Mattia Rossi
Università della Svizzera Italiana
Dogmatism is widely considered a paradigmatic epistemic vice, particularly within Quassim Cassam’s obstructivist framework, which defines epistemic vices as traits that systematically obstruct knowledge and render their possessors epistemically criticizable. This paper interrogates that assumption, examining whether dogmatism is always vicious. After clarifying Cassam’s view, I explore whether dogmatism must necessarily obstruct knowledge and warrant criticism. While Cassam defends his theory by distinguishing dogmatism from intellectual tenacity, I argue that this distinction breaks down in the case of dogmatic responses to radical skepticism. When facing that challenge, the refusal to suspend one’s belief in the face of undercutting skeptical hypotheses appears epistemically unavoidable, thus undermining the criticizability condition. In accordance with Humean and Wittgensteinian insights, I contend that anti-skeptical dogmatism is a constitutive feature of human epistemic agency and, as such, cannot be reasonably criticized. This challenges the universality of obstructivism’s criticizability clause and suggests a need to treat dogmatism as a family of local, content-sensitive, traits, some of which may escape the status of epistemic vice.
Chair: Karol Milczarek
Time: 05 September, 10:40 – 11:10
Location: SR 1.003
SOPhiA 2026 