American Philosophical Quarterly 55 (3):267-280 (2018)
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This paper criticizes phenomenal conservatism––the influential view according to which a subject S’s seeming that P provides S with defeasible justification for believing P. I argue that phenomenal conservatism, if true at all, has a significant limitation: seeming-based justification is elusive because S can easily lose it by just reflecting on her seemings and speculating about their causes––I call this the problem of reflective awareness. Because of this limitation, phenomenal conservatism doesn’t have all the epistemic merits attributed to it by its advocates. If true, phenomenal conservatism would constitute a unified theory of epistemic justification capable of giving everyday epistemic practices a rationale, but it wouldn’t afford us the means of an effective response to the sceptic. Furthermore, phenomenal conservatism couldn’t form the general basis for foundationalism.
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Keywords | Phenomenal conservatism seemings non-inferential justification appearances dogmatism Michael Huemer James Pryor scepticism foundationalism |
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Reprint years | 2019 |
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Citations of this work BETA
From One Conservative to Another: A Critique of Epistemic Conservatism.Blake McAllister - 2021 - Southwest Philosophy Review 37 (2):167-186.
Inferential Seemings and the Problem of Reflective Awareness.Luca Moretti - 2019 - Canadian Journal of Philosophy 49 (2):253-271.
The Truth of Scepticism: On the Varieties of Epistemological Doubt.Guido Tana - 2021 - Dissertation, University of Edinburgh
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