Mark Satta
Harvard Law School, Law, Graduate Student
- Houghton College, Communication; Psychology, AlumnusState University of New York @ Brockport, Philosophy, AlumnusPurdue University, Philosophy, Alumnusadd
Physicists Brian Greene and Max Tegmark both make variants of the claim that if the universe is infinite and matter is roughly uniformly distributed that there are infinitely many “people with the same appearance, name and memories as... more
Physicists Brian Greene and Max Tegmark both make variants of the claim that if the universe is infinite and matter is roughly uniformly distributed that there are infinitely many “people with the same appearance, name and memories as you, who play out every possible permutation of your life choices.” In this paper I argue that, while our current best theories in astrophysics may allow one to conclude that we have infinitely many duplicates whose lives are identical to our own from start to finish, without either further advances in physics or advances in fields like biology, psychology, neuroscience, and philosophy, Greene’s and Tegmark’s claims about the ways in which our duplicates lives will differ from our own are not a consequence of our best current scientific theories. Rather, I argue that Greene and Tegmark’s conclusions rely on philosophically imprecise usages of the language of “possibility.”
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In his book Knowledge and Practical Interests Jason Stanley offers an argument for the conclusion that it is quite unlikely that an ambiguity theory of ‘knows’ can be “linguistically grounded.” His argument rests on two important... more
In his book Knowledge and Practical Interests Jason Stanley offers an argument for the conclusion that it is quite unlikely that an ambiguity theory of ‘knows’ can be “linguistically grounded.” His argument rests on two important assumptions: 1) that linguistic grounding of ambiguity requires evidence of the purported different senses of a word being represented by different words in other languages (i.e. represented by more than one word within other languages) and 2) that such evidence is lacking in the case of ‘knows’. In this paper, I challenge the conclusion that there isn’t a linguistic grounding for an ambiguity theory of ‘knows’ by making cases against both of Stanley’s major assumptions. I will do this by making a case for a prime facie linguistic grounding for a polysemy theory of ‘knows’ without appealing to word use in other languages. Given that a polysemy theory of ‘knows’ is a type of ambiguity theory of ‘knows’ (as will be explained shortly), if I succeed in linguistically grounding a polysemy theory of ‘knows’, then I have shown that at least one type of ambiguity theory of ‘knows’ can be linguistically grounded.
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In this paper, we apply the work of feminist and critical race epistemology to epistemic issues related to HIV and HIV transmission risk. We identify ways in which popular social perceptions about HIV do not properly align with empirical... more
In this paper, we apply the work of feminist and critical race epistemology to epistemic issues related to HIV and HIV transmission risk. We identify ways in which popular social perceptions about HIV do not properly align with empirical findings, and we develop a framework for explaining this incongruency. Central to our discussion is the identification of epistemic harms related to HIV and some of the normative implications of the presence of these harms. After providing the necessary sociological and medical background information about HIV in the United States, we identify two types of previously identified epistemic harms—hermeneutical injustice and contributory injustice—in the context of issues related to HIV and being HIV-positive. We then identify a novel type of epistemic harm, structural-linguistic epistemic injustice, and apply it to epistemic issues pertinent to HIV and HIV transmission risk.
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Recent social and political circumstances have helped make visible that a variety of epistemically perilous features are far too common in the thought and behavior of Americans. Epistemology can be usefully employed to identify and... more
Recent social and political circumstances have helped make visible that a variety of epistemically perilous features are far too common in the thought and behavior of Americans. Epistemology can be usefully employed to identify and reflect on these features and to serve as a starting point for working to counteract their harmful effects.
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The ambiguity theory of ‘knows’ is the view that ‘knows’ and its cognates have more than one sense, and that which sense of ‘knows’ is used in a knowledge ascription or denial determines, in part, the meaning (and as a result the truth... more
The ambiguity theory of ‘knows’ is the view that ‘knows’ and its cognates have more than one sense, and that which sense of ‘knows’ is used in a knowledge ascription or denial determines, in part, the meaning (and as a result the truth conditions) of that knowledge ascription or denial. In this paper, I argue that the ambiguity theory of ‘knows’ ought to be taken seriously by those drawn to epistemic contextualism. In doing so I first argue that the ambiguity theory of ‘knows’ is a distinct view from epistemic contextualism. Second, I provide independent philosophical and linguistic considerations to motivate the ambiguity theory. Third, I argue that the ambiguity theory has the same central, generally agreed upon virtues ascribed to epistemic contextualism (namely, the ability to solve certain persistent epistemological problems relating to skeptical arguments and the ability to preserve the truth of most of our everyday, ordinary usages of ‘knows’ and its cognates). Finally, I provide an ambiguity-theory-friendly account of why contextualism may be initially appealing, and why this shouldn’t dissuade us from taking the ambiguity theory seriously nonetheless.
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The ambiguity theory of ‘knows’ is the view that ‘knows’ and its cognates have more than one propositional sense – i.e. more than one sense that can properly be used in ‘knows that’ etc. constructions. Given that most of us are... more
The ambiguity theory of ‘knows’ is the view that ‘knows’ and its cognates
have more than one propositional sense – i.e. more than one sense that can
properly be used in ‘knows that’ etc. constructions. Given that most of us are
‘intuitive invariantists’ – i.e. most of us initially have the intuition that
‘knows’ is univocal – defenders of the ambiguity theory need to offer an
explanation for the semantic blindness present if ‘knows’ is in fact ambiguous.
This paper is an attempt to offer such an explanation. Section 1 contains
a general argument for the ubiquity of semantic blindness for ambiguity; the
upshot being that semantic blindness for the ambiguity of ‘knows’ is
unsurprising as a result. Section 2 offers more specific arguments for
why ‘knows’ is the type of ambiguous word we’re very unlikely to quickly
recognize is ambiguous.
have more than one propositional sense – i.e. more than one sense that can
properly be used in ‘knows that’ etc. constructions. Given that most of us are
‘intuitive invariantists’ – i.e. most of us initially have the intuition that
‘knows’ is univocal – defenders of the ambiguity theory need to offer an
explanation for the semantic blindness present if ‘knows’ is in fact ambiguous.
This paper is an attempt to offer such an explanation. Section 1 contains
a general argument for the ubiquity of semantic blindness for ambiguity; the
upshot being that semantic blindness for the ambiguity of ‘knows’ is
unsurprising as a result. Section 2 offers more specific arguments for
why ‘knows’ is the type of ambiguous word we’re very unlikely to quickly
recognize is ambiguous.
Research Interests:
The ambiguity theory of ‘knows’ is the view that ‘knows’ and its cognates have more than one propositional sense—i.e. more than one sense that can properly be used in ‘knows that’ etc. constructions. The ambiguity theory of ‘know’ has... more
The ambiguity theory of ‘knows’ is the view that ‘knows’ and its cognates have more than one propositional sense—i.e. more than one sense that can properly be used in ‘knows that’ etc. constructions. The ambiguity theory of ‘know’ has received relatively little attention as an account of the truth-conditions for knowledge ascriptions and denials—especially compared to views like classical, moderate invariantism and epistemic contextualism. In this paper, it is argued that the ambiguity theory of ‘knows’ has an advantage over both classical, moderate invariantism and epistemic contextualism. This advantage is that it is the only one of these views that can account for “diverging knowledge responses without inconsistency” (DRWI)—i.e. cases in which, for the same subject S and proposition p, one and the same speaker says truly “S knows p” but instead could have truly said “S does not know p” and vice versa. This paper argues both for the existence of DRWI scenarios and the ability of the ambiguity theory of ‘knows’ to best explain their existence.
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Review of the OUP edited volume, Epistemology for the Rest of the World, edited by Masaharu Mizumoto, Stephen Stich, and Eric McCready.
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In June 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court, by issuing a narrow ruling, largely skirted the issues that had gained national attention in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado. The case came from an appeal of a Colorado baker who had been found to... more
In June 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court, by issuing a narrow ruling, largely skirted the issues that had gained national attention in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado. The case came from an appeal of a Colorado baker who had been found to have violated Colorado’s Anti-Discrimination Act (CADA) because the baker had refused to sell a wedding cake to a same-sex couple. (CADA bars, among other things, discrimination based on sexual orientation in a place of public accommodation.) In the wake of the questions Masterpiece left unanswered, in this paper I seek to do the following. First, I argue that cases like Masterpiece represent difficult threshold cases resulting from a great deal of settled ground on related issues. Second, I argue that while gay civil rights and religious freedom rights are both implicated in cases like Masterpiece, that free speech rights are not (although free speech rights could arise in other cases involving more specific messages on a cake). Third, I argue that on both legal and normative grounds that the civil rights of same-sex couples ought to prevail in cases like Masterpiece. Fourth, I argue that because cases like Masterpiece represent threshold cases involving a genuine clash of rights that courts ought to seek balanced rulings that respect the rights on both sides. I lay out four different kinds of balancing approaches a court can take in such cases.
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Appeals to “hostility toward religion” played a prominent role in two high profile Supreme Court decisions in 2018. First, in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado, the Court invalidated a Colorado ruling that a baker had violated Colorado’s... more
Appeals to “hostility toward religion” played a prominent role in two high profile Supreme Court decisions in 2018. First, in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado, the Court invalidated a Colorado ruling that a baker had violated Colorado’s antidiscrimination law on the grounds that Colorado had exhibited hostility toward the baker’s religious beliefs. Second, the primary dissent in Trump v. Hawaii argued that President Donald Trump’s restriction on entry into the U.S. of nationals from several Muslim majority countries ought to have been held unconstitutional because Trump had exhibited hostility toward the Muslim religion as motivation for the ban’s passage. Appeals to hostility toward religion have been made frequently in Supreme Court opinions for nearly eighty years, yet the Court has never provided a clear explanation of what constitutes hostility toward religion. In this paper, by providing a history of the Court’s appeals to “hostility toward religion,” I argue that in the absence of such definition, the Court has come to use “hostility toward religion” ambiguously to mean both anything that fails to be neutral toward religion generally and, more specifically, that which exhibits animosity toward religion. I argue that this ambiguity has resulted in confused outcomes that have ratcheted up the culture wars. I further argue that the best remedy is for the Court to be clearer and more judicious in its appeals to “hostility toward religion” going forward, and I offer three suggestions for how the Court can do so.
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In his concurring opinion in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado, Justice Neil Gorsuch argues that it is impossible to make a principled legal distinction between (a) a baker’s refusal to make a cake that the customer will use to celebrate a... more
In his concurring opinion in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado, Justice Neil Gorsuch argues that it is impossible to make a principled legal distinction between (a) a baker’s refusal to make a cake that the customer will use to celebrate a same-sex marriage and (b) a baker’s refusal to make a cake designed with religious text or symbols expressing disapproval of same-sex marriage, when both sexual orientation and religious creed are statutorily protected characteristics. On his view, neither refusal is discriminatory. This is because, on Gorsuch’s view, in both cases these refusals are objections to supporting specific messages and not refusals made because of the protected characteristics of the potential customers. That is to say, Gorsuch claims they are both “about the kind of cakes, not the kind of customers.” In this paper, I argue that a principled distinction can, in fact, be made between the two cases. In the former, the baker is trying to control the use for which an item he ordinarily sells is used based on the sexual-orientation of the users. In the latter, the baker is refusing to make an item that she would refuse to make for anybody, regardless of what characteristics the potential customer does or does not possess. I further argue that for this reason, among others, the former case ought to be ruled discriminatory while the latter case ought not.
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Recent political conditions in the United States have put on display a variety of epistemically perilous features that are far too common in the thought and behavior of Americans. Philosophers have a role to play in this task of... more
Recent political conditions in the United States have put on display a variety of epistemically perilous features that are far too common in the thought and behavior of Americans. Philosophers have a role to play in this task of identifying and naming epistemically problematic features of popular discourse and behavior within the polity. This paper is an attempt to generate productive philosophical discussion towards this end. In this paper I identify three conditions—epistemic tribalism, epistemic chaos, and epistemic exhaustion. In the first section I describe each of these conditions. In the second section I hypothesize about the relationship between these three conditions in hopes of providing a framework worthy of study via future empirical examination.
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A community demonstrates social trust when most members believe that others in their community are contributing to the goals and projects of one another by complying with shared social norms because it is the right thing to do (Vallier... more
A community demonstrates social trust when most members believe that others in their community are contributing to the goals and projects of one another by complying with shared social norms because it is the right thing to do (Vallier 2018). Scholars have argued that this social trust plays an essential stabilizing role in cooperative systems and provides many important benefits. Much of the relevant literature on social trust has assumed that individuals are epistemically justified in believing that others will comply with norms. The purpose of this paper is to look at circumstances when such epistemic justification is not present, when individuals are not epistemically justified in believing that others in their community are contributing to goals and projects or that they will comply with shared norms. Further, we seek to provide an account of justified social distrust in which individuals are justified in believing that others are irrelevant or harmful for achieving one another’s goals and that (most or at least many) members are generally unwilling or unable to contribute to their goals through upholding supportive social norms or challenging harmful social norms. We then provide empirical evidence that there are some actual groups of people that are justified in their social distrust even when within a majority trusting society. Finally, we will explore potential pathways for rebuilding trust when social distrust is justified. This is particularly important when trust is required for the provision of needed services, such as healthcare.
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Heretofore, discussions of epistemic injustice have focused on how the unjustified beliefs (or other doxastic attitudes) of the socially powerful harm the marginalized. In this paper we approach things from a different angle by looking at... more
Heretofore, discussions of epistemic injustice have focused on how the unjustified beliefs (or other doxastic attitudes) of the socially powerful harm the marginalized. In this paper we approach things from a different angle by looking at how the bad past actions of the powerful lead to justified (but harm-inducing) beliefs and other doxastic attitudes of the marginalized. Our goal in this paper is to conceptualize and elicidate a type of epistemic injustice with this latter form. We refer to this type of epistemic injustice as pernicious epistemically justified distrust.