Essays on Epistemic Dilemmas

Just as there appear to be situations in which every available option is morally unacceptable, so too there appear to be situations in which every available option is epistemically unacceptable. These have come to be known as 'epistemic dilemmas'. The existence of epistemic dilemmas is controversial. Some epistemologists argue that we should accept them, but there is little agreement about their nature or the contexts in which they arise. Others have argued that they are impossible in principle, or that, even if they are possible, the situations other epistemologists have taken to be epistemic dilemmas are no such thing. Presenting seventeen new essays by leading and up-and-coming epistemologists, Essays on Epistemic Dilemmas pushes the discussion forward by shedding new light on a wide range of areas where epistemic dilemmas may occur.

Nick Hughes is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Oslo. He has also worked at the University of Gothenburg, the University of Oxford, Durham University, and University College Dublin. He completed a joint PhD at the Arché Research Centre at the University of St Andrews and Centre for the Study of Mind in Nature the University of Oslo in 2015. He has recently published a number of papers on epistemic dilemmas. He is currently working on a project on non-ideal rationality.