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Believing without Evidence? The Ethics of Belief and Doxastic Control from Augustine to Fake News [BELIEVIDENCE]

Progetto
We live in a world with ever greater levels of uncontrolled news. This is partly due, of course, to access to unprecedented levels of information. But it is also linked – among other factors – to forms of mistrust and hostility towards those who are considered to be behind machinations or conspiracies: these groups are targeted either for political and economic reasons, or just because they possess certain types of knowledge. Yet this trend is by no means recent: the correlation between pandemics and the spread of fake news and conspiracy theories was already evident during the Black Death in the mid-14th century. What is perhaps most surprising is the fact that – then as now – certain individuals or groups, even large groups, believe in news or theories that have no basis whatsoever in fact: they refuse to even consider any form of evidence to the contrary. But can one really believe in something without evidence or, in the most extreme cases, against all evidence? To what extent are we required to be responsible not only for our actions, but also for our beliefs? And ultimately, is it really in our power to ‘want’ to believe something? Philosophical questions of this kind fall into the domain of what is referred to as ‘the ethics of belief’ – a domain whose genesis is usually traced back to the confrontation, in the late 19th century, between Clifford’s evidentialism and William James’ defence of certain forms of doxastic voluntarism and which still deserves, both from a theoretical and from a historical point of view, an in-depth study. In the first sense, this means taking an innovative stance on open questions such as: the possibility of voluntarily believing in something; the more or less restricted (or reductionist) way of understanding the requirements of evidentialism; and the value of testimony as a non-negligible foundation for the acceptance of certain truths. In the second sense, the aim is nothing less than to write something we lack: a comprehensive history of the ethics of belief, starting from Augustine of Hippo’s first significant reflections on the epistemic and moral value of beliefs, and tracing the debates on evidentialism and doxastic voluntarism in medieval and modern thought up to Kant. BELIEVIDENCE is thus, to its core, interdisciplinary and cross-chronological. Its basic methodological assumption is that we should not seek a linear continuity between past and present. Rather, we need the exact opposite. Only an accurate, philological examination of the differences and discontinuities between past and present will offer fresh and less obvious perspectives for interpreting current phenomena.
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Dati Generali

Partecipanti (2)

PORRO Pasquale   Responsabile scientifico  
DI GIOVANNI Matteo   Partecipante  

Referenti

BOANO Virginia   Amministrativo  

Dipartimenti coinvolti

STUDI UMANISTICI   Principale  

Tipo

PRIN 2022

Finanziatore

Ministero dell'Università e della Ricerca
Ente Finanziatore

Capofila

Università degli Studi di TORINO

Partner (4)

UNIVERSITA' DEL SALENTO
Università degli Studi di BARI
Università degli Studi di MILANO
Università degli Studi di PAVIA

Contributo Totale (assegnato) Ateneo (EURO)

45.703€

Periodo di attività

Dicembre 12, 2023 - Dicembre 11, 2025

Durata progetto

24 mesi

Aree Di Ricerca

Settori (11)


SH5_10 - Ethics; social and political philosophy - (2020)

SH5_11 - History of philosophy - (2020)

Settore M-FIL/08 - Storia della Filosofia Medievale

CULTURA, ARTE e CREATIVITA' - Culture Comparate

CULTURA, ARTE e CREATIVITA' - Culture moderne

LINGUE e LETTERATURA - Anglistica e angloamericanistica

LINGUE e LETTERATURA - Antichistica

LINGUE e LETTERATURA - Romenistica e Slavistica

SOCIETA', POLITICA, DIRITTO e RELAZIONI INTERNAZIONALI - Studio del pensiero storico, politico, sociologico e antropologico

STORIA, FILOSOFIA ed EDUCAZIONE - Educazione e promozione sociale

STORIA, FILOSOFIA ed EDUCAZIONE - Storia e Filosofia delle Scienze

Parole chiave (6)

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Certitude and custom
Conspiracy theories
Doxastic Voluntarism
Ethics of Belief
Evidentialism
Medieval philosophy
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Pubblicazioni

Pubblicazioni

Belief, Scientific Knowledge and Assent: Some Remarks from the Perspective of Medieval Philosophy 
RIVISTA DI FILOSOFIA
2025
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