like, on an anti-intellectualist framework.

According to Carter and Pritchard’s diagnosis, the underlyingexplanation for this difference in value is that knowledge-how (likeunderstanding, as discussed in§4) essentially involves a kind of cognitive achievement, unlikepropositional knowledge, for reasons discussed in §4. If thisdiagnosis is correct, then further pressure is arguably placed on therobust virtue epistemologist’s ‘achievement’solution to the value problems for knowledge-that, as surveyed in§3. Recall that, according to robust virtue epistemology, the distinctivevalue of knowledge-that is accounted for in terms of the value ofcognitive achievement (i.e., success because of ability) which robustvirtue epistemologists take to be essential to propositionalknowledge. But, if the presence of cognitive achievement is whataccounts for why knowledge-how has a value that is not present in theitems of knowledge-that the intellectualist identifies withknowledge-how, this result would seem to stand in tension with therobust virtue epistemologist’s insistence that what affordspropositional knowledge a value lacked by mere true belief is that theformer essentially involves cognitive achievement.

6. Other Accounts of the Value of Knowledge

John Hawthorne (2004; cf. Stanley 2005; Fantl & McGrath 2002) hasargued that knowledge is valuable because of the role it plays inpractical reasoning. More specifically, Hawthorne (2004: 30) arguesfor the principle that one should use a propositionp as apremise in one’s practical reasoning only if one knowsp. Hawthorne primarily motivates this line of argument byappeal to the lottery case. This concerns an agent’s true beliefthat she holds the losing ticket for a fair lottery with long odds anda large cash prize, a belief that is based solely on the fact that shehas reflected on the odds involved. Intuitively, we would say thatsuch an agent lacks knowledge of what she believes, even though herbelief is true and even though her justification for what shebelieves—assessed in terms of the likelihood, given thisjustification, of her being right—is unusually strong. Moreover,were this agent to use this belief as a premise in her practicalreasoning, and so infer that she should throw the ticket away withoutchecking the lottery results in the paper for example, then we wouldregard her reasoning as problematic.

Lottery cases therefore seem to show that justified true belief, nomatter how strong the degree of justification, is not enough foracceptable practical reasoning—instead, knowledge is required.Moreover, notice that we can alter the example slightly so that theagent does possess knowledge while at the same time having aweaker justification for what she believes (where strength ofjustification is again assessed in terms of the likelihood, given thisjustification, that the agent’s belief is true). If the agenthad formed her true belief by reading the results in a reliablenewspaper, for example, then she would count as knowing the targetproposition and can then infer that she should throw the ticket awaywithout criticism. It is more likely, however, that the newspaper hasprinted the result wrongly than that she should win the lottery. Thissort of consideration seems to show that knowledge, even whenaccompanied by a relatively weak justification, is better (at leastwhen it comes to practical reasoning) than a true belief that issupported by a relatively strong justification but does not amount toknowledge. If this is the right way to think about the connectionbetween knowledge possession and practical reasoning, then it seems tooffer a potential response to at least the secondary valueproblem.

A second author who thinks that our understanding of the concept ofknowledge can have important ramifications for the value of knowledgeis Edward Craig (1990). Craig’s project begins with a thesisabout the value of the concept of knowledge. Simplifying somewhat,Craig hypothesises that the concept of knowledge is important to usbecause it fulfills the valuable function of enabling us to identifyreliable informants. The idea is that it is clearly of immensepractical importance to be able to recognize those from whom we cangain true beliefs, and that it was in response to this need that theconcept of knowledge arose. As with Hawthorne’s theory, thisproposal, if correct, could potentially offer a resolution of at leastthe secondary value problem.

Recently, there have been additional attempts to follow—broadlyspeaking—Craig’s project, for which the value of knowledgeis understood in terms of the functional role that‘knowledge’ plays in fulfilling our practical needs. Thematter of how to identify this functional role has received increasingrecent attention. For example, David Henderson (2009), Robin McKenna(2013), Duncan Pritchard (2012) and Michael Hannon (2015) havedefended views about the concept of knowledge (or knowledgeascriptions) that are broadly inspired by Craig’s favoredaccount of the function of knowledge as identifying reliableinformants. A notable rival account, defended by Klemens Kappel(2010), Christoph Kelp (2011, 2014) and Patrick Rysiew (2012; cf.Kvanvig 2012) identifiesclosure of inquiry as the relevantfunction. For Krista Lawlor (2013) the relevant function is identified(à la Austin) as that ofproviding assurance,and for James Beebe (2012), it’s expressing epistemicapproval/disapproval.

In one sense, such accounts are in competition with one another, inthat they offer different practical explications of‘knowledge’. However, these accounts all accept(explicitly or tacitly) a more general insight, which is thatconsiderations about the function that the concept of knowledge playsin fulfilling practical needs should inform our theories of the natureand corresponding value of knowledge. This more general point remainscontroversial in contemporary metaepistemology. For some argumentsagainst supposing that a practical explication of‘knowledge’, in terms of some need-fulfilling function,should inform our accounts of the nature or knowledge, see for exampleGerken (2015). For a more extreme form of argument in favor ofdivorcing considerations to do with how and why we use‘knows’ from epistemological theorizing altogether, seeHazlett (2010; cf. Turri 2011b).

A further and more recent practically oriented approach to the valueof knowledge is defended by Grindrod (2019), who considersspecifically the ramifications ofepistemiccontextualism for the value of knowledge. Contextualistsmaintain that knowledge attributing sentences can vary in truth valueacross different contexts of utterance. This kind of position aboutthe semantics of knowledge attributions is often motivated by context-shifting cases, such as DeRose’s (1992) bank case,which seem to suggest that the a knowledge attribution istruedepends on the epistemic standards (as fixed by practical stakes)of the attributor of the knowledge ascription (see entry onepistemic contextualism). Grindrod maintains that if epistemic contextualism is true, thenepistemic value(including whatever epistemic value mightseparate knowledge from mere true belief) should becontextualised.

7. Weak and Strong Conceptions of Knowledge

Laurence BonJour argues that reflecting on the value of knowledgeleads us to reject a prevailing trend in epistemology over the pastseveral decades, namely, fallibilism, or what BonJour calls the“weak conception” of knowledge.

BonJour outlines four traditional assumptions about knowledge,understood as roughly justified true belief, which he“broadly” endorses (BonJour 2010: 58–9). First,knowledge is a “valuable and desirable cognitive state”indicative of “full cognitive success”. Any acceptabletheory of knowledge must “make sense of” knowledge’simportant value. Second, knowledge is “an all or nothing matter,not a matter of degree”. There is no such thing as degrees ofknowing: either you know or you don’t. Third, epistemicjustification comes in degrees, from weak to strong. Fourth, epistemicjustification is essentially tied to “likelihood or probabilityof truth”, such that the strength of justification covaries withhow likely it makes the truth of the belief in question.

On this traditional approach, we are invited to think of justificationas measured byhow probable the belief is given the reasonsor evidence you have. One convenient way to measure probability is touse the decimals in the interval [0, 1]. A probability of 0 means thatthe claim is guaranteed to be false. A probability of 1 means that theclaim is guaranteed to be true. A probability of .5 means that theclaim is just as likely to be true as it is to be false. The questionthen becomes, how probable must your belief be for it to beknowledge?

Obviously it must be greater than .5. But how much greater? Suppose wesay that knowledge requires a probability of 1—that is,knowledge requires our justification or reasons toguaranteethe truth of the belief. Call such reasonsconclusivereasons.

The strong conception of knowledge says knowledge requiresconclusive reasons. We can motivate the strong conception as follows.If the aim of belief is truth, then it makes sense that knowledgewould require conclusive reasons, because conclusive reasons guaranteethat belief’s aim is achieved. The three components of thetraditional view of knowledge thus fit together“cohesively” to explain why knowledge is valued as a stateof full cognitive success.

But all is not well with the strong conception, or so philosophershave claimed over the past several decades. The strong conceptionseems to entail that we know nearly nothing at all about the materialworld outside of our own minds or about the past. For we could havehad all the reasons we do in fact have, even if the world around us orthe past had been different. (Think of Descartes’s evil genius.)This conflicts with commonsense and counts against the strongconception. But what is the alternative?

The alternative is that knowledge requires reasons that make thebelief very likely true, but needn’t guarantee it. This is theweak conception of knowledge. Most epistemologists accept theweak conception of knowledge. But BonJour asks a challenging question:what is the “magic” level of probability required byknowledge? BonJour then argues that a satisfactory answer to thisquestion isn’t forthcoming. For any point short of 1 would seemarbitrary. Why should we pick that point exactly? The samecould be said for a vague range that includes points short of1—why, exactly, should the vague range extend roughlythatfar but not further? This leads to an even deeper problem for theweak conception. It brings into doubt the value of knowledge. Canknowledge really be valuable if it is arbitrarily defined?

A closely related problem for the weak conception presents itself.Suppose for the sake of argument that we settle on .9 as the requiredlevel of probability. Suppose further that you believeQ andyou believeR, thatQ andR are both true,and that you have reached the .9 threshold for each. Thus the weakconception entails that you knowQ, and you knowR.Intuitively, if you knowQ and you also knowR, thenyou’re automatically in a position to know the conjunctionQ &R. But the weak conception cannot sustainthis judgment. For the probability of the conjunction of twoindependent claims, such asQ andR, equals theproduct of their probabilities. (This is the special conjunction rulefrom probability theory.) In this case, the probability ofQ= .9 and the probability ofR = .9. So the probability of theconjunction (Q &R) = .9 × .9 = .81, whichfalls short of the required .9. So the weak conception of knowledgealong with a law of probability entail that you’re automaticallynot in a position to know the conjunction (Q &R). BonJour considers this to be “an intuitivelyunacceptable result”, because after all,

what is the supposed state of knowledge really worth, if even thesimplest inference from two pieces of knowledge [might] not lead tofurther knowledge? (BonJour 2010: 63)

BonJour concludes that the weak conception fails to explain the valueof knowledge, and thus that the strong conception must be true. Herecognizes that this implies that we don’t know most of thethings we ordinarily say and think that we know. He explains thisaway, however, partly on grounds that knowledge is the norm ofpractical reasoning, which creates strong “practicalpressure” to confabulate or exaggerate in claiming to knowthings, so that we can view ourselves as reasoning and actingappropriately, even though usually the best we can do is toapproximate appropriate action and reasoning. (BonJour 2010:75).

8. The Value of True Belief

So far, in common with most of the contemporary literature in thisregard, we have tended to focus on the value of knowledge relative toother epistemic standings. A related debate in this respect,however—one that has often taken place largely in tandem withthe mainstream debate on the value of knowledge—has specificallyconcerned itself with the value of true belief and we will turn now tothis issue.

Few commentators treat truth or belief as being by themselves valuable(though see Kvanvig 2003: ch. 1), but it is common to treat truebelief as valuable, at least instrumentally. True beliefs are clearlyoften of great practical use to us. The crucialcaveat here,of course, concerns the use of the word ‘often’. Afterall, it is also often the case that a true belief might actuallymilitate against one achieving one’s goals, as when one isunable to summon the courage to jump a ravine and thereby get tosafety, because one knows that there is a seriouspossibility that one might fail to reach the other side. In such casesit seems that a false belief in one’s abilities—e.g., thefalse belief that one could easily jump the ravine—would bebetter than a true belief, if the goal in question (jumping theravine) is to be achieved.

Moreover, some true beliefs are beliefs in trivial matters, and inthese cases it isn’t at all clear why we should value suchbeliefs at all. Imagine someone who, for no good reason, concernsherself with measuring each grain of sand on a beach, or someone who,even while being unable to operate a telephone, concerns herself withremembering every entry in a foreign phone book. Such a person wouldthereby gain lots of true beliefs but, crucially, one would regardsuch truth-gaining activity as rather pointless. After all, these truebeliefs do not seem to serve any valuable purpose, and so do notappear to have any instrumental value (or, at the very least, whatinstrumental value these beliefs have is vanishingly small). It would,perhaps, be better—and thus of greater value—to have fewertrue beliefs, and possibly more false ones, if this meant that thetrue beliefs that one had concerned matters of real consequence.

At most, then, we can say that true beliefs often have instrumentalvalue. What about final (or intrinsic) value? One might think that ifthe general instrumental value of true belief was moot then so toowould be the intuitively stronger thesis that true belief is generallyfinally valuable. Nevertheless, many have argued for such a claim.

One condition that seems to speak in favor of this thesis is that astruth seekers we are naturally curious about what the truth is, evenwhen that truth is of no obvious practical import. Accordingly, itcould be argued that from a purely epistemic point of view, we doregard all true belief as valuable for its own sake, regardless ofwhat further prudential goals we might have (e.g., Goldman 1999: 3;Lynch 2004: 15–16; Alston 2005: 31; Pritchard 2019; cf. Baehr2012: 5). Curiosity will only take you so far in this regard, however,since we are only curious about certain truths, not all of them. Toreturn to the examples given a moment ago, no fully rational agent iscurious about the measurements of every grain of sand on a givenbeach, or the name of every person in a random phone book—i.e.,no rational person wants to know these truths independently of havingsome prudential reason for knowing them.

Still, one could argue for a weaker claim and merely say that it isprima facie orpro tanto finally good to believe thetruth (cf. David 2005; Lynch 2009), where cases of trivial truths suchas those just given are simply cases where,all thingsconsidered, it is not good to believe the truth. After all, weare familiar with the fact that something can beprima facieorpro tanto finally good without being all-things-consideredgood. For example, it may be finally good to help the poor and needy,but not all-things-considered good given that helping the poor andneedy would prevent you from doing something else which is at presentmore important (such as saving that child from drowning).

At this point one might wonder why it matters so much to (some)epistemologists that true belief is finally valuable. Why not insteadjust treat true belief as often of instrumental value and leave thematter at that? The answer to this question lies in the fact that manywant to regard truth—and thereby true belief—as being thefundamental epistemic goal, in the sense that ultimately it is onlytruth that is epistemically valuable (so, for example, whilejustification is epistemically valuable, it is only epistemicallyvaluable because of how it is a guide to truth). Accordingly, if truebelief is not finally valuable—and only typically instrumentallyvaluable—then this seems to downplay the status of theepistemological project.

There are a range of options here. The conservative option is tocontend that truth is the fundamental goal of epistemology and alsocontend that true belief is finally valuable—at least in somerestricted fashion. Marian David (2001, 2005) falls into thiscategory. In contrast, one might argue that truth is the fundamentalgoal while at the same time claiming that true belief isnotfinally valuable. Sosa (see especially 2004, but also 2000a, 2003)seems (almost) to fall into this camp, since he claims that whiletruth is the fundamental epistemic value, we can accommodate thisthought without having to thereby concede that true belief is finallyvaluable, a point that has been made in a similar fashion by AlanMillar (2011: §3). Sosa often compares the epistemic domain toother domains of evaluation where the fundamental good of that domainis not finally valuable. So, for example, the fundamental goal of the‘coffee-production’ domain may be great tasting coffee,but no-one is going to argue that great tasting coffee is finallyvaluable. Perhaps the epistemic domain is in this respect like thecoffee-production domain?

Another line of response against the thesis that true belief isfinally valuable is to suggest that this thesis leads to areductio. Michael DePaul (2001) has notably advanced such anargument. According to DePaul, the thesis that true belief is finallyvaluable implies that all true beliefs are equally epistemicallyvaluable. Though this latter claim, DePaul argues, is false, as isillustrated by cases where two sets each containing an equal number oftrue beliefs intuitively differ in epistemic value. Ahlstrom-Vij andGrimm (2013) have criticized DePaul’s claim that the thesis thattrue belief is finally valuable implies that two sets each containingan equal number of true beliefs must not differ in epistemic value.Additionally, Nick Treanor (2014) has criticized the argument for adifferent reason, which is that (contra DePaul) there is noclear example of two sets which contain the same number of truebeliefs. More recently, Xingming Hu (2017) has defended the finalvalue of true belief against DePaul’s argument, though Hu arguesfurther that neither Ahlstrom-Vij and Grimm’s (2013) norTreanor’s (2014) critique of DePaul’s argument iscompelling.

Another axis on which the debate about the value of true belief can beconfigured is in terms of whether one opts for an epistemic-valuemonism or an epistemic-value pluralism—that is, whether onethinks there is only one fundamental epistemic goal, or several.Kvanvig (e.g., 2005) endorses epistemic-value pluralism, since hethinks that there are a number of fundamental epistemic goals, witheach of them being of final value. Crucial to Kvanvig’s argumentis that there are some epistemic goals which are not obviouslytruth-related—he cites the examples of having an empiricallyadequate theory, making sense of the course of one’s experience,and inquiring responsibly, and more recently, Brent Madison (2017) hasargued by appealing to a new evil demon thought experiment, thatepistemic justification itself should be included in such a list. Thisis important because if the range of goals identified were alltruth-related, then it would prompt the natural response that suchgoals are valuable only because of their connection to the truth, andhence not fundamental epistemic goals at all.

Presumably, though, it ought also to be possible to make a case for anepistemic-value pluralism where the fundamental epistemic goals werenot finally valuable (or, at least,à la Sosa, whereone avoided taking a stance on this issue). More precisely, if anepistemic-value monism that does not regard the fundamental epistemicgoal as finally valuable can be made palatable, then there seems noclear reason why a parallel view that opted for pluralism in thisregard could not similarly be given a plausible supporting story.

9. The Value of Extended Knowledge

In his essay, “Meno in a Digital World”, PascalEngel (2016) questions whether the original value problem applies tothe kind of knowledge or pseudo-knowledge that we get from theinternet? (2016: 1). One might initially think that internet and/ordigitally acquired knowledge raises no new issues for the valueproblem. On this line of thought, if digitally acquired (e.g., Googledknowledge, information stored in iPhone apps, etc.) isgenuine knowledge, then whatever goes for knowledge moregenerally,vis-à-vis the value problems surveyed in§§1–2, thereby goes for knowledge acquired from ourgadgets.

However, recent work at the intersection of epistemology and thephilosophy of mind suggests there are potentially some new andepistemologically interesting philosophical problems associated withthe value of technology-assisted knowledge. These problems correspondwith two ways of conceiving of knowledge asextending beyondtraditional, intracranial boundaries (e.g., Pritchard 2018). Inparticular, the kinds of ‘extended knowledge’ which havepotential import for the value of knowledge debate correspond with theextended mind thesis (for discussion on how this thesisinterfaces with the hypothesis of extended cognition, see Carter,Kallestrup, Pritchard, & Palermos 2014) and cases involving whatMichael Lynch (2016) calls ‘neuromedia’ intelligenceaugmentation.

According to theextended mind thesis (EMT), mental states(e.g., beliefs) can supervene in part on extra-organismic elements ofthe world, such as laptops, phones and notebooks, that are typicallyregarded as ‘external’ to our minds. This thesis, defendedmost notably by Andy Clark and David Chalmers (1998), should not beconflated with comparatively weaker and less controversial thesis ofcontent externalism (e.g., Putnam 1975; Burge 1986),according to which the meaning or content of mental states can befixed by extra-organismic features of our physical orsocial-linguistic environments.

What the proponent of EMT submits is that mental statesthemselves can partly supervene on extracranial artifacts(e.g., notebooks, iPhones) provided these extracranial artifacts playkinds of functional roles normally played by on-board, biologicalcognitive processes. For example, to borrow an (adapted) case fromClark and Chalmers (1998), suppose an Alzheimer’s patient,‘Otto’, begins to outsource the task of memory storage andretrieval to his iPhone, having appreciated that his biological memoryis failing. Accordingly, when Otto acquires new information, heautomatically records it in his phone’s ‘memoryapp’, and when he needs old information, he (also, automaticallyand seamlessly) opens his memory app and looks it up. The iPhone comesto play for Otto the functionally isomorphic role that biologicalmemory used to play for himvis-à-vis the process ofmemory storage and retrieval. Just as we attribute to normallyfunctioning agents knowledge in virtue of their (non-occurrent)dispositional beliefs stored in biological memory (for example, fiveminutes ago, you knew that Paris is the capital of France), so, withEMT in play, we should be prepared to attribute knowledge to Otto invirtue of the ‘extended’ (dispositional) beliefs which arestored in his notebook, provided Otto is as epistemically diligent inencoding and retrieving information as he was before (e.g., Pritchard2010b).

The import EMT has for the value of knowledge debate now takes shape:whatever epistemically valuable properties (if any) are distinctivelypossessed by knowledge, they must be properties that obtain inOtto’s case so as to add value to what would otherwise bemere true (dispositional)beliefs that are stored,extracranially, in Otto’s iPhone. But it is initially puzzlingjust why, and how, this should be. After all, even if we accept theintuition that the epistemic value of traditional (intracranial)knowledge exceeds the value of corresponding true opinion, it is, asEngel (2016), Lynch (2016) and Carter (2017) have noted, at best notclear that this comparative intuition holds in the extended case,where knowledge is possessed simply by virtue of informationpersisting in digital storage.

For example, consider again Plato’s solution to the valueproblem canvassed in§1: knowledge, unlike true belief, must be ‘tied-down’ to thetruth. Mere true belief is more likely to be lost, which makes it lessvaluable than knowledge. One potential worry is that extendedknowledge, as per EMT—literally, often times, knowledge storedin the cloud—is by its very nature not ‘tethered’,or for that matter even tetherable, in a way that corresponding itemsof accurate information which fall short of knowledge are not. Norarguably does this sort of knowledge in the cloud clearly have thekind of ‘stability’ that Olsson (2009) claims is whatdistinguishes knowledge from true opinion (cf., Walker 2019). Perhapseven less does it appear to constitute a valuable cognitive‘achievement’, as per robust virtue epistemologists suchas Greco and Sosa.

EMT is of course highly controversial, (see, for example, Adams &Aizawa 2008), and so one way to sidestep the implications for thevalue of knowledge debate posed by the possibility of knowledge thatis extendedvia extended beliefs, is to simply resist EMT asa thesis about the metaphysics of mind.

However, there are other ways in which the technology-assistedknowledge could have import for the traditional value problems. Inrecent work, Michael P. Lynch (2016) argues that, given the increasein cognitive offloading coupled with evermore subtle and physicallysmaller intelligence-augmentation technologies (e.g., Bostrom &Sandberg 2009), it is just a matter of time before the majority of thegadgetry we use for cognitive tasks will be by and large seamless and‘invisible’. Lynch suggests that while coming to know viasuch mechanisms can make knowledge acquisition much easier, there areepistemic drawbacks. He offers the following thought experiment:

NEUROMEDIA: Imagine a society where smartphones are miniaturized andhooked directly into a person’s brain. With a single mentalcommand, those who have this technology—let’s call itneuromedia—can access information on any subject […] Nowimagine that an environmental disaster strikes our invented societyafter several generations have enjoyed the fruits of neuromedia. Theelectronic communication grid that allows neuromedia to function isdestroyed. Suddenly no one can access the shared cloud of informationby thought alone. […] for the inhabitants of this society,losing neuromedia is an immensely unsettling experience; it’slike a normally sighted person going blind. They have lost a way ofaccessing information on which they’ve come to rely […]Just as overreliance on one sense can weaken the others, sooverdependence on neuromedia might atrophy the ability to accessinformation in other ways, ways that are less easy and require morecreative effort. (Lynch 2016: 1–6)

One conclusion Lynch has drawn from such thought experiments is thatunderstanding has a value that mere knowledge lacks, a positionwe’ve seen has been embraced for different reasons in§4 by Kvanvig and others. A further conclusion, advanced by Pritchard(2013) and Carter (2017), concerns the extent to which the acquisitionof knowledge involves ‘epistemic dependence’—viz.,dependence on factors outwith one’s cognitive agency. They arguethat the greater the scope of epistemic dependence, the more valuableit becomes to cultivate virtues like intellectual autonomy thatregulate the appropriate reliance and outsourcing (e.g., on otherindividuals, technology, medicine, etc.) while at the same timemaintaining one’s intellectual self-direction.

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Other Important Works

• Ellis, Brian, 1988, “Solving the Problem of Induction Usinga Values Based Epistemology”,British Journal for thePhilosophy of Science, 39(2): 141–160.doi:10.1093/bjps/39.2.141
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• Epistemic Value, entry by Patrick Bondy in theInternet Encyclopedia ofPhilosophy (2015).

Related Entries

epistemology: virtue |externalism about the mind |justification, epistemic: coherentist theories of |knowledge: analysis of |knowledge how |Plato |reliabilist epistemology

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Earl Conee, Alan Millar and several referees at theStanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy for useful comments onearlier versions of this entry.