Abstract
It is commonplace amongst epistemologists to note the importance of grasping or appreciating one’s evidence. The idea seems to be that agents cannot successfully utilize evidence without it. Despite the popularity of this claim, the nature of appreciating or grasping evidence is unclear. This paper develops an account of what it takes to appreciate the epistemic relevance of one’s evidence, such that it can be used for some specific conclusion. I propose a basing account on which appreciating evidence involves being able to correctly base. That is, the agent is disposed to base various conclusions on her evidence that are objectively supported by that evidence. She can also derive correct conclusions if her evidence were slightly different. This account is cognitively undemanding, and explains why appreciation is crucial for the core functions of using evidence, like excluding hypotheses and probabilistic reasoning. I contrast this view with possible rival accounts and argue that the rival accounts add nothing over and above the basing account.
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Notes
The latter view also holds for Davidson. (Davidson, 1986)
That said, there is something plausible about demanding that having evidence means being able to use it for at least some conclusions. If that is right, it is a demand on having evidence that the agent appreciates its epistemic import for at least one conclusion.
For an overview on grasping, see (Baumberger et al., 2017, pp. 10–15).
An alternative starting point would have been the recent literature on the Taking Condition and inference. However, I take inference to be more demanding than merely using evidence. What follows will make it clear that introducing anything like a Taking Condition for appreciation would be too demanding, on most notions of Taking. See (Boghossian, 2014). Besides, as we shall see, taking grasping as a starting point allows for discussing some important elements potentially important for appreciation, that would not necessarily all appear in a discussion starting with theories of inference.
Pace Brandom. See (Brandom, 1994).
Schroeder is a rare opponent of this view. However, my account can be made compatible with his claims. See (Schroeder, 2011).
One can also think of this in Bayesian terms. See (Lin, 2024).
Valaris suggests something similar for reasoning. (Valaris, 2017)
It might be that appreciation is prior to something like proper basing, or successful basing. That would be fine, since neither are invoked to explain appreciation here. It is already granted that proper use of evidence would require appreciation. We could explain appreciation invoking basing, and then explain proper basing invoking appreciation. Another view is that successful or proper basing simply is basing plus appreciating the import of the base for the conclusion. Nothing about the basing view defended here blocks that move.
The problem with triviality is not so much that conclusions are entailed by the evidence, but rather that the conclusions are uninformative. Thus, drawing the conclusion that a complex theorem follows from a certain axiom can contribute to appreciation.
Novelty is also mentioned by Hills. See (Hills, 2015, p. 670).
This feature of coming in degrees can also be found in the literature on grasping. For example, (Hills, 2015)
Interestingly enough, Hills thinks that understanding why y entails believing that y, and also having a true belief about why y is the case. As is made clear here, nothing like that is required for appreciation. (Hills, 2015, p. 663).
Something similar is made explicit in (Baumberger et al., 2017, Sect. 4.2.2).
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Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Matt McGrath, Casey O’Callaghan, Allan Hazlett, Nic Koziolek, Harmen Ghijsen and Jon Kvanvig for their comments on earlier versions. I would also like to thank audiences at OZSW, Radboud and both the LOGOS and WashU WIPS. Finally, I would like to thank two anonymous reviewers for their comments.
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Montessori, A. What is appreciation?. Philos Stud 182, 589–604 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-025-02284-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-025-02284-1