The scope of epistemic focal bias: response to Blome-Tillmann

ABSTRACT

In this response to Michael Blome-Tillmann's comments on On Folk Epistemology, I defend the book's epistemic focal bias account of the salient alternatives effect that Blome-Tillmann takes to motivate epistemic contextualism. First, I defend the epistemic focal bias account against Blome-Tillmann's criticism that it is insufficiently general insofar as it fails to account for a range of cases. Second, I defend the epistemic focal bias account from Blome-Tillmann's charge that it overgeneralizes insofar as it can ‘explain away the context-sensitivity of gradable adjectives.’ Along the way, I discuss the metaphilosophical principles that guide the epistemic focal bias account.

KEYWORDS:

• Focal bias
• epistemic contextualism
• philosophical methodology

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).