Is There Room for Justified Beliefs without Evidence? A Critical Assessment of Epistemic Evidentialism

Logos and Episteme 7 (2):137-152 (2016)
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Abstract

In the first section of this paper I present epistemic evidentialism and, in the following two sections, I discuss that view with counterexamples. I shall defend that adequately supporting evidence is a necessary, but not a sufficient, condition for epistemic justification. Although we need epistemic elements other than evidence in order to have epistemic justification, there can be no epistemically justified belief without evidence. However, there are other kinds of justification beyond the epistemic justification, such as prudential or moral justification; therefore, there is room for justified beliefs (in a prudential or moral sense) without evidence.

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Domingos Faria
University of Porto

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References found in this work

Evidentialism.Richard Feldman & Earl Conee - 1985 - Philosophical Studies 48 (1):15 - 34.
A new argument for evidentialism.Nishi Shah - 2006 - Philosophical Quarterly 56 (225):481–498.
Evidentialism: essays in epistemology.Earl Brink Conee - 2004 - New York: Oxford University Press. Edited by Richard Feldman.
Evidence.Earl Conee & Richard Feldman - 2008 - In Quentin Smith (ed.), Epistemology: New Essays. Oxford University Press.
The Will to Believe.William James - 1896 - The New World 5:327--347.

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