William J. Talbott, "Learning from Our Mistakes: Epistemology for the Real World" (Oxford UP, 2021)
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What is the central thesis of William Talbott’s book *Learning from Our Mistakes*?
Welcome to the New Books Network.
Hello, thanks for joining us for this episode of New Books in Philosophy, which is part of the New Books Network. I'm Robert Talise and I'm Professor of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University. I co-host the program with Carrie Figder, Malcolm Keating, and Sarah Tyson. My guest today is William Talbot. William is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Washington in Seattle. His research is centrally in epistemology, though he also does work in ethics, political philosophy, and the philosophy of law. Which includes philosophical questions about human rights. Now, his new book has just been published with Oxford University Press. It's titled Learning from Our Mistakes: Epistemology for the Real World.
The enterprise of Western epistemology has largely been devoted to a collection of issues concerning the definition and analysis of knowledge. What makes knowledge different from true belief? When is one's evidence or justification for one's belief sufficient for knowledge? Under what conditions must we revise our beliefs? And what methods or processes should we rely on when we're forming beliefs? Now these endeavors typically aspire to defeat replacate s skepticism. And as I suspect many listeners will know, they often fall flat. In response, contemporary epistemologists have developed different ways of recasting the epistemological enterprise. But many of these provoke new versions of the same old difficulties.
Now in learning from our mistakes. William Talbot proposes a more radical shift in our approach to epistemology. To put it in a nutshell, Talbot proposes that we abandon the thought that rational belief should be modeled on a successful proof. Instead, he thinks that We should conceptualize rational belief on the model of a good learner. Now, as usual, there are lots of interesting philosophical questions afoot. But before we get into them, why don't we begin, as we normally do, with our guest. Hello, Bill. Hi,
Bob.
Thank
you for that introduction. No
problem. How are you today? I'm doing very well, thanks. I'm glad to hear that. Well, as I just mentioned, you know, we often begin with the author. Uh can you tell us a bit about yourself?
Sure. Um I uh Uh I came from a family my father was in the military, so we moved around a lot. And one thing that you learn when you move around a lot is how to make friends. Well so I I made friends over and over and over again. Uh And I also went to Catholic schools and I think In Catholic schools, you are what they regard as religious questions but are often philosophical questions. And so that was the beginning of my Uh Philosophical urge. Um I I went I was an undergraduate at Princeton. And my Primary epistemological training was from Gilbert Harmon. And uh it was really, really fortunate that I had Gil at the beginning because А as opposed to most say epistemology courses. Where you're presented, you're just
Overwhelmed with all these sceptical arguments, Harmon gave a different interpretation to skeptical arguments. The rational result was not that you don't know anything or they don't have any rational beliefs. The rational result was if you get to such a Crazy conclusion. You need to go back and reconsider. Because uh and this is a little formula that I use often in the book. Whenever you have any reasoning or any argument. I guess reasoning would be more general. When you get to the end of it. The final step is to decide what makes the most sense to believe. The conclusion Or the To give up one of the premises. Accept the conclusion or give up one of the premises? Or I might add Uh or give up the belief that the
premises support the conclusion. So with that Introduction to epistemology. I was ready to read the All of Western epistemology and just find it intriguing. Never despairing. Because it wa it it was like then. A mystery. What assumptions were leading to in in the case of the skeptical arguments, such insane results. And uh and then I found out also that there are other pretty insane results, even if they're not skeptical.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the central thesis of William Talbott’s book *Learning from Our Mistakes*?
0:01–8:17
2
How does Talbott describe his personal journey and academic background?
8:17–17:09
3
What does Talbott mean by abandoning the “proof paradigm” in epistemology?
17:09–26:15
4
How does the book use historical examples to illustrate the failure of the proof paradigm?
26:15–34:52
5
What is the proposed “equilibrium process” for rational belief revision?
34:52–42:59
6
How can this new epistemological model help us understand conspiracy theories and misinformation?
42:59–52:03
7
Why does Talbott advocate teaching epistemology in high schools?
52:03–1:01:28
8
What are the practical implications of Talbott’s approach for everyday reasoning?
1:01:28–1:10:15
Speakers
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