Barboianu, Catalin
(2014)
Epistemic Circularity: Worry, Illusion, and Determination.
[Preprint]
Abstract
Research on epistemic circularity has focused more on the problem of whether circular arguments are able to justify their conclusions rather than on the nature of circularity itself, and has kept a sharp delimitation from other types of circularities (logical, linguistic, and of definition). In this paper, I aim to move the focus toward the general concept of circularity, which I relate to the concept of ‘epistemic worry’.
Through a brief overview on the known types of circularities, I show that circularity has multiple natures (not only that associated with its type), and the linguistic aspect is essential in qualifying a construct as circular, which in turn raises the problem of genuineness of a circularity. Within an extensional approach, I suggest generalizing the meaning of the key epistemological terms referred to in the classical definition of epistemic circularity to also cover additional associated concepts specific to other theoretical disciplines beyond epistemology.
The proposed concepts and ideas are reflected in a structural unificatory account of circularity in terms of epistemic determination, which raises a challenge to the relational accounts of determination in regard to the transitivity of the determination relation.
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