The Problem of Epistemic Responsibility and Its Psychophysiological Foundations

Abstract

The article analyzes the concept of “epistemic responsibility” as a subject's ability to perceive themself as an agent of the cognitive process, trusting their own cognitive abilities, as well as developing independently the rules of achievement and criteria of success of their cognitive activity. With the development of cognitive sciences, as well as the improvement of modern neuroimaging technologies, it has become possible to study the psychophysiological correlates of “epistemic responsibility” in the human brain. However, there are obvious difficulties related to the formalization of this epistemic and simultaneously ethical category, as well as the persuasiveness of justification of the presence of such correlates due to the difference between the theoreticality of epistemological and ethical methodological apparatus and the physical nature of the brain. The latter requires empirical substantiation of the judgments made, including the detection of psychophysiological correlates of epistemic responsibility. Nevertheless, the article attempts to substantiate the possibility of finding such correlates in order to understand the relationship between the processes in the human brain and the ability to conduct responsible intellectual behavior. Such a rationale is intended to provide an empirical basis for “responsibility” that allows for a more or less unbiased assessment of a subject's cognitive abilities as credible in achieving “reliable” knowledge.