European Journal of Philosophy, EarlyView.

Evolutionary debunkers claim that evolutionary explanations of moral phenomena lead to sceptical conclusions. The aim of this paper is to show that even if we grant debunkers the speculative claims that evolution provides the best explanation of moral phenomena and that there are no other moral phenomena for which moral facts/properties are indispensable, the sceptical conclusions debunkers seek to establish still do not follow. The problem for debunkers is to link the empirical explanatory claim to the normative conclusion that moral (...) beliefs are unjustified. The paper argues that debunkers face a dilemma, and that neither of the two options available to them supports the sceptical conclusions for which they aim. Consequently, it is claimed, the dialectical force of evolutionary debunking arguments is, at best, exceedingly weak. (shrink)

In this paper we argue that Michael Huemer’s phenomenal conservatism—the internalist view according to which our beliefs are prima facie justified if based on how things seems or appears to us to be—doesn’t fall afoul of Michael Bergmann’s dilemma for epistemological internalism. We start by showing that the thought experiment that Bergmann adduces to conclude that is vulnerable to his dilemma misses its target. After that, we distinguish between two ways in which a mental state can contribute to the justification (...) of a belief: the direct way and the indirect way. We identify a straightforward reason for claiming that the justification contributed indirectly is subject to Bergmann’s dilemma. Then we show that the same reason doesn’t extend to the claim that the justification contributed directly is subject to Bergmann’s dilemma. As is the view that seemings or appearances contribute justification directly, we infer that Bergmann’s contention that his dilemma applies to is unmotivated. In the final part, we suggest that our line of response to Bergmann can be used to shield other types of internalist justification from Bergmann’s objection. We also propose that seeming-grounded justification can be combined with justification of one of these types to form the basis of a promising version of internalist foundationalism. (shrink)

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. (shrink)

This paper explains what’s wrong with a Hume-inspired argument for skepticism about induction. Hume’s argument takes as a premise that inductive reasoning presupposes that the future will resemble the past. I explain why that claim is not plausible. The most plausible premise in the vicinity is that inductive reasoning from E to H presupposes that if E then H. I formulate and then refute a skeptical argument based on that premise. Central to my response is a psychological explanation for how (...) people judge that if E then H without realizing that they thereby settled the matter rationally. (shrink)

This entry addresses the nature and epistemological role of intuition by considering the following questions: (1) What are intuitions?, (2) What roles do they serve in philosophical (and other “armchair”) inquiry?, (3) Ought they serve such roles?, (4) What are the implications of the empirical investigation of intuitions for their proper roles?, and (5) What is the content of intuitions prompted by the consideration of hypothetical cases?

Kiesewetter defends the normativity of rationality by presenting a new solution to the problems that arise from the common assumption that we ought to be rational. He provides a defence of a reason-response conception of rationality, an evidence-relative account of reason, and an explanation of structural irrationality in relation to these accounts.

Many have found it plausible that knowledge is a constitutively normative state, i.e. a state that is grounded in the possession of reasons. Many have also found it plausible that certain cases of proprioceptive knowledge, memorial knowledge, and self-evident knowledge are cases of knowledge that are not grounded in the possession of reasons. I refer to these as cases of basic knowledge. The existence of basic knowledge forms a primary objection to the idea that knowledge is a constitutively normative state. (...) In what follows I offer a way through the apparent dilemma of having to choose between either basic knowledge or the normativity of knowledge. The solution involves homing in on a state of awareness (≈non-accidental true representation) that is distinct from knowledge and which in turn grounds the normativity of knowledge in a way that is fully consistent with the existence of basic knowledge. An upshot of this is that externalist theories of knowledge turn out to be fully compatible with the thesis that knowledgeable beliefs are always beliefs that are justified by the reasons one possesses. (shrink)

Philosophers and psychologists often distinguish episodic or personal memory from propositional or semantic memory. A vexed issue concerns the role, if any, of memory “impressions” or “seemings” within the latter. According to an important family of approaches, seemings play a fundamental epistemological role vis-à-vis propositional memory judgments: it is one’s memory seeming that Caesar was murdered, say, that justifies one’s judgment that he was murdered. Yet, it has been convincingly argued that these approaches lead to insurmountable problems and that memory (...) seemings are not wellsuited to play this justifying role. As a result, many contemporary accounts of propositional memory dispense with these seemings altogether. Is the idea that memory seemings play a key role in propositional memory really the result of bad theorizing? My aim is to shed light on this issue, which I will approach as follows. In Section 1, I contrast episodic memory with propositional memory so as to clarify the nature of the latter. According to the account I put forward, episodic memory consists in the preservation of acquaintance with objects and events, whereas propositional memory consists in the preservation of thought contents. In Section 2, I turn my attention to the contrast between propositional memory contents and propositional memory as an attitude. I argue that they play different roles. Memory contents satisfy a past awareness constraint and a causal constraint; the attitude of remembering explains why we are inclined to endorse these contents. This distinction leads me to explore the attitude of remembering, and I argue, in Section 3, that the most appealing account of this attitude is in terms of feelings of familiarity. In Section 4, I turn my attention to the epistemology of propositional memory and revisit the claim that propositional memory judgments are justifi ed by memory seemings. In so doing, I contend that the attitude of remembering plays an exclusively explanatory role and does not contribute to the epistemology of propositional memory judgments. I conclude by drawing a more general lesson regarding the respective roles of attitudes and contents. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The aim of this paper is to establish a phenomenological mathematical intuitionism that is based on fundamental phenomenological-epistemological principles. According to this intuitionism, mathematical intuitions are sui generis mental states, namely experiences that exhibit a distinctive phenomenal character. The focus is on two questions: what does it mean to undergo a mathematical intuition and what role do mathematical intuitions play in mathematical reasoning? While I crucially draw on Husserlian principles and adopt ideas we find in phenomenologically minded mathematicians such (...) as Hermann Weyl and Kurt Gödel, the overall objective is systematic in nature: to offer a plausible approach towards mathematics. (shrink)

One of the oldest platitudes about beauty is that it is pleasant to perceive or experience. In this article, I take this platitude at face value and try to explain why experiences of beauty are seemingly always accompanied by pleasure. Unlike explanations that have been offered in the past, the explanation proposed is designed to suit a “realist” view on which beauty is an irreducibly evaluative property, that is, a value. In a nutshell, the explanation is that experiences of beauty (...) are experiences in which it appears that something is beautiful, and that such experiences are identical to experiences of aesthetic pleasure. (shrink)

The secondary literature on religious epistemology has focused extensively on whether religious experience can provide evidence for God’s existence. In this article, I suppose that religious experience can do this, but I consider whether it can provide adequate evidence for justified belief in God. I argue that it can. This requires a couple of moves. First, I consider the threshold problem for evidentialism and explain pragmatic encroachment (PE) as a solution to it. Second, I argue that religious experience can justify (...) belief in God if one adopts PE, but this poses a dilemma for the defender of the veridicality of religious experience. If PE is true, then whether S has a justified belief in God on the basis of religious experience depends on how high the stakes are for having an experience with God. This requires one to determine whether the stakes are high or low for experiencing God, which puts the experient of God in an awkward position. If the stakes are not high, then justified belief in God on the basis of religious experience will be easier to come by, but this requires conceding that experiencing God is not that important. If the stakes are high, then the experient can maintain the importance of experience with God but must concede that justified belief in God on the basis of experience with God is less likely to happen, perhaps impossible. (shrink)

The thesis investigates the implications for moral philosophy of research in psychology. In addition to an introduction and concluding remarks, the thesis consists of four chapters, each exploring various more specific challenges or inputs to moral philosophy from cognitive, social, personality, developmental, and evolutionary psychology. Chapter 1 explores and clarifies the issue of whether or not morality is innate. The chapter’s general conclusion is that evolution has equipped us with a basic suite of emotions that shape our moral judgments in (...) important ways. Chapter 2 presents and investigates the challenge presented to deontological ethics by Joshua Greene’s so-called dual process theory. The chapter partly agrees with his conclusion that the dual process view neutralizes some common criticisms against utilitarianism founded on deontological intuitions, but also points to avenues left to explore for deontologists. Chapter 3 focuses on Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek and Peter Singer’s suggestion that utilitarianism is less vulnerable to so-called evolutionary debunking than other moral theories. The chapter is by and large critical of their attempt. In the final chapter 4, attention is directed at the issue of whether or not social psychology has shown that people lack stable character traits, and hence that the virtue ethical view is premised on false or tenuous assumptions. Though this so-called situationist challenge at one time seemed like a serious threat to virtue ethics, the chapter argues for a moderate position, pointing to the fragility of much of the empirical research invoked to substantiate this challenge while also suggesting revisions to the virtue-ethical view as such. (shrink)

Ascriptions of rationality are related to our practices of praising and criticizing. This seems to provide motivation for normative accounts of rationality, more specifically for the view that rationality is a matter of responding to normative reasons. However, rational agents are sometimes guided by false beliefs. This is problematic for those reasons-based accounts of rationality that are also committed to the widespread thesis that normative reasons are facts. The critical aim of the paper is to present objections to recent proposed (...) solutions to this problem, according to which the responses of deceived agents would be rationalized by facts about how things appear to them. My positive aim is to argue that accounts of reasons in terms of apparent reasons manage to capture the intuitions that seem to favor a normative account of rationality. (shrink)

We argue that many intuitions do not have conscious propositional contents. In particular, many of the intuitions had in response to philosophical thought experiments, like Gettier cases, do not have such contents. They are more like hunches, urgings, murky feelings, and twinges. Our view thus goes against the received view of intuitions in philosophy, which we call Mainstream Propositionalism. Our positive view is that many thought-experimental intuitions are conscious, spontaneous, non-theoretical, non-propositional psychological states that often motivate belief revision, but they (...) require interpretation, in light of background beliefs, before a subject can form a propositional judgment as a consequence of them. We call our view Interpretationalism. We argue (i) that Interpretationalism avoids the problems that beset Mainstream Propositionalism and (ii) that our view meshes well with empirical results in contemporary cognitive science. (shrink)

Epistemic Value Monism is the view that there is only one kind of thing of basic, final epistemic value. Perhaps the most plausible version of Epistemic Value Monism is Truth Value Monism, the view that only true beliefs are of basic, final epistemic value. Several authors—notably Jonathan Kvanvig and Michael DePaul—have criticized Truth Value Monism by appealing to the epistemic value of things other than knowledge. Such arguments, if successful, would establish Epistemic Value Pluralism is true and Epistemic Value Monism (...) is false. This paper critically examines those arguments, finding them wanting. However, I develop an argument for Epistemic Value Pluralism that succeeds which turns on general reflection on the nature of value. (shrink)

Some say that rationality only requires us to respond to apparent normative reasons. Given the independence of appearance and reality, why think that apparent normative reasons necessarily provide real normative reasons? And if they do not, why think that mistakes of rationality are necessarily real mistakes? This paper gives a novel answer to these questions. I argue first that in the moral domain, there are objective duties of respect that we violate whenever we do what appears to violate our first-order (...) duties. The existence of these duties of respect, I argue, ensures that apparent moral reasons are exceptions to the independence of appearance and reality. I then extend these arguments to the domain of overall reason. Just as there are objective duties of respect for moral reasons that explain moral blameworthiness, so there are objective duties of respect for reasons (period) that explain blameworthiness in the court of overall reason. The existence of these duties ensures that apparent reasons (period) are exceptions to the independence of appearance and reality. The result is a vindication of the normativity of rationality. (shrink)

It seems that intuitions are indispensable in philosophical theorizing. Yet, there is evidence that our intuitions are heavily influenced by biases. This generates a puzzle: we must use our intuitions, but we seemingly cannot fully trust those very intuitions. In this paper, I develop a methodology for philosophical theorizing which attempts to avoid this puzzle. Specifically, I develop and defend a methodology that I call Extra-Wide Reflective Equilibrium. I argue that this method allows us to use intuitions, while also providing (...) a mechanism to check the influence of bias on our intuitions. In section I, defend the claim that intuitions are indispensable in philosophical theorizing. In section II, I outline recent arguments against the reliability of intuitions. In section III, I explain and defend my account of Extra-Wide Reflective Equilibrium. (shrink)

The idea that perceptual experience is transparent is generally used by naïve realists and externalist representationalists to promote an externalist account of the metaphysics of perceptual experience. It is claimed that the phenomenal character of our perceptual experience can be explained solely with reference to the externally located objects and properties which (for the representationalist) we represent, or which (for the naïve realist) partly constitute our experience. Internalist qualia theorists deny this, and claim that the phenomenal character of our perceptual (...) experience is internally constituted. However, my concern in this paper is not with the metaphysical debate, but with transparency as a phenomenological feature of perceptual experience. Qualia theorists have presented a number of examples of perceptual experiences which, they claim, do not even seem to be transparent; these experiences involve objects or properties which seem to be internally realized. I argue, contrary to the qualia theorist’s claim, that the phenomenal character of perceptual experience can in fact be characterized solely with reference to externally located objects and properties, and the sense in which some features of our perceptual experiences do not seem external is due to cognitive, not perceptual, phenomenology. (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)

As an important view in the epistemology of perception, dogmatism proposes that for any experience, if it has a distinctive kind of phenomenal character, then it thereby provides us with immediate justification for beliefs about the external world. This paper rejects dogmatism by looking into the epistemology of imagining. In particular, this paper first appeals to some empirical studies on perceptual experiences and imaginings to show that it is possible for imaginings to have the distinctive phenomenal character dogmatists have in (...) mind. Then this paper argues that some of these imaginings fail to provide us with immediate justification for beliefs about the external world at least partly due to their inappropriate etiology. Such imaginings constitute counterexamples to dogmatism. (shrink)

Seeing a red hat can (i) increase my credence in the hat is red, and (ii) introduce a negative dependence between that proposition and po- tential undermining defeaters such as the light is red. The rigidity of Jeffrey Conditionalization makes this awkward, as rigidity preserves inde- pendence. The picture is less awkward given ‘Holistic Conditionalization’, or so it is claimed. I defend Jeffrey Conditionalization’s consistency with underminable perceptual learning and its superiority to Holistic Conditionalization, arguing that the latter is merely (...) a special case of the former, is itself rigid, and is committed to implausible accounts of perceptual con- firmation and of undermining defeat. (shrink)

I review recent work on Phenomenal Conservatism, the position introduced by Michael Huemer according to which if it seems that P to a subject S, in the absence of defeaters S has thereby some degree of justification for believing P.

Adequate epistemic justification is best conceived as the appearance, over time, of knowledge to the subject. ‘Appearance’ is intended literally, not as a synonym for belief. It is argued through consideration of examples that this account gets the extension of ‘adequately justified belief’ at least roughly correct. A more theoretical reason is then offered to regard justification as the appearance of knowledge: If we have a knowledge norm for assertion, we do our best to comply with this norm when we (...) express as assertions only beliefs that appear to us to be knowledge. If we are doing our best, there is little point in further sanctions. So a norm of knowledge for assertion would lead to a secondary norm of justified belief as the appearance of knowledge, marking a point at which our assertions may be corrected but should not be blamed. (shrink)

In the first part of this paper I suggest that Dogmatism about perceptual justification – the view that in the most basic cases, perceptual justification is immediate – commits to rejecting Evidentialism, as it commits, specifically, to accounting for the mechanics of perceptual justification otherwise than by maintaining that perceptual experiences justify by providing evidence. In the second part of the paper, by following W. Hopp’s recent interpretation of Husserl’s Sixth Logical Investigation, I suggest that Husserl’s theory of fulfilment provides (...) the basis of the non-evidential account of the mechanics of perceptual justification needed to vindicate Dogmatism. (shrink)

Perceptions guide our actions and provide us with evidence of the world around us. Illusions and hallucinations can mislead us: they may prompt as to act in ways that do not mesh with the world around us and they may lead us to form false beliefs about that world. The capacity view provides an account of evidence that does justice to these two facts. It shows in virtue of what illusions and hallucinations mislead us and prompt us to act. Moreover, (...) it shows in virtue of what we are in a better epistemic position when we perceive than when we hallucination. In this paper, I develop the capacity view, that is, the view that perceptual experience has epistemic force in virtue of the epistemic and metaphysical primacy of the perceptual capacities employed in perception. By grounding the epistemic force of experience in facts about the metaphysical structure of experience, the capacity view is not only an externalist view, but moreover a naturalistic view of the epistemology of perceptual experience. So it is an externalist and naturalistic alternative to reliabilism. I discuss the repercussions of this view for the justification of beliefs and the epistemic transparency of mental states, as well as, familiar problem cases. (shrink)

Keith DeRose’s new book The Appearance of Ignorance is a welcome companion volume to his 2009 book The Case for Contextualism. Where latter focused on contextualism as a view in the philosophy of language, the former focuses on how contextualism contributes to our understanding of some perennial epistemological problems, with the skeptical problem being the main focus of six of the seven chapters. DeRose’s view is that a solution to the skeptical problem must do two things. First, it must explain (...) how it is that we can know lots of things, such as that we have hands. Second, it must explain how it can seem that we don’t know these things. In slogan form, DeRose’s argument is that a contextualist semantics for knowledge attributions is needed to account for the “appearance of ignorance”—the appearance that we don’t know that skeptical hypotheses fail to obtain. In my critical discussion, I will argue inter alia that we don’t need a contextualist semantics to account for the appearance of ignorance, and in any case that the “strength” of the appearance of ignorance is unclear, as is the need for a philosophical diagnosis of it. (shrink)

Epistemological disjunctivists make two strong claims about perceptual experience's epistemic value: experience guarantees the knowledgeable character of perceptual beliefs; experience's epistemic value is “reflectively accessible”. In this paper I develop a form of disjunctivism grounded in a presentational view of experience, on which the epistemic benefits of experience consist in the way perception presents the subject with aspects of her environment. I show that presentational disjunctivism has both dialectical and philosophically fundamental advantages over more traditional expositions. Dialectically, presentational disjunctivism resolves (...) a puzzle disjunctivists face in their posture vis-à-vis skeptical scenarios. More systematically, presentational disjunctivism provides an especially compelling view of disjunctivism as an internalist view of perceptual consciousness by explaining the way perceptual presence manifests the subject's rationality in a distinct way. (shrink)

When should you engage with difficult arguments against your cherished controversial beliefs? The primary conclusion of this book is that your obligations to engage with counterarguments are more limited than is often thought. In some standard situations, you shouldn't engage with difficult counterarguments and, if you do, you shouldn't engage with them open-mindedly. This conclusion runs counter to aspects of the Millian political tradition and political liberalism, as well as what people working in informal logic tend to say about argumentation. (...) -/- Not all misleading arguments wear their flaws on their sleeve. Each step of a misleading argument might seem compelling and you might not be able to figure out what's wrong with it. Still, even if you can't figure out what's wrong with an argument, you can know that it's misleading. One way to know that an argument is misleading is, counterintuitively, to lack expertise in the methods and evidence-types employed by the argument. When you know that a counterargument is misleading, you shouldn't engage with it open-mindedly and sometimes shouldn't engage with it at all. You shouldn't engage open-mindedly because you shouldn't be willing to reduce your confidence in response to arguments you know are misleading. And you sometimes shouldn't engage closed-mindedly, because to do so can be manipulative or ineffective. -/- In making this case, Jeremy Fantl discusses echo chambers and group polarization, the importance in academic writing of a sympathetic case for the opposition, the epistemology of disagreement, the account of open-mindedness, and invitations to problematic academic speakers. (shrink)

In this paper I assess the viability of a particularist explanation of moral knowledge. First, I consider two arguments by Sean McKeever and Michael Ridge that purport to show that a generalist, principle-based explanation of practical wisdom—understood as the ability to acquire moral knowledge in a wide range of situations—is superior to a particularist, non-principle-based account. I contend that both arguments are unsuccessful. Then, I propose a particularist-friendly explanation of knowledge of particular moral facts. I argue that when we are (...) careful to keep separate the various explanatory tasks at hand we can see that a particularist-friendly explanation of the fact that Jane knows that A is morally right might not be so difficult to come by. Moreover, I suggest that a particularist approach to explaining knowledge of particular moral facts may go some way towards discharging the challenge of moral scepticism. (shrink)

Recently there has been a good deal of interest in the relationship between common sense epistemology and Skeptical Theism. Much of the debate has focused on Phenomenal Conservatism and any tension that there might be between it and Skeptical Theism. In this paper I further defend the claim that there is no tension between Phenomenal Conservatism and Skeptical Theism. I show the compatibility of these two views by coupling them with an account of defeat – one that is friendly to (...) both Phenomenal Conservatism and Skeptical Theism. In addition, I argue that this account of defeat can give the Skeptical Theist what she wants – namely a response to the evidential argument from evil that can leave one of its premises unmotivated. In giving this account I also respond to several objections from Trent Dougherty (2011) and Chris Tucker (this volume) as well as to an additional worry coming from the epistemology of disagreement. (shrink)

Moral disagreement is sometimes thought to pose problems for moral realism because it shows that we cannot achieve knowledge of the moral facts the realists posit. In particular, it is "fundamental" moral disagreement—that is, disagreement that is not due to distorting factors such as ignorance of relevant nonmoral facts, bad reasoning skills, or the like—that is supposed to generate skeptical implications. In this paper, we show that this version of the disagreement challenge is flawed as it stands. The reason is (...) that the epistemic assumptions it requires are incompatible with the possibility of fundamental disagreement. However, we also present an alternative reconstruction of the challenge that avoids the problem. The challenge we present crucially invokes the principle that knowledge requires "adherence". While that requirement is usually not discussed in this context, we argue that it provides a promising explanation of why disagreement sometimes leads to skepticism. (shrink)

According to a traditional Cartesian epistemology of perception, perception does not provide one with direct knowledge of the external world. Instead, your immediate perceptual evidence is limited to facts about your own visual experience, from which conclusions about the external world must be inferred. Cartesianism faces well-known skeptical challenges. But this chapter argues that any anti-Cartesian view strong enough to avoid these challenges must license a way of updating one’s beliefs in response to anticipated experiences that seems diachronically irrational. To (...) avoid this result, the anti-Cartesian must either license an unacceptable epistemic chauvinism, or else claim that merely reflecting on one’s experiences defeats perceptual justification. This leaves us with a puzzle: Although Cartesianism faces problems, avoiding them brings a new set of problems. (shrink)

Trent Dougherty has argued that commonsense epistemology and skeptical theism are incompatible. In this paper, I explicate Dougherty’s argument, and show that (at least) one popular form of skeptical theism is compatible with commonsense epistemology.

Philosophical responses to religious diversity range from outright rejection of divine reality to claims of religious pluralism. In this paper, I challenge those responses that take the problem of religious diversity to be merely an instance of the general problem of disagreement. To do so, I will take, as my starting point, William Alston’s treatment of the problems that religious diversity seems to pose for the rationality of theistic beliefs. My main aim is to highlight the cognitive penetrability of religious (...) experience as a major source of such problems. I conclude by examining the consequences of cognitive penetration for the reliability of the monotheistic doxastic practice. (shrink)

I argue that we can achieve certainty about some empirical propositions. When someone is having a migraine and attending to it, she can be certain that she is in pain. I show that examples intended to undermine claims of certainty or to raise doubts about the reliability of introspection do not touch such cases. Traditional foundationalists have held that epistemically certain beliefs can serve as the basis for all one’s other justified beliefs. This is not so, because those beliefs that (...) are certain are spread too thinly to serve as broad justificatory foundations. Certainty has a different role. The best explanation for the existence of epistemically certain empirical beliefs is experientialism, the view that nondoxastic sensory experiences can justify beliefs. Experientialism then offers a framework for showing how the stream of sensory experiences can provide an adequate basis for the justification of our ordinary beliefs about the external world. (shrink)

This chapter first surveys general issues in the epistemic internalism / externalism debate: what is the distinction, what motivates it, and what arguments can be given on both sides. -/- The second part of the chapter will examine the internalism / externalism debate as regards to the specific case of the epistemology of memory belief.

For some years now, Michael Bergmann has urged a dilemma against internalist theories of epistemic justification. For reasons I explain below, some epistemologists have thought that Michael Huemer’s principle of Phenomenal Conservatism can split the horns of Bergmann’s dilemma. Bergmann has recently argued, however, that PC must inevitably, like all other internalist views, fall prey to his dilemma. In this paper, I explain the nature of Bergmann’s dilemma and his reasons for thinking that PC cannot escape it before arguing that (...) he is mistaken: PC can indeed split its horns. (shrink)

It is still a live question in epistemology and philosophy of science as to what exactly evidence is. In my view, evidence consists in experiences called “seemings.” This view is a version of the phenomenal conception of evidence, the position that evidence consists in nonfactive mental states with propositional content. This conception is opposed by sense-data theorists, disjunctivists, and those who think evidence consists in physical objects or publicly observable states of affairs—call it the courtroom conception of evidence. Thomas Kelly (...) has recently argued that the phenomenal conception cannot play all the roles evidence plays and is thus inadequate. Having first explained the nature of seemings, in this essay I utilize Kelly’s own understanding of the four major roles of evidence and argue that the phenomenal conception can play each one. Experience is a good candidate for evidence. (shrink)

In moral epistemology, the method of reflective equilibrium is often characterized in terms of intuitions or understood as a method for justifying intuitions. An analysis of reflective equilibrium and current theories of moral intuitions reveals that this picture is problematic. Reflective equilibrium cannot be adequately characterized in terms of intuitions. Although the method presupposes that we have initially credible commitments, it does not presuppose that they are intuitions. Nonetheless, intuitions can enter the process of developing a reflective equilibrium and, if (...) the process is successful, be justified. Since the method of reflective equilibrium does not essentially involve intuitions, it does not constitute a form of intuitionism in any substantial sense. It may be classified as intuitionist only in the minimal sense of not reducing justification to a matter of inference relations alone. (shrink)

In this chapter, we argue for a phenomenal conservative perspective on religious epistemology and attempt to answer some common criticisms of this perspective.

Intuition is sometimes derided as an abstruse or esoteric phenomenon akin to crystal-ball gazing. Such derision appears to be fuelled primarily by the suggestion, evidently endorsed by traditional rationalists such as Plato and Descartes, that intuition is a kind of direct, immediate apprehension akin to perception. This paper suggests that although the perceptual analogy has often been dismissed as encouraging a theoretically useless metaphor, a quasi-perceptualist view of intuition may enable rationalists to begin to meet the challenge of supplying a (...) theoretically satisfying treatment of their favoured epistemic source. It is argued, first, that intuitions and perceptual experiences are at a certain level of abstraction the same type of mental state, presentations, which are distinct from beliefs, hunches, inclinations, attractions, and seemings. The notion of a presentation is given a positive explication, which identifies its characteristic features, accounts for several of its substantive psychological roles, and systematically locates it in a threefold division among types of contentful states. Subsequently, it is argued that presentations, intuitive no less than sensory, are by their nature poised to play a distinctive epistemic role. Specifically, in the case of intuition, we encounter an intellectual state that is so structured as to provide justification without requiring justification in turn—something which may, thus, be thought of as ‘given’. (shrink)

Epistemic deontology maintains that our beliefs and degrees of belief are open to deontic evaluations—evaluations of what we ought to believe or may not believe. Some philosophers endorse strong internalist versions of epistemic deontology on which agents can always access what determines the deontic status of their beliefs and degrees of belief. This paper articulates a new challenge for strong internalist versions of epistemic deontology. Any version of epistemic deontology must face William Alston’s argument. Alston combined a broadly voluntarist conception (...) of responsibility, on which ought implies can, with doxastic involuntarism, the position that our beliefs are not under our control. Together, those views imply that epistemic deontology is false. A promising response to Alston’s argument is to embrace a compatibilist account of control—specifically a reason-responsive version of compatibilism—and use it to criticism his doxastic involuntarism. I argue that while reason-responsive compatibilism about control does undermine Alston’s argument, it comes at a cost. Specifically, it is inconsistent with strong internalist versions of epistemic deontology. The surprising upshot is that so long as we retain a voluntarist conception of responsibility, we have reason for rejecting strong internalist versions of epistemic deontology. (shrink)

The New Evil Demon Problem is supposed to show that straightforward versions of reliabilism are false: reliability is not necessary for justification after all. I argue that it does no such thing. The reliabilist can count a number of beliefs as justified even in demon worlds, others as unjustified but having positive epistemic status nonetheless. The remaining beliefs---primarily perceptual beliefs---are not, on further reflection, intuitively justified after all. The reliabilist is right to count these beliefs as unjustified in demon worlds, (...) and it is a challenge for the internalist to be able to do so as well. (shrink)

This chapter develops a simple theory of introspection on which a mental state is introspectively accessible just by virtue of the fact that one is in that mental state. This theory raises two questions: first, a generalization question: which mental states are introspectively accessible; and second, an explanatory question: why are some mental states introspectively accessible, rather than others, or none at all? In response to the generalization question, I argue that a mental state is introspectively accessible if and only (...) if it is phenomenally individuated. And in response to the explanatory question, I argue that a mental state is introspectively accessible if and only if it is among the determinants of justification. This provides the basis of an argument for a phenomenal conception of justification, according to which a mental state is among the determinants of justification if and only if it is phenomenally individuated. (shrink)