Two theses are central to recent work on the epistemology of disagreement: Equal Weight (‘EW’): In cases of epistemic peer disagreement, one should give equal weight to the attitude of a peer and to one’s own attitude.1 Uniqueness (‘U’): For any given proposition and total body of evidence, some doxastic attitude is the one the evidence makes rational (justifies) toward that proposition.

There is an apparent tension in current accounts of the relationship between reason giving and self knowledge. On the one hand, philosophers like Richard Moran (2001) claim that deliberation and justification can give rise to first-person authority over the attitudes that subjects form or defend on the basis of what they take to be their best reasons. On the other hand, the psychological evidence on the introspection effects and the literature on elusive reasons suggest that engaging in explicit deliberation or (...) justification leads subjects to report attitudes that are not consistent with their previous attitudes or with their future behavior. On the basis of these findings, Tim Wilson (2002) argues that analyzing reasons compromises self knowledge. I shall defend a realistic account of the effects of reason giving which is compatible with the empirical findings on introspection and also with the claim that deliberation and justification have epistemic benefits. (shrink)

This paper assesses several prominent recent attacks on the view that epistemic justification is conceptually prior to knowledge. I argue that this view—call it the Received View (RV)—emerges from these attacks unscathed. I start with Timothy Williamson’s two strongest arguments for the claim that all evidence is knowledge (E>K), which impugns RV when combined with the claim that justification depends on evidence. One of Williamson’s arguments assumes a false epistemic closure principle; the other misses some alternative (to E>K) explanations of (...) a putative fact about the evidence a particular subject has. Next, I neutralize each of Jonathan Sutton’s three recent arguments to the conclusion that any justified belief constitutes knowledge. Finally, I consider a recent analysis of justification due to Alexander Bird, according to which justified belief is possible knowledge. I argue that Bird’s analysis delivers neither a sufficient nor (more importantly) a necessary condition for justification. [Word count: 149]. (shrink)

The author argues that the concept of justification is viewed best through elucidation of the processes of ethical and epistemic justification, with specific attention paid to what has been dubbed the "internalist/externalist" distinction in such justification. The first part of the argument clarifies the nature of the distinction as it occurs in ethics and then epistemic justification, noting that there is a parallel between the uses of the distinction, but that it is the way in which the uses are not (...) parallel that is most salient for conceptual purposes. The author then claims that there is an analogous distinction, frequently made in ethical justification, and that is the alleged normative/descriptive distinction. A look at the intersection of that distinction with the internalist/externalist juncture yields the notion that epistemic justification, in particular, could benefit from an externalist/ descriptive approach. Finally, the author argues that we would do well to apply some of the work of the social sciences to epistemic justification theory. The author concludes that the concept of justification includes all four components (internalist, externalist, nor mative, and descriptive) and that clarification of justification simpliciter involves an examination of justification in its various modes. (shrink)

In what follows, I will be making recommendations for how to understand and distinguish these three concepts. The account I will be developing situates the concept of epistemically rational belief into a well-integrated and philosophically respectable general theory of rationality; it links the concept of warranted belief with the theory of knowledge; and it insists that the concept of justified belief should be relevant to the assessments of each other’s beliefs that we are most interested in making in our everyday (...) lives, namely, assessments where the focus is not so much on whether one has fulfilled all the prerequisites of knowledge but rather on whether one has been a responsible believer. (shrink)

Book Information Epistemic Justification. By Richard Swinburne. Clarendon Press. Oxford. 2001. Pp. vi + 262. Hardback, US$55.00.

The problem of induction and the problem of Cartesian/brain-in-the-vat skepticism have much in common. Both are instances of a general problem of defeasible justification . I use the term "defeasible justification" to refer to a relation between a piece of evidence.

Epistemologists often offer theories of justification without paying much attention to the variety and diversity of locutions in which the notion of justification appears. For example, consider the following claims which contain some notion of justification: B is a justified belief, S's belief that p is justified, p is justified for S, S is justified in believing that p, S justifiably believes that p, S's believing p is justified, there is justification for S to believe that p, there is justification (...) for S's believing p, and S has a justification for believing that p. In addition to these passive uses of the notion of justification, there are active uses as well: S justified his belief in p, believing e justifies believing p, etc. The syntactic variety involves semantic difference as well. For example, the proposition S has a justification for believing that p does not entail that S believes p, whereas the proposition S justifiably believes that p does entail that S believes p. (shrink)

We shall evaluate two strategies for motivating the view that knowledge is the norm of belief. The first draws on observations concerning belief’s aim and the parallels between belief and assertion. The second appeals to observations concerning Moore’s Paradox. Neither of these strategies gives us good reason to accept the knowledge account. The considerations offered in support of this account motivate only the weaker account on which truth is the fundamental norm of belief.

Analytic epistemologists agree that, whatever else is true of epistemic justification, it is distinct from knowledge. However, if recent work by Jonathan Sutton is correct, this view is deeply mistaken, for according to Sutton justification is knowledge. That is, a subject is justified in believing that p iff he knows that p. Sutton further claims that there is no concept of epistemic justification distinct from knowledge. Since knowledge is factive, a consequence of Sutton’s view is that there are no false (...) justified beliefs. Following Sutton, I will begin by outlining kinds of beliefs that do not constitute knowledge but that seem to be justified. I will then be in a position to critically evaluate Sutton’s arguments for his position that justification is knowledge, concluding that he fails to establish his bold thesis. In the course of so doing, I will defend the following rule of assertion: (The JBK-rule) One must: assert p only if one has justification to believe that one knows that p. (shrink)

In Justification Without Awareness, Michael Bergmann attacks Internalism and Mentalism. His attack on Internalism refutes some versions of an awareness requirement for justification but leaves another standing and well-motivated. His attack on Mentalism, while successful, leaves us with a difficult question—what non-mental features play a role in determining justification?—that his own externalist theory fails to answer correctly.

I begin by asking the meta-epistemological question, 'What is justification?', analogous to the meta-ethical question, 'What is rightness?' I introduce the possibility of non-cognitivist, naturalist, non-naturalist, and eliminativist answers in meta-epistemology,corresponding to those in meta-ethics. I devote special attention to the naturalistic hypothesis that epistemic justification is identical to probability, showing its antecedent plausibility. I argue that despite this plausibility, justification cannot be identical with probability, under the standard interpretation of the probability calculus, for the simple reason that justification can (...) increase indefinitely but probability cannot. I then propose an alternative model for prima facie justification, based on an analogy with Ross's account of prima facie obligation, arguing that this model illuminates the differences between justification and probability and, given the plausible assumption of epistemic pluralism, explains them as well. (shrink)

The question addressed in this paper is how the degree of justification of a belief is determined. A conclusion may be supported by several different arguments, the arguments typically being defeasible, and there may also be arguments of varying strengths for defeaters for some of the supporting arguments. What is sought is a way of computing the “on sum” degree of justification of a conclusion in terms of the degrees of justification of all relevant premises and the strengths of all (...) relevant reasons. (shrink)

According to a captivating picture, epistemic justification is essentially a matter of epistemic or evidential likelihood. While certain problems for this view are well known, it is motivated by a very natural thought – if justification can fall short of epistemic certainty, then what else could it possibly be? In this paper I shall develop an alternative way of thinking about epistemic justification. On this conception, the difference between justification and likelihood turns out to be akin to the more widely (...) recognised difference between ceteris paribus laws and brute statistical generalisations. I go on to discuss, in light of this suggestion, issues such as classical and lottery-driven scepticism as well as the lottery and preface paradoxes. (shrink)

The main thesis of this paper is that it is not possible to determine the nature of epistemic justification apart from scientific psychological investigation. I call this view the strong thesis of methodological psychologism. Two sub-theses provide the primary support for this claim. The first sub-thesis is that no account of epistemic justification is correct which requires for the possession of at least one justified belief a psychological capacity which humans do not have. That is, the correct account of epistemic (...) justification must be psychologically realistic. The second sub-thesis is that it is not possible to determine whether an account of epistemic justification is psychologically realistic apart from scientific psychological investigation. After defending these subtheses, I point out some interesting consequences of the overall thesis which present a challenge to traditional epistemology. (shrink)

This paper concerns the recent debate on the nature and motivations of the epistemological project advanced in Rudolf Carnap's (18911970) Aufbau. Much of this debate has been initiated by Michael Friedman and Alan Richardson who argue (against the received view of the Aufbau as a foundationalist defense of empiricism) that Carnap's epistemological project is located in the tradition of neo-Kantian epistemology. On this revisionist reading of the Aufbau, Carnap's project is not motivated to address traditional empiricist problems regarding the justification (...) of knowledge, but rather to show how objective knowledge is possible. A central aspect of the Aufbau that is neglected in the revisionists' analysis is the role of epistemic justification in Carnap's project. The aim of the present study is to argue that although the general epistemology in the Aufbau can be cast as neo-Kantian, Carnap's method of construction theory (or rational reconstruction) is formulated precisely as an empiricist method for the justification of conceptual knowledge. Construction theory radically redefines `empirical justification' into a formal-conventional notion, and is part of Carnap's more general agenda of redefining epistemology as a purely formal discipline. (shrink)

Theories of epistemic justification are usually described as belonging to either deontological or nondeontological categories of justification with the former construing the concept of justification as involving the fulfillment of epistemic duty. Despite being the dominant view among traditional epistemologists, the deontological conception has been subjected to severe criticisms in the current literature for failing, among others, to do justice to the (alleged) truth-conducive character of epistemic justification. In this paper I set out to show that there is something deeply (...) unsatisfying about the way these different conceptions of justification are usually introduced and contrasted with each other leaving it unclear just what it is that renders a particular conception deontological. In particular I look at Alston's treatment of the issue, and show that his reasons for rejecting the deontological conception involve question-begging assumptions demonstrating, at best, the possibility of its divergence from truth-conductive justification. Far from being able to settle the issue one way or another, the arguments, I shall suggest actually seem to show some sort of tolerant pluralism in justification theory to be a live option. (shrink)