This post is by Alejandro Vázquez del Mercado , Professor of Philosophy at UNAM (Mexico’s National Autonomous University), where he coordinates the Seminar of Cognitive Diversity. Alejandro Vázquez del Mercado Bereavement deeply affects every aspect of life, but reflections on its epistemic impact are comparatively scarce in philosophy. In my view, the best way to think about this is in terms of epistemic functionality, a core notion from the Epistemic Innocence framework that I’ve found extremely fruitful. When evaluating epistemic functioning, the focus is not on the degree of justification possessed by the beliefs of the bereaved, but on the person’s ability to regularly acquire epistemic goods, such as true beliefs, evidence, and understanding. Bereavement studies provide an important starting point to understand how the death of someone close is epistemically disruptive. The ambivalence and dissonance pertaining to the fact that the deceased is no longer pr...
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