Linda Zagzebski Archives



More Generally: Contemporary Thinkers (201)

December 6, 2021

Zagzebski and Cuneo on Religious Communities

In her book Epistemic Authority, Linda Zagzebski defends a view on which epistemic authority (the right to be believed) is very closely analogous to practical authority (the right to be obeyed). According to Zagzebski, both are justified by my conscientious judgment that I am more likely to achieve my goals (including the goal of believing the truth) if I trust the authority than if I go off on my own. In justifying authority within small communities, Zagzebski (pp. 144-148) uses the example of a community dedicated to a particular skill or way of life. I might participate in an orchestra,...
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October 30, 2018

Why Isn't God a Perfect Frankfurt-Intervener?

In a number of publications on the problem of divine foreknowledge and human freedom, Linda Zagzebski has argued that principles derived from consideration of Frankfurt cases dissolve the problem. Essentially, Zagzebski suggests, the presence of a counterfactual intervener cannot make an action unfree. If there is no interference in one's action in the actual world nothing that goes on in some other possible world can render one unfree. If, however, we accept this principle, then the fact that God foreknows one's action shouldn't render one unfree either, since God's foreknowledge does not intervene in the course of one's action. Zagzebski...
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