Scepticism, defeasible evidence and entitlement

Philosophical Studies 168 (2):439-455 (2014)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

The paper starts by describing and clarifying what Williamson calls the consequence fallacy. I show two ways in which one might commit the fallacy. The first, which is rather trivial, involves overlooking background information; the second way, which is the more philosophically interesting, involves overlooking prior probabilities. In the following section, I describe a powerful form of sceptical argument, which is the main topic of the paper, elaborating on previous work by Huemer. The argument attempts to show the impossibility of defeasible justification, justification based on evidence which does not entail the (allegedly) justified proposition or belief. I then discuss the relation between the consequence fallacy, or some similar enough reasoning, and that form of argument. I argue that one can resist that form of sceptical argument if one gives up the idea that a belief cannot be justified unless it is supported by the totality of the evidence available to the subject—a principle entailed by many prominent epistemological views, most clearly by epistemological evidentialism. The justification, in the relevant cases, should instead derive solely from the prior probability of the proposition. A justification of this sort, that does not rely on evidence, would amount to a form of entitlement, in (something like) Crispin Wright’s sense. I conclude with some discussion of how to understand prior probabilities, and how to develop the notion of entitlement in an externalist epistemological framework

Similar books and articles

On Epistemic Entitlement.Crispin Wright & Martin Davies - 2004 - Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 78:167-245.
Perceptual Justification and Warrant by Default.Chris Tucker - 2009 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 87: 445-63 87 (3):445-63.
The concept of entitlement and its epistemic relevance.Hamid Vahid - 2011 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 92 (3):380-399.
How fallacious is the consequence fallacy?Wai-Hung Wong & Zanja Yudell - 2013 - Philosophical Studies 165 (1):221-227.
Epistemic Entitlement.Jon Altschul - 2011 - Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Scepticism and dreaming.Duncan Pritchard - 2001 - Philosophia 28 (1-4):373-390.
What is entitlement?Albert Casullo - 2007 - Acta Analytica 22 (4):267 - 279.
An old problem for the new rationalism.Yuval Avnur - 2011 - Synthese 183 (2):175-185.
Entitlement and Evidence.Martin Smith - 2013 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 91 (4):735-753.

Analytics

Added to PP
2013-04-26

Downloads
336 (#54,226)

6 months
72 (#54,301)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Daniele Sgaravatti
University of Naples Federico II

Citations of this work

No citations found.

Add more citations

References found in this work

Knowledge and its limits.Timothy Williamson - 2000 - New York: Oxford University Press.
The Philosophy of Philosophy.Timothy Williamson - 2007 - Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.
Change in View: Principles of Reasoning.Gilbert Harman - 1986 - Cambridge, MA, USA: MIT Press.
Knowledge and Its Limits.Timothy Williamson - 2000 - Philosophy 76 (297):460-464.
Knowledge and its Limits.Timothy Williamson - 2000 - Tijdschrift Voor Filosofie 64 (1):200-201.

View all 30 references / Add more references