Agency, Rationality, and Epistemic Defeat: ARED

动物和婴儿能像成年人一样以理性的方式形成和修正信念吗？人类和动物理性能动性之间的关系是什么？虽然哲学家经常否认婴儿和动物可以被恰当地说成是理性的，理由是他们似乎缺乏评估他们的信念和行动的理由的能力，但认知科学家毫不犹豫地将婴儿和动物描述为理性的代理人，大致与人类成年人相同。ARED旨在通过发展适用于所有假定的理性主体的认识能动性和理性的特征来创建一个哲学和认知科学共同的概念框架：人类成年人，婴儿，非人类动物和许多哲学理论的理想化主体。它将整合原有的哲学框架与新的实证研究的认知非语言生物，将寻求证据的形式反射机构在非语言生物。如果实验证明是成功的，它们将支持一个突破性的假设，即人类和动物理性之间的差异是程度的差异，而不是种类的差异。该项目的哲学部分将侧重于反证如何要求信念修正（而不是证据如何支持信念）。该研究的一个重要特征是考虑获得处理所谓“破坏性失败者”的能力--反证表明一个人的信仰没有正确形成--作为从不反思转向反思的关键一步代理。这也是理解人类和动物理性之间关系的关键环节。该项目的实证部分将寻找证据，证明存在处理非语言儿童、猪和狗的破坏性失败者的能力。找到这样的证据将支持这样一种说法，即至少有一些非语言的代理人能够非常类似于成年人的反思机构的形式。哲学和经验的部分将相互通报，实验将根据涉及哲学家，心理学家和动物行为学家在斯特林和维也纳的讨论设计。大部分的哲学工作将在斯特林大学完成，而实证研究将在斯特林进行（婴儿）和维也纳兽医大学ARED将有助于界定迄今为止被忽视的知识和认知跨学科研究领域，其中认识论与发展心理学和行为学相结合，并且它可能具有超出学术界的广泛的可能应用。猪和狗的认知实验将为养猪业的福利评估和狗训练的新技术提供相关信息。与动物理性与人类理性有多接近的问题相关的证据是与正在进行的关于动物权利的辩论相关的重要证据。

Can animals and infants form and revise beliefs in a rational way just like adult humans? What is the relation between human and animal rational agency? While philosophers often deny that infants and animals may properly be said to be rational, on the grounds that they appear to lack the ability to assess their reasons for belief and action, cognitive scientists show little hesitation in describing infants and animals as rational agents in roughly the same sense that pertains to human adults. ARED aims to create a conceptual framework common to philosophy and cognitive science by developing a characterization of epistemic agency and rationality that applies to all putative rational agents: human adults, infants, non-human animals, and the idealized subjects of many philosophical theories. It will integrate the original philosophical framework with new empirical research on the cognition of non-linguistic creatures that will seek evidence of forms of reflective agency in non-linguistic creatures. Should the experiments prove successful, they would support the ground-breaking hypothesis that the difference between human and animal rationality is a difference of degree, not kind. The philosophical part of the project will focus on how counterevidence mandates belief revision (rather than on how evidence supports belief). One important feature of the research will be the consideration of the acquisition of the ability to process so-called "undermining defeaters"--counterevidence suggesting that one's beliefs were not properly formed--as the crucial step in moving from unreflective to reflective agency. It will be argued that that is also the crucial link in understanding the relation between human and animal rationality. The empirical part of the project will seek evidence for the existence of a capacity to process undermining defeaters in non-linguistic children, pigs and dogs. Finding such evidence would support the claim that at least some non-linguistic agents are capable of forms of reflective agency very similar to those of adult humans.The philosophical and the empirical part will inform each other, and the experiments will be designed in the light of discussions involving philosophers, psychologists and ethologists based in Stirling and Vienna. Most of the philosophical work will be done at the University of Stirling, while the empirical studies will happen in Stirling (on infants), and at the University of Veterinary Medicine in Vienna (on animals).ARED will contribute to the definition of an hitherto neglected area of interdisciplinary research on knowledge and cognition where epistemology meets developmental psychology and ethology, and it may have a wide range of possible applications beyond academia. The experiments on the cognition of pigs and dogs will deliver information relevant for the assessment of welfare in pig-farming and new techniques in dog-training. Evidence relevant to the question of how close animal rationality is to human rationality is important evidence relevant to ongoing debates about animal rights.