According to the truth-conduciveness problem of coherentism, the coherence theory of justification can hardly show that coherentist justification is truth-conducive. This problem is generally conceived as the most recalcitrant problem with the coherence theory. The purpose of this paper is to show that it does not pose a serious problem for a certain version of coherentism, namely a Sellarsian explanatory coherence theory of justification combined with the deflationary theory of truth. On this version of coherentism, our epistemic goal is to (...) gradually improve our conceptual framework so as to maximize its explanatory coherence, and there is no substantial norm of truth independent of the norms of justification, so that we cannot evaluate the truth-conduciveness of a belief independently of the norms of justification. I argue that this version of coherentism can cope with the truth-conduciveness problem. (shrink)

According to the Kantian-Brandomian view of concepts, we can understand concepts in terms of norms or rules that bind those who apply them, and the application of a concept requires that the concept-user be sensitive to the norms governing its application. But this view faces some serious objections. In particular, according to Rosen, Glüer and Wikforss, this view leads to a vicious regress of norms. The purpose of this paper is to defend a version of the Kantian-Brandomian view of concepts (...) against this objection. I argue that we can deal with this problem along the lines of a coherentist account of justification. (shrink)

I can, given the right conditions, transmit my knowledge to you by telling you some information. If I know the time, and if all goes well, I can bring it about that you know it too. If conditions are right, all I have to do is assert to you what time it is. Paradigmatically, speakers use assertions to transmit what they know to their hearers. Clearly, assertion and testimony are tightly connected. The nature of this connection, however, is not so (...) clear. According to many accounts, assertion has an epistemic constitutive norm. This norm appears to be able to account for some important features of testimony: first, testimonial knowledge transmission, second, the reliability of testimony, and third, the epistemic rights exchanged in cases of testimony. In this paper, however, I argue against this apparent ability. The constitutive norm of assertion, I argue, plays no role in accounts of testimonial knowledge transmission, or of the epistemic rights that testimony confers. This is especially clear whe.. (shrink)

According to a traditional picture, perception and belief have starkly different epistemic roles. Beliefs have epistemic statuses as justified or unjustified, depending on how they are formed and maintained. In contrast, perceptions are “unjustified justifiers.” Core cognition is a set of mental systems that stand at the border of perception and belief, and has been extensively studied in developmental psychology. Core cognition's borderline states do not fit neatly into the traditional epistemic picture. What is the epistemic role of these states? (...) Focusing on the core object system, the author argues that core object representations have epistemic statuses like beliefs do, despite their many prototypically perceptual features. First, the author argues that it is a sufficient condition on a mental state's having an epistemic status as justified or unjustified that the state is based on reasons. Then the author argues that core object representations are based on reasons, through an examination of both experimental results and key markers of the basing relation. The scope of mental states that are subject to epistemic evaluation as justified or unjustified is not restricted to beliefs. (shrink)

The notion of entitlement plays an important role in some influential epistemologies. Often the epistemological motive for introducing the concept is to accommodate certain externalist intuitions within an internalist framework or, conversely, to incorporate internalist traits into an otherwise externalist position. In this paper two prominent philosophers will be used as examples: Tyler Burge as a representative of the first option and Fred Dretske as one of the second. However, even on the assumption that the concept of entitlement is sufficiently (...) clarified, accomplishing these results is easier said than done – especially if we also want to ascribe positive epistemic value to entitlement. It will be shown that the epistemic value of entitlement is either granted at the expense of the epistemic value of justification or the value ends up below the level of value at which the epistemologists employing the concept of entitlement are aiming. (shrink)

This paper investigates some epistemic properties that distinguish understanding from knowledge. In particular, the focus is on how to spell out the notion of grasping the relationships between propositions that constitute objectual understanding: what kind of epistemic access is required for grasping to occur and to what extent is the act of grasping voluntary? A modest form of access is suggested as an answer to the first question and a largely negative answer to the second. The worry that my suggestion (...) is too permissive in crediting subjects with understanding is addressed. The results are then finally briefly contrasted to Ernest Sosa’s notion of knowing full well where one contrast precisely concerns the voluntary character of the respective epistemic states. (shrink)

This paper proposes a new externalist account of defeaters, in terms of reliable indicators, as an integral part of a unified externalist account of warrant and defeat. It is argued that posing externalist conditions on warrant, but internalist conditions on defeat lead to undesirable tensions. The proposal is contrasted to some rival accounts and then tested on some widely discussed cases, like the airport case. Misleading defeaters, where Laurence BonJour’s reliable clairvoyants serve as examples, also receive treatment, partly because they (...) illustrate how internalist constraints are inserted into the set up of the problem and therefore unduly constrain the domain of satisfactory solutions. Lastly, the proposal is defended against some objections. Firstly, that by posing externalist conditions on defeat, the account becomes too open. Secondly, that an externalist account fails to take into account the epistemic assessments of our fellows in the epistemic practice of forming beliefs and making epistemic claims, which can be based on accessible warrant only. (shrink)

I distinguish between three kinds of reliabilism for epistemic justification, namely, pure reliabilism, evidential reliabilism, and reasons reliabilism, and I argue for reasons reliabilism. Pure reliabilism and evidential reliabilism are plagued, most importantly, by the generality problem, and they cannot deal adequately with defeater phenomena. One can avoid these problems only by jettisoning the idea of process reliability. The truth connection ? which is essential for any kind of reliabilism ? has to be provided in an altogether different way, namely, (...) by means of facts in the world which serve as objective reasons (or evidence). So, as reasons reliabilism says, a justified belief has to be anchored in an objective reason which speaks in favor of its truth. Only in this way can intuitions about defeaters be preserved and explained. And reasons reliabilism can avoid the generality problem. (shrink)

I attempt to persuade the reader that externalism admits of no plausible interpretation. I argue that reliability is a concept with very different contours from epistemic justification, and that attempts to explicate justification in terms of reliability must fail. I address several other forms of externalism, and also mixed forms of justification. I then argue that externalist theories of justification cannot close the gap between mere true belief and knowledge. I suggest that a fourth condition on knowledge is required, regardless (...) of whether justification is internalist or externalist. I argue that with such a fourth condition a strong internalist theory of justification is adequate to the task that remains in making true belief knowledge. Additionally, strong internalism is more satisfying to our intuitions than externalism and mixed forms of justification. (shrink)

In section one the deontological (or responsibilist) conception of justification is discussed and explained. In section two, arguments are put forward in order to derive the most plausible version of perspectival internalism, or the position that epistemic justification is a function of factors internal to the believer's cognitive perspective. The two most common considerations put forward in favor of perspectival internalism are discussed. These are the responsibilist conception of justification, and the intuition that two believers with like beliefs and experiences (...) are equally justified in their like beliefs. In section three it is argued that perspectival internalism is false, and that in fact the position is not supported by a responsibilist conception of justification. Section four explicates two other forms of internalism, which are rejected for reasons similar to those presented against perspectival internalism. In section five, an internalist theory of justification is defended which is supported by a responsibilist conception of justification. Roughly stated, the position is that justified belief is belief which arises from the use of correct rules of reasoning. The idea of correctness is explicated, and the position is distinguished from others which are similar to it. (shrink)

The standard taxonomy of theories of epistemic justification generates four positions from the Foundationalism v. Coherentism and Internalism v. Externalism disputes. I develop a new taxonomy driven by two other distinctions: Fundamentalism v. Non-Fundamentalism and Actual-Result v. Proper-Aim conceptions of epistemic justification. Actual-Result theorists hold that a belief is justified only if, as an actual matter of fact, it is held or formed in a way that makes it more likely than not to be true. Proper-Aim theorists hold that a (...) belief is justified only if it is held or formed in a way that it proper or correct insofar as truth is the aim or norm. Fundamentalists hold that which particular ways of holding or forming beliefs that confer justification is knowable a priori; epistemic principles are a priori necessary truths. Non- Fundamentalists disagree; epistemic principles are empirical contingent truths. The new taxonomy generates four positions: Cartesianism, Reliabilism, Intuitionism, and Pragmatism. The first two are Actual-Result; the second two are Proper-Aim. The first and third are Fundamentalist, the second and fourth are Non-Fundamentalist. The new taxonomy illuminates much of the current debate in the theory of epistemic justification. (shrink)

This book deserves kudos. It presents one of the more novel versions of reliabilism to appear in recent years. The style is fast-paced and energetic, with no sacrifice in philosophical precision. It applies original interpretations of perceptual science to central issues in traditional epistemology, and should thereby earn itself a prominent place in the naturalistic epistemology literature. Finally, the book is more comprehensive than its title suggests. It illuminates a great many issues of traditional epistemology beyond perception, providing an up-to-date (...) and thorough-going basic epistemology. (shrink)

Predictive processing accounts of perception assume that perception does not work in a purely bottom-up fashion but also uses acquired knowledge to make top-down predictions about the incoming sensory signals. This provides a challenge for foundationalist accounts of perception according to which perceptual beliefs are epistemically basic, that is, epistemically independent from other beliefs. If prior beliefs rationally influence which perceptual beliefs we come to accept, then foundationalism about perception appears untenable. I review several ways in which foundationalism might be (...) reconciled with PP from both an internalist and externalist perspective, and argue that an externalist foundationalism provides the best match with PP. (shrink)

According to process reliabilism, a belief produced by a reliable belief-forming process is justified. I introduce problems for this theory on any account of reliability. Does the performance of a process in some domain of worlds settle its reliability? The theories that answer “Yes” typically fail to state the temporal parameters of this performance. I argue that any theory paired with any plausible parameters has implausible implications. The theories that answer “No,” I argue, thereby lack essential support and exacerbate familiar (...) problems. There are new reasons to avoid any reliability conditions on justification. (shrink)

Peter Graham has recently given a dilemma purportedly showing the compatibility of libertarianism about free will and the anti-skeptical epistemology of testimony. In the first part of this paper I criticize his dilemma: the first horn either involves a false premise or makes the dilemma invalid. The second horn relies without argument on an implausible assumption about testimonial knowledge, and even if granted, nothing on this horn shows libertarianism does not entail skepticism about testimonial justification. I then argue for the (...) incompatibility of (i) a view entailed by Open Theism, viz., that there are no true counterfactuals of freedom, (ii) a popular form of process reliabilism about justification and knowledge, and (iii) a weak anti-skepticism about testimonial justification and knowledge. I conclude that there is a costly tension between certain views about testimony and about free will. (shrink)

This paper evaluates Peter Klein’s objection to foundationalism. According to Klein, foundationalism fails because it allows arbitrariness “at the base.” I first explain that this objection can be interpreted in two ways: either as targeting dialectical foundationalism or as targeting epistemic foundationalism. I then clarify Klein’s concept of arbitrariness. An assertion or belief is assumed to be arbitrary if and only if it lacks a reason that is “objectively and subjectively available.” Drawing on this notion, I evaluate Klein’s objection. I (...) first argue that his objection construed as targeting dialectical foundationalism fails, since nothing prevents dialectical foundationalism from ruling out arbitrary assertions. I then argue that the objection seen as targeting epistemic foundationalism cannot be disqualified in the way some foundationalists believe. However, I show that also the objection so construed does not succeed, since epistemic foundationalism need not countenance arbitrary beliefs. (shrink)

Our beliefs utilize various sources: perception, memory, induction, etc. We trust these sources to provide reliable information about the world around us. My dissertation investigates how this trust could be justified. Chapter one introduces background material. I argue that justification rather than knowledge is of primary epistemological importance, discuss the internalism/externalism debate, and introduce an evidentialist thesis that provides a starting point/framework for epistemological theorizing. Chapter two introduces a puzzle concerning justification. Can a belief source provide justification absent prior justification (...) for believing it's reliable? Any answer appears to either make justifying the reliability of a source intellectually unsatisfying or all together impossible. Chapter three considers and rejects a plethora of proposed solutions to our puzzle. Investigating these solutions illustrates the need to further investigate evidence, evidence possession, and evidential support. Chapter four discusses the metaphysics of evidence. I argue that evidence always consists of a set of facts and that fact-proposition pairs stand in confirmation relations isomorphic to those holding between pairs of propositions. Chapter five argues that justification requires what I call actually connected possession of supporting evidence: a subject must be aware of supporting evidence and of the support relation itself. Chapter six argues that the relation constitutive of a set of facts being justificatory evidence is a sui generis and irreducible relation that is knowable a priori. Chapter seven begins by showing how Richard Fumerton's acquaintance theory meets the constraints on a theory of justification laid down in previous chapters. I modify the theory so as to: make room for fallible foundational justification, and allow inferential justification absent higher-order beliefs about evidential connections. Chapter eight applies the developed theory of justification to our initial puzzle. I show how my modified acquaintance theory is in a unique position to vindicate the idea that necessarily a source provides a person with justification only if she is aware of evidence for the reliability of that source. However, this awareness of evidence for a source's reliability falls short of a justified belief and thereby avoids impalement from our dilemma's skeptical horn. (shrink)

The dissertation examines the nature and epistemic implications of epistemic source circularity. An argument exhibits this type of circularity when at least one of the premises is produced by a belief source the conclusion says is legitimate, e.g. a track record argument for the legitimacy of sense perception that uses premises produced by sense perception. In chapter one I examine this and several other types of circularity, identifying relevant similarities and differences between them. In chapter two I discuss the differences (...) between internalist and externalist analyses of justification. I examine in detail foundationalist and non-foundationalist versions of internalism, and go on to consider how one might characterize externalism: either negatively, by denying particular internalist theses, or positively, in terms of a theory offering different conditions for justification. I discuss the views of reliabilist foundationalists at length. In chapter three I present the internalist objection to externalism that the latter mistakenly permit one to be justified in believing the conclusion of an epistemic source circular inference. I explain the externalists' response that it is not in virtue of their externalism that they permit epistemic source circularity but rather their foundationalism; thus, internalist foundationalists must permit epistemic source circularity as well. I evaluate the positions of several internalists, most of them explicitly foundationalists, and argue that they too cannot avoid permitting epistemic source circularity. In the final chapter I consider whether such circularity is vicious, even though both internalist and externalist foundationalists permit it. I argue that one can sustain an objection to epistemic source circularity by imposing a non-question-begging requirement on justification and explain how respecting this requirement leads one to a non-foundationalist view. I conclude by considering the objection that question-begging leads to a certain arbitrariness in belief formation that should give the foundationalist pause when it comes to determining, at the beginning of inquiry, which beliefs are justified and which are not. The dissertation is primarily concerned with making clear the possible skeptical and non-skeptical positions one can take towards epistemic source circularity. I do not argue for the truth of a particular metaepistemology. (shrink)

Traditional accounts of justification can be characterized as trying to analyze justification in such a way that having a justified belief brings with it assurance of truth. The internalist offers a demanding requirement on justification: one's having a justified belief requires that one see what the belief has going for it. Externalists worry that the internalist's narrow conception of justification will lead to unacceptably radical and implausible skepticism. According to the externalist, one need not know what a belief has going (...) for it in order for that belief to be justified. Externalism, though, comes with its own problems. Ernest Sosa has attempted to bridge the divide between internalism and externalism by pairing the strengths of internalism with the strengths of externalism. Sosa distinguishes two kinds of knowledge: animal knowledge that is essentially externalist in character and reflective knowledge that is intended to capture our best intellectual procedure in regards to knowledge. On Sosa's view, one gains reflective knowledge by building upon animal knowledge. As a result, Sosa's view seems to illustrate a bottom-up approach to the analysis of knowledge : reflective knowledge is the result of animal knowledge and some other epistemic factor. My project, in contrast to Sosa's, is to argue that one should start with an account of ideal justification and then proceed by loosening the standards on ideal justification in an effort to develop the possibility of non- ideal kinds of justification. The view that I will develop will adopt Sosa's strategy of distinguishing kinds of knowledge, but will result in a top-down approach to the analysis of justification. Instead of starting with an undemanding standard and layer levels on top, I will start with an ideal standard and strip layers away. I will also argue that my view has some important advantages over Sosa's. Not only does Sosa's view seem to run into many of the problems that threaten externalism, but his view is incapable of offering the kind of assurance that the internalist is after. The view I develop will maintain the internalist's interest in assurance while also providing a response to some of the skeptical problems that have plagued internalists. If my project is successful, then, even if the justification that results in many of the cases I will be exploring is not ideal, we can use these conceptions of justification to help explicate how one might have justified beliefs about a great number of things. The essentially internalist account that I have offered will not only illustrate a serious approach to dealing with skepticism, but it will also capture how many of our commonsensically justified beliefs are in fact justified. (shrink)

The purpose of this thesis is to provide a metaphysic for moral realism and moral perception. This thesis is in two parts. The first is concerned with basic ontology. I begin in chapter 1 with an analysis of causation, demonstrating that substance theory is superior to Humeanism at accounting for our observations; thus I defend a substance ontology. In chapter 2, I address human agency, demonstrating that reasons internalism does not allow for incompatibilist freedom; hence, I affirm reasons are states (...) of affairs. I move on to qualia in chapter 3, demonstrating that arguments both for and against qualia realism involve question begging. In response, I argue that qualia realism is just as reasonable as anti-realism, and affirm realism. Given this, I address the mind-body problem in chapter 4, demonstrating the failure of physicalists to account for mental causation. I conclude that panpsychism, idealism, and substance dualism are equal reasonable alternatives: each allows for intrinsic properties, which are integral to substance ontology. The second part builds a moral ontology, along with an account of moral perceptual knowledge, compatible with the above basic ontology. In chapter 5, I reject moral properties as monadic since this would bar mapping moral concepts onto mind-independent reality. Instead, I argue that moral properties are relations. More specifically, in chapter 6, I make the case that they are features of relations, relations themselves being the total complex states of affairs between one or more substances. This allows moral properties to have their own nonreducible phenomenal quality. To account for moral normativity, I argue that moral features are actually a class of causal features, and briefly argue that final causes determine the normative causal trajectory of all substances. In chapter 7, I conclude this thesis with addressing possible objections to my theory of perception and perceptual knowledge. (shrink)

We are justified in employing the rule of inference Modus Ponens (or one much like it) as basic in our reasoning. By contrast, we are not justified in employing a rule of inference that permits inferring to some difficult mathematical theorem from the relevant axioms in a single step. Such an inferential step is intuitively “too large” to count as justified. What accounts for this difference? In this paper, I canvass several possible explanations. I argue that the most promising approach (...) is to appeal to features like usefulness or indispensability to important or required cognitive projects. On the resulting view, whether an inferential step counts as large or small depends on the importance of the relevant rule of inference in our thought. (shrink)

To the great puzzlement of his readers, Berkeley begins by arguing that nothing exists other than minds and ideas, but concludes by claiming to have defended the existence of bodies. How can Berkeley's idealism amount to such a defense? I introduce resources from Berkeley's philosophy of language, and especially his analysis of the discourse of physics, to defend a novel answer to this question. According to Berkeley, the technical terms of physics are meaningful despite failing to designate any reality; their (...) meaningfulness derives from the useful role they play in organizing and predicting our experience. I argue that Berkeleian bodies have the same status as these theoretical entities: they are mere 'quasi-entities' introduced by our ways of speaking and thinking in order to serve our practical purposes. Berkeley nevertheless considers this to be a defense of the existence of bodies because he endorses a radically deflationary semantics for 'exists.'. (shrink)

My dissertation is a systematic defense of the claim that what it is to be rational is to correctly respond to the reasons you possess. The dissertation is split into two parts, each consisting of three chapters. In Part I--Coherence, Possession, and Correctly Responding--I argue that my view has important advantages over popular views in metaethics that tie rationality to coherence (ch. 2), defend a novel view of what it is to possess a reason (ch. 3), and defend a novel (...) view about what it is to act and hold attitudes for normative reasons (ch. 4). In Part II--Foundationalism, Deception, and The Importance of Being Rational--I argue that foundationalists about epistemic rationality should think that the foundational beliefs are held for sufficient reasons (ch. 5), argue that my view solves the New Evil Demon problem for externalism (and solves a related and underapprieciated problem) (ch. 6), and argue that my view can vindicate the thought that we ought to be rational (ch. 7). (shrink)

Based on Pritchard's distinction between favoring and discriminating epistemic grounds, and on how those grounds bear on the elimination of skeptical possibilities, I present the dream argument as a moderate skeptical possibility that can be reasonably motivated. In order to block the dream argument skeptical conclusion, I present a version of phenomenological disjunctivism based on Noë's actionist account of perceptual consciousness. This suggests that perceptual knowledge is rationally grounded because it is a form of embodied achievement - what I call (...) embodied rationality -, which offers a way of dissolving the pseudo-problem of epistemic immodesty, namely, the seemingly counterintuitive thesis that one can acquire rationally grounded knowledge that one is not in a radical skeptical scenario. (shrink)

Two theses figure centrally in work on the epistemology of disagreement: Equal Weight (‘EW’) and Uniqueness (‘U’). According to EW, you should give precisely as much weight to the attitude of a disagreeing epistemic peer as you give to your own attitude. U has it that, for any given proposition and total body of evidence, some doxastic attitude is the one the evidence makes rational (justifies) toward that proposition. Although EW has received considerable discussion, the case for U has not (...) been critically evaluated. Endorsing U, we argue, commits one to the highly controversial thesis that whatever fixes your rational attitudes can do so only by fixing what evidence you have. This commitment imposes a relatively demanding requirement on justified belief in U, one that we argue is not satisfied by what is currently the strongest available case for U, due to Roger White [2005]. Our challenge to U makes more trouble for its proponents than do the worries about U expressed by Gideon Rosen [2001] and Thomas Kelly [2010]. Moreover, if Kelly [2010] is correct in thinking that EW “carries with it a commitment to” U—a claim which we accept for reasons similar to Kelly’s but is beyond this paper’s scope (but see Ballantyne and Coffman [forthcoming])—then our challenge to U bears importantly on EW: to the extent that our challenge to U succeeds, EW also suffers. (shrink)

Evidentialism is an internalist view (or family of views) about epistemic justification saying that a subject s’s epistemic justification entirely depends on the evidence at her disposal. In order to distil a complete theory of epistemic justification from this general principle it is necessary to answer three main questions. What kind of entities constitute a subject’s evidence? What does it take for a piece of evidence E to support a proposition P? What does it take for a subject s to (...) possess E? In this entry I describe the main answers defended in the literature in response to these three questions, and critically discuss the main objections that have been raised against evidentialism, both at a general level and as targeting more specific variants of it. (shrink)

In this article I argue that the prevalence of intersubjective disagreement in epistemology poses a serious problem for Epistemic Externalism. I put the problem in the form of a dilemma: either Epistemic Externalism is not a complete account of epistemic justification or it’s implausible to claim that the belief that Epistemic Externalism is true is itself an externalistically justified belief.

Dogmatism is a claim about a possible epistemic position, not about the metaphysics of what puts us in that position. So, for example, it leaves it open whether the intrinsic nature of a perceiving subject’s state is the same as that of a hallucinating subject’s state.