The Foundations of Epistemic Normativity

Many people believe that climate change is caused by us, that this belief is justified given our evidence, and that climate skepticism is not rationally permitted. These epistemic statements seem to be normative – they concern what we ought to believe, what we are justified in believing or what we are permitted to believe given our evidence.

Epistemic normativity raises foundational questions concerning the semantics, metaphysics and epistemology of epistemology; questions that are traditionally asked about moral claims, such as the claim that murder is wrong. Do normative epistemic claims represent reality, or do they only signal the approval of a policy? Are some of the claims true in an absolute sense, or are they only true relative to a certain perspective? If they are true in an absolute sense, are there objective facts that make them so? And is it possible for us to have knowledge about these facts?

The aim of our project is to defend Robust Realism, which answers in the affirmative to all of the above questions. We are critical of a dominant anti-realist trend in foundational epistemology, which mainly derives from the conception of epistemology as a normative discipline. Apart from contributing to our understanding of epistemic normativity, the project will also be relevant to pressing issues such as the understanding of science and the increasing disregard for facts and evidence in society and the political debate. According to Robust Realism, the data of the climate scientists objectively justifies the belief in human caused climate change, and there is an absolute difference between genuine, real news and propaganda.