Justification depends on context: even if E on its own justifies H, still it might fail to justify in the context of D. This sort of effect, epistemologists think, is due to defeaters, which undermine or rebut a would-be justifier. I argue that there is another fundamental sort of contextual feature, disqualification, which doesn't involve rebuttal or undercutting, and which cannot be reduced to any notion of screening-off. A disqualifier makes some would-be justifier otiose, as direct testimony sometimes does to (...) distal testimony, and as manifestly decisive evidence might do to gratuitous evidence on the same team. Basing a belief on disqualified evidence, moreover, is distinctively irrational. One is not necessarily irresponsible. Instead one is turning down a free upgrade to a sleeker, stabler basis for one's beliefs. Such an upgrade would prevent wastes of epistemic effort, since someone who bases her belief on a disqualified proposition E will need to remember E and rethink her belief should E ever be defeated. The upgrade might also reduce reliance on unwieldy evidence, if E is relevant only thanks to some labyrinthine argument; and if even ideal agents should doubt their ability to follow such arguments, even they should care about disqualifiers. (shrink)

Evidential atheism, as espoused by various philosophical atheists, recommends belief that God does not exist on the basis of not just the evidence of which we are aware, but also our overall available evidence. This article identifies a widely neglected problem from potential surprise evidence that undermines an attempt to give a cogent justification of such evidential atheism. In addition, it contends that evidential agnosticism fares better than evidential atheism relative to this neglected problem, and that traditional monotheism has evidential (...) resources, unavailable to evidential atheism, which promise to save it from the fate of evidential atheism. (shrink)

The topic of “reason and faith in God” has challenged philosophers and theologians since the beginning of their disciplines, and it has left many inquirers confused. The key notions of faith and reason are often left unclear, and this complicates inquiry about faith in God. Many inquirers end up puzzled about the significance of the distinction between reason and faith. This paper outlines an approach to reason and faith in God that explains how faith in God can be well-grounded in (...) reason as evidence, even if reason as an argument does not apply in a case. It identifies distinctive roles for experience and defense in an account of faith in God. (shrink)

The epistemology of monotheism offered by philosophers has given inadequate attention to the kind of foundational evidence to be expected of a personal God whose moral character is ’agapeic’, or perfectly loving, toward all other agents. This article counters this deficiency with the basis of a theistic epistemology that accommodates the distinctive moral character of a God worthy of worship. It captures the widely neglected ’agonic’, or struggle-oriented, character of a God who seeks, by way of personal witness and intentional (...) action, to realize and manifest ’agape’ among humans who suffer from selfishness. In doing so, the article identifies the overlooked role of personifying evidence of God in human moral character formation. In agreement with some prominent New Testament themes, the new perspective offered ties the epistemology of monotheism to robust ’agapeic’ morality in a way that makes such epistemology ethically challenging for inquirers about God’s existence. Accordingly, s. (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)

In this paper, I defend the view that only practical reasons are normative reasons for belief. This requires viewing beliefs as the predictable results of our actions. I will show how this fits with our intuitions about mental autonomy. The remainder of the paper consists in a defense against a series of objections that may be expected against this position. The paper concludes with a metaphilosophical explanation about our conflicting intuitions regarding the normativity of rationality.

In a paper and a reply to critics published in _Informal Logic_, I argue that arguments from expert opinion are weak arguments. To appeal to expert opinion is to take an expert’s judgment that _p_ is the case as evidence for _p_. Such appeals to expert opinion are weak, I argue, because the fact that an expert judges that _p_ does not make it significantly more likely that _p_ is true or probable, as evidence from empirical studies on expert performance (...) suggests. Unlike other critics of this argument, who take issue with the empirical evidence on expert performance, David Botting says that he wants to take issue with the premise that reliability is a necessary condition for the strength of appeals to expert opinion. I respond to Botting’s objections and argue that they miss their intended target. I also argue that his attempt to show that arguments from expert opinion are strong is unsuccessful. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that the “Ought Implies Can” (OIC) principle, as it is employed in epistemology, particularly in the literature on epistemic norms, is open to counterexamples. I present a counterexample to OIC and discuss several objections to it. If this counterexample works, then it shows that it is possible that S ought to believe that p, even though S cannot believe that p. If this is correct, then OIC, considered from an epistemic point of view, is false, (...) since it is supposed to hold for any S and any p. (shrink)

In this paper I provide a theory of the speech act of assertion according to which assertion is a species of joint action. In doing so I rely on a theory of joint action developed in more detail elsewhere. Here we need to distinguish between the genus, joint action, and an important species of joint action, namely, what I call joint epistemic action. In the case of the latter, but not necessarily the former, participating agents have epistemic goals, e.g., the (...) acquisition of knowledge. It is joint epistemic action that assertion is a species of. (shrink)

Recently, Dan O’Brien has argued that there are situations in which a hearer can gain testimonial knowledge from a speaker who is lying. In order to make his case, O’Brien presents two examples where a speaker lies to a hearer, but supposedly the hearer comes to have testimonial knowledge on the basis of the lying speaker’s testimony. O’Brien claims that his examples demonstrate that lies can be used to pass on knowledge in a non-inferential fashion. I argue that O’Brien is (...) mistaken. More specifically, I argue that the hearer’s belief in the second example that O’Brien depicts fails to meet two plausible conditions for knowledge. First, the hearer’s belief fails to satisfy the requirements of the epistemic basing relation. Second, the hearer’s belief is not safe. (shrink)

It is commonplace to distinguish between propositional justification (having good reasons for believing p) and doxastic justification (believing p on the basis of those good reasons).One necessary requirement for bridging the gap between S’s merely having propositional justification that p and S’s having doxastic justification that p is that S base her belief that p on her reasons (propositional justification).A plausible suggestion for what it takes for S’s belief to be based on her reasons is that her reasons must contribute (...) causally to S’s having that belief. Though this suggestion is plausible, causal accounts of the basing relation that have been proposed have not fared well. In particular, cases involving causal deviancy and cases involving over-determination have posed serious problems for causal accounts of the basing relation. Although previous causal accounts of the basing relation seem to fall before these problems, it is possible to construct an acceptable causal account of the basing relation. That is, it is possible to construct a causal account of the basing relation that not only fits our intuitions about doxastic justification in general, but also is not susceptible to the problems posed by causal deviancy and causal over-determination. The interventionist account of causation provides the tools for constructing such an account. My aim is to make use of the insights of the interventionist account of causation to develop and defend an adequate causal account of the basing relation. (shrink)

Phenomenal conservatism is a popular theory of epistemic justification. Despite its popularity and the fact that some think that phenomenal conservatism can provide a complete account of justification, it faces several challenges. Among these challenges are the need to provide accounts of defeaters and inferential justification. Fortunately, there is hope for phenomenal conservatism. Explanationism, the view on which justification is a matter of explanatory considerations, can help phenomenal conservatism with both of these challenges. The resulting view is one that respects (...) the internalist character of phenomenal conservatism and its motivating intuitions while providing an intuitive and elegant account of both inferential justification and the justificatory impact of defeaters. (shrink)

Explaining phenomena is a primary goal of science. Consequently, it is unsurprising that gaining a proper understanding of the nature of explanation is an important goal of science education. In order to properly understand explanation, however, it is not enough to simply consider theories of the nature of explanation. Properly understanding explanation requires grasping the relation between explanation and understanding, as well as how explanations can lead to scientific knowledge. This article examines the nature of explanation, its relation to understanding, (...) and how explanations are used to generate scientific knowledge via inferences to the best explanation. Studying these features and applications of explanation not only provides insight into a concept that is important for science education in its own right, but also sheds light on an aspect of recent debates concerning the so-called consensus view of nature of science (NOS). Once the relation between explanation, understanding, and knowledge is clear, it becomes apparent that science is unified in important ways. Seeing this unification provides some support for thinking that there are general features of NOS of the sort proposed by the consensus view and that teaching about these general features of NOS should be a goal of science education. (shrink)

The New Evil Demon Problem is often seen as a serious objection to externalist theories of justification. In fact, some internalists think it is a decisive counterexample to externalism. Recently, Moon has argued that internalists face their own New Evil Demon Problem. According to Moon, it is possible for a demon to remove one’s unaccessed mental states while leaving the justificatory status of her accessed mental states unaffected. Since this is contrary to the claims of many forms of internalism, Moon (...) maintains that his New Evil Demon Problem for Internalism shows that internalists face a problem that is just as troubling as the original NEDP. I argue that moderate internalists have nothing to fear from Moon’s demon. (shrink)

In this paper I consider whether the reasons on which our testimonial beliefs are directly based—“testimonial reasons”—are basic reasons for belief. After laying out a Dretske-inspired psychologistic conception of reasons for belief in general and a corresponding conception of basic reasons for belief, I present a prima facie case against the basicality of testimonial reasons. I then respond to a challenge from Audi to this case. To the extent that my response is successful, the viability of an important kind of (...) inferentialism about testimonial belief is preserved. (shrink)

Hearsay or indirect testimony receives little discussion even today in epistemology, and yet it represents one of the cardinal modes for the transmission of knowledge and for human cognitive development. It suffices to think of school education whereby a student listens to teachers reporting knowledge acquired, often indirectly, from the most varied sources such as text books, newspapers, personal memory, television, etc… Or let us consider the importance of oral tradition in the social and cultural development of civilisations. Or even (...) let us call to mind the learning process of infants who, only thanks to the knowledge learned from others, succeed in learning the language. Finally, with the emerging digital technology, the information gleaned from third parties is influencing the creation of knowledge in a full gamut of fields, in a quasi-comprehensive manner. This leads us to claim that hearsay, despite the reductionist conceptual scheme to which epistemology has confined it in that indirect testimony, is in any case quintessential in the dissemination of knowledge. This work fully expounds upon the basic mechanism of indirect testimonial transmission and provides an epistemologically founded explanation of the cognitive possibilities of hearsay by investigating, in the light of the anti-reductionist paradigm, three mutually connected epistemic properties, namely trust, reputation and coherence, that are key in the epistemic justification of the truth acquired via an indirect testimony. (shrink)

The article discusses infinitism, the view that a belief is justified for a subject only if she possesses an infinite chain of available reasons for that belief. In its most recent and sophisticated version, the view allegedly escapes the problems that trouble its main competitors, foundationalism and coherentism, while avoiding the traditional objections which relegated it to a marginal place. The article argues that despite these improvements, sophisticated versions of infinitism face a pressing problem, viz. they are unable to appropriately (...) articulate propositional and doxastic justification. (shrink)

According to the explanationist, we can rely on inference to best explanation to justifiably believe familiar skeptical hypotheses are false. On this view, commonsense beliefs about the existence and character of familiar, medium-sized dry goods provides the best explanation of our evidence and so justifies our belief that we're not brains-in-vats. This explanationist approach seems prima facie plausible until we press the explanationist to tell us what the data is that we're trying to explain by appeal to our beliefs about (...) external objects and how we could have access to it. (shrink)

An influential view in the epistemology of testimony is that typical or paradigmatic beliefs formed through testimonial uptake are noninferential. Some epistemologists in particular defend a causal version of this view: that beliefs formed from testimony (BFT) are generated by noninferential processes. This view is implausible, however. It tends to be elaborated in terms that do not really bear it out – e.g. that BFT is fixed directly, immediately, unconsciously or automatically. Nor is causal noninferentialism regarding BFT plausibly expressed in (...) terms of belief-independent belief formation; the complex cognitive details of BFT fixation do not accord well with such a view. But perhaps the most significant issue is that the relevant causal notion of inference itself is not particularly well-defined, at least with respect to BFT. Causal noninferentialism in this domain is obscure as a result, but this does not in turn clearly vindicate any interesting version of inferentialism. (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 paper offers an explanation of what reasons for belief are, following Paul Grice in focusing on the roles of reasons in the goal-directed activity of reasoning. Reasons are particularly salient considerations that we use as indicators of the truth of beliefs and candidates for belief. Reasons are distinguished from enabling conditions by being things that we should be able to attend to in the course of our reasoning, and in assessing how well our beliefs are supported. The final section (...) argues that epistemic virtues have a role in enabling us to identify reasons and explores this by reference to the example of being observant. (shrink)

I defend external world realism. I assume that the principle of inference to the best explanation is justified: roughly, a hypothesis that provides a better explanation of the total evidence is more probable than one that does not. I argue that the existence of a world of spatial objects provides a systematic explanation of the spatial contents of visual experience, and that it provides a better explanation than traditional skeptical hypotheses. This paper thus pursues the explanationist strategy of Laurence BonJour (...) and Jonathan Vogel. It is an improved, more compelling defense, for at least two reasons. First, the attention to spatial properties, and in particular to what I call perspectival projections, makes the explanatory power of the realist hypothesis much more vivid and concrete. Second, the argument preserves and elucidates much that seems correct in the explanationist arguments others have offered while avoiding significant problems and shortcomings. (shrink)

In “Compassionate Phenomenal Conservatism” (2007), “Phenomenal Conservatism and the Internalist Intuition” (2006), and Skepticism and the Veil of Perception (2001), Michael Huemer endorses the principle of phenomenal conservatism, according to which appearances or seemings constitute a fundamental source of (defeasible) justification for belief. He claims that those who deny phenomenal conservatism, including classical foundationalists, are in a self-defeating position, for their views cannot be both true and justified; that classical foundationalists have difficulty accommodating false introspective beliefs; and that phenomenal conservatism (...) is most faithful to the central internalist intuition. I argue that Huemer’s self-defeat argument fails, that classical foundationalism is able to accommodate fallible introspective beliefs, and that classical foundationalism captures a relatively clear internalist intuition. I also show that the motivation for phenomenal conservatism is less than clear. (shrink)

Moderate epistemic akrasia is the state a subject is in when she believes that p and suspends judgment about whether her evidence supports p. In this article it is argued that, given a certain understanding of the attitude of suspension of judgment, moderate epistemic akrasia is doxastically irrational. The paper starts with a brief introduction that makes explicit some background notions and clarifies the dialectics of the debate. Second, the well-known distinction between propositional and doxastic rationality is introduced and some (...) cases of improper basing are discussed. Third, two different cases are considered in which one might argue that moderate epistemic akrasia is doxastically rational, and it is argued that none is successful. Fourth, several objections are presented and answered. Finally, some conclusions are drawn. (shrink)

One of the most influential arguments for the coherence theory of empirical justification is BonJours a priori argument from the internalist regress. According to this argument, foundationalism cannot solve the problem of the internalist regress since internalism is incompatible with basic beliefs. Hence, coherentism seems to be the only option. In my article I contend that this argument is doomed to failure. It is either too strong or too weak. Too strong, since even coherentism cannot stop the internalist regress in (...) any legitimate way. In order to demonstrate this claim I will discuss various coherentist strategies. Too weak, since, were coherentism able to stop the regress, the argument against foundationalism would collapse. (shrink)

There is a distinction between merely having the right belief, and further basing that belief on the right reasons. Any adequate epistemology needs to be able to accommodate the basing relation that marks this distinction. However, trouble arises for Bayesianism. I argue that when we combine Bayesianism with the standard approaches to the basing relation, we get the result that no agent forms their credences in the right way; indeed, no agent even gets close. This is a serious problem, for (...) it prevents us from making epistemic distinctions between agents that are doing a reasonably good job at forming their credences and those that are forming them in clearly bad ways. I argue that if this result holds, then we have a problem for Bayesianism. However, I show how the Bayesian can avoid this problem by rejecting the standard approaches to the basing relation. By drawing on recent work on the basing relation, we can develop an account of the relation that allows us to avoid the result that no agent comes close to forming their credences in the right way. The Bayesian can successfully accommodate the basing relation. (shrink)

I introduce and defend an argument against the popular view that anything falling short of knowledge falls short in value. The nature of belief and cognitive psychological research on memory, I claim, support the argument. I also show that not even the most appealing mode of knowledge is distinctively valuable.

To be acquainted with something (in the philosophical sense of “acquainted” discussed here) is to be directly aware of it. The idea that we are acquainted with certain things we experience has been discussed throughout the history of Western Philosophy, but in the early 20th century it gained especially focused attention among analytic philosophers who drew their inspiration from Bertrand Russell's work on acquaintance. Since then, many philosophers—particularly those working on self‐knowledge or perception—have used the notion of acquaintance to explain (...) various facts about human experience and knowledge. In this paper, I offer an overview of this work, with particular focus on the resurgent literature on acquaintance in contemporary analytic philosophy. After more fully explaining what acquaintance is (or is supposed to be), I describe some reasons for thinking that we are indeed acquainted with certain things we experience, and then I survey some of the facts about experience and knowledge that acquaintance may help explain. (shrink)

A theory of reasoned knowledge is presented by developing and demonstrating the methodology of a novel skeptical critique designed to extend the epistemological practice of belief justification to an epistemological practice of reason justification. Analyses of the reasoning found in the theorizations of certain seminal philosophers and leading scientists will reveal how the absence of the epistemic justification of reason defaults to the use of an unjustified form of reason that runs the play of an unrecognized and unchecked dialectic between (...) epistemology and science. An alternative form of reason will be logically outlined and tested against the formalized skeptical critique in order for the newly recognized dialectic to be checked over reason with provisional epistemic justification. Zeno’s paradox and Green’s and Sellars’ critique of givenness are employed as argument functionaries of the reasoned knowledge theory. (shrink)

I argue for the existence of imaginative beliefs: mental states that are imaginative in format and doxastic in attitude. I advance two arguments for this thesis. First, there are imaginings that play the functional roles of belief. Second, there are imaginings that play the epistemic roles of belief. These arguments supply both descriptive and normative grounds for positing imaginative beliefs. I also argue that this view fares better than alternatives that posit distinct imaginative and doxastic states to account for the (...) same phenomena. Along the way, I demonstrate the theoretical significance of imaginative beliefs by showing how they pose a challenge for standard taxonomies of the mind, clarify the sense in which imagination is occurrent and voluntary, explain the justificatory role of the imagination, and point to a deep but underappreciated symmetry between imagistic and non-imagistic thought. (shrink)

How should we understand good philosophical inquiry? Ernest Sosa has argued that the key to answering this question lies with virtue-based epistemology. According to virtue-based epistemology, competences are prior to epistemic justification. More precisely, a subject is justified in having some type of belief only because she could have a belief of that type by exercising her competences. Virtue epistemology is well positioned to explain why, in forming false philosophical beliefs, agents are often less rational than it is possible to (...) be. False philosophical beliefs are often unjustified—and the agent is thereby less rational for having them—precisely because these beliefs could not be formed by exercising competences. But, virtue epistemology is not well positioned to explain why, in failing to form some true philosophical beliefs, agents are less rational than it is possible to be. In cases where agents fall short by failing to believe philosophical truths, the problem is not that they believe things they shouldn’t, but that they lack beliefs they ought to have. We argue that Timothy Williamson's recent critique of the a priori/a posteriori distinction falls prey to similar problem cases. Williamson fails to see that a type of belief might be a priori justified if and only if, even without any special confirming experiences, agents fall short by failing to have this type of belief. We conclude that there are types of beliefs that are deeply a priori justified for any agent regardless of what epistemic competences the agent has. However, we also point out that this view has a problem of its own: it appears to make the acquisition of a priori knowledge too easy. We end by suggesting that a move back towards virtue-based epistemology is necessary. But in order for this move to be effective, epistemic competences will have to be understood very differently than in the reliabilist tradition. (shrink)

It is standard practice, when distinguishing between the foundationalist and the coherentist, to construe the coherentist as an internalist. The coherentist, the construal goes, says that justification is solely a matter of coherence, and that coherence, in turn, is solely a matter of internal relations between beliefs. The coherentist, so construed, is an internalist (in the sense I have in mind) in that the coherentist, so construed, says that whether a belief is justified hinges solely on what the subject is (...) like mentally. I argue that this practice is fundamentally misguided, by arguing that the foundationalism / coherentism debate and the internalism / externalism debate are about two very different things, so that there is nothing, qua coherentist, precluding the coherentist from siding with the externalist. I then argue that this spells trouble for two of the three most pressing and widely known objections to coherentism: the Alternative-Systems Objection and the Isolation Objection. (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)

There are many important dimensions of epistemic evaluation, one of which is justification. We don’t just evaluate beliefs for truth, reliability, accuracy, and knowledge, but also for justification. However, in the epistemological literature, there is much disagreement about the nature of justification and how it should be understood. One of the controversies that has separated the contemporary epistemological discourse into two opposing camps has to do with the internalism-externalism distinction. Whereas internalists defend certain core assumptions about justification from the pre-Gettier (...) tradition, externalists generally think that the traditional conception is untenable and should be replaced. In this compilation thesis, I argue for, defend, and develop a particular brand of internalism, both in general and with respect to specific sources of justification. In papers 1 and 2, I defend a couple of well-known arguments for mentalism and accessibilism. Moreover, I also point out how prominent versions of these theses are vulnerable to serious problems (e.g., about over-intellectualization and vicious regresses). Part of my goal in the first couple of papers is to figure out what commitments the internalist should take on in order to avoid the externalist's objections, while at the same time receiving support from considerations that have motivated internalism in the past. In papers 3 and 4, I start from the assumption that mentalism is true and attempt to answer the following questions: 1) which non-factive mental states can play a justification-conferring role with respect to empirical belief? And 2) why does this set of states play the epistemic role it does? In response to question 1, I argue that all and only one's beliefs and perceptual experiences have justificatory relevance. In response to question 2, I argue that one's beliefs and perceptual experiences are one's strongly representational states, and that strongly representational states necessarily provide support to certain empirical propositions. Having done so, I then defend mentalism about scientific evidence from a couple of prominent objections in the recent literature. Lastly, in papers 5 and 6, I argue for a particular brand of internalism about testimonial and memorial justification and show how that position has a dialectical advantage over its main competitors. (shrink)

A common response to radical skeptical challenges to our knowledge of the external world has been that there are explanatory reasons (e.g., simplicity, coherence, explanatory power, conservatism) for favoring commonsense explanations of our sensory experiences over skeptical explanations. Despite the degree of visibility this class of response has enjoyed, it has often been viewed with skepticism [sic] by the epistemological community because of concerns about the epistemic merits of explanatory reasoning. I argue that skeptical challenges that employ skeptical hypotheses presuppose (...) central explanationist tenets and that this fact should raise one’s estimation of the strength of explanationist responses to skepticism. (shrink)

I argue that to know that a proposition is true one must have justification for being certain that the proposition is true. That is, one must have infallible epistemic justification for believing the proposition. It is widely accepted among epistemologists that we rarely, if ever, have such strong justification for our beliefs. It follows that there is precious little that we know. That conclusion is unacceptable to many philosophers. I argue that the positions that lead to the skeptical conclusion are (...) well-motivated and that the skeptical conclusion is implicitly accepted by ordinary speakers. My dissertation has three main components: a metaphilosophical position, an epistemological position, and an error theory. First, the metaphilosophical position. One very important part of philosophy is the analysis of our ordinary concepts. Analysis of our concepts begins with reflecting on what we are inclined to say about various actual and possible cases when considered under specific descriptions. This traditional method has recently come under attack, due in part to the rise of semantic externalism. I agree with externalists that if ‘meaning is reference’ then there is little reason to think reflecting on our concepts from the armchair will provide insight to the nature of the concepts we investigate. I defend a version of semantic internalism which grounds meaning in factors with which subjects are directly acquainted. That view supports the traditional methodology. Furthermore, as the goal of philosophical analysis is to accurately describe concepts of philosophical interest, the only kind of objection that could be decisive against a proposed analysis is that it does not correctly describe our concept. That opens the door to a skeptical analysis of knowledge. Second, the epistemological position. I argue that the unacceptability of sentences of the form “S knows that p but it is possible for S that not-p” is best explained by the hypothesis that our concept of knowledge requires having justification for being certain that what one believes is true. I offer as a criterion of justified certainty the idea that when one knows a proposition is true, one is in a position to decisively answer questions about one’s knowledge of that proposition. I survey a number of competing theories of knowledge and show that they allow for the possibility of knowledge when one fails my criterion of decisive answerability. Those views fail my criterion because according to those views there is nothing the subject is aware of that guarantees for the subject that the allegedly known proposition is true. On that basis, I contend that knowledge is direct awareness of the factors that constitute the truth of the proposition one believes. Third, the error theory. Of course, we rarely have direct awareness of the factors that constitute the truth of the propositions we believe. So, our knowledge attributions are generally false. Yet, they are overwhelmingly natural to make. I argue that competent speakers are often quick to recognize knowledge attributions as a kind of ‘loose talk’ akin to the way we loosely ascribe geometric properties to ordinary objects. We regularly call objects ‘square’ that are not even close to being square, and we are quick to recognize this when challenged. I argue that we do this because we are so accustomed to communicating using strict language to make false claims that we often do not attend to the literal falsity of what we are saying. While we accept very demanding standards for knowledge, the phenomenon of recognizing that our knowledge claims are regularly false is as pervasive as our use of loose speech. (shrink)

Coherentism theory is a famous alternative theory for foundationalism in the structure of justification. The major objection to coherentism theory of justification is the isolation objection. Using an analytical approach, the present paper studies the objection which is mainly based on the fact that the theory allows for justified beliefs with no justifying relation with reality because it holds that justifying a belief is only a function of its coherence with other beliefs, while some justified beliefs can be supposed with (...) not justifying relation with reality. Therefore, the theory requires no relation between belief and reality. Having mentioned two main responses to the objection, it proves that they are incomplete. It also analyzes the objection and proves that it results from the theory’s internalism, indicating that coherentism and foundationalism have similar position about the objection. Accordingly, foundationalism is addressed by the objection as well. Finally, it tries to defend internalist theories against the objection. (shrink)

Infallibilism is the claim that knowledge requires that one satisfies some infallibility condition. I spell out three distinct such conditions: epistemic, evidential and modal infallibility. Epistemic infallibility turns out to be simply a consequence of epistemic closure, and is not infallibilist in any relevant sense. Evidential infallibilism i s unwarranted but it is not an satisfactory characterization of the infallibilist intuition. Modal infallibility, by contrast, captures the core infallibilist intuition, and I argue that it is required to solve the Gettier (...) problem and account for lottery cases. Finally, I discuss whether modal infallibilism has sceptical consequences and argue that it is an open question whose answer depends on one’s account of alethic possibility. (shrink)

Many of our ordinary beliefs about the world around us are a result of inference from more fundamental beliefs. Foundationalists in epistemology have thought that, if these ordinary beliefs are to be rationally justified, the chain of inferential justification must terminate in a belief that is justified noninferentially. Foundationalists, of the internalist variety, have thought that the most plausible candidates for ending the regress of empirical justification are experiential states, the justifying features of which the believing subject is aware. The (...) Sellarsian dilemma, taking its name from philosopher Wilfrid Sellars, has been a persistent argument against foundationalist theories of epistemic justification. There have been various formulations of the dilemma over the years, but in its most general form it says that for any construal of an experiential state where the experiential state provides justification, the experiential state will need further justification. Sellars thought that an experience, all by itself, cannot provide justification unless we apply concepts to the experience. However, the application of concepts is judgmental and conceptual judgments, like beliefs, require further justification. So, the experiential state construed this way would perpetuate the regress it was designed to terminate. On the other hand, if the experiential state is construed such that it is not in need of justification, then it cannot itself provide justification. Both options are devastating to a foundationalist epistemology. My thesis is that a solution to all forms of the Sellarsian dilemma is to require for foundational justification direct awareness of the fit between one's conceptual judgment and the justifying experiential state. I concede that one must conceptualize one's experiential states for these states to play an epistemic role. However, I argue that conceptual judgments of this sort are the foundations. The importance of this solution is that it not only terminates the regress of justification but it also captures the primary intuitions that motivate internalism and foundationalism. This is to say that although I have framed my account as a response to the Sellarsian dilemma, it is not merely an ad hoc patch that avoids what stood as a serious problem. Instead, it is a return to what has motivated and what I take to be most persuasive about internalist foundationalism. (shrink)

Defenders of the Knowledge Argument contend that physicalism is false because knowing all the physical truths is not sufficient to know all the truths about the world. In particular, proponents of the Knowledge Argument claim that physicalism is false because the truths about the character of conscious experience are not knowable from the complete set of physical truths. This dissertation is a defense of the Knowledge Argument. Chapter one characterizes what physicalism is and provides support for the claim that if (...) knowing all the physical truths is not sufficient to know all the truths about the world, then physicalism is false. In chapter two, I defend the claim that knowing all the physical truths is not sufficient for knowing all the truths about the world. In addition to mounting a prima facie case for the knowledge intuition, I present and defend an epistemology grounded in direct acquaintance to provide a more substantive argument to accept it. Chapters three through five address the physicalist objections to the Knowledge Argument. The first set of objections advocates that knowing all the physical truths is, in fact, sufficient for knowing all the truths about the world. The next set of objections admits that there is some sense in which knowing all the physical truths is not sufficient for knowing all the truths about the world. However, these objections maintain that the kind of knowledge that is absent from the complete set of physical truths is know-how or knowledge by acquaintance, and not factual or propositional knowledge. The final set of objections maintain that the kind of propositional knowledge that is left out of the complete set of physical truths is compatible with physicalism. My response to these objections is part of advancing my prima facie case for the Knowledge Argument. The final chapter addresses a structural question that pertains to the Knowledge Argument. Some philosophers have maintained that the structure of the Knowledge Argument invites a kind of self-refutation of any systematic account of reality. The concern is that the Knowledge Argument proves too much, and that the dualist who uses the argument to refute physicalism risks the argument defeating his own position. I will argue that the Knowledge Argument does not refute dualism. (shrink)

This essay purports to be a “negative” defense of acquaintance foundationalism. It is “negative” in that I do not do much in the way of advancing novel argument for the position, nor do I extend the position very much. Rather, I focus on demonstrating that the position has the resources to overcome objections that have been proposed to it. In particular, I argue that it can overcome the dilemma proposed by Wilfrid Sellars and developed by Laurence BonJour against foundationalism, as (...) well as dilemmas proposed by Jack Lyons and Michael Bergmann targeting internalism. Acquaintance foundationalism is what I will call any theory of justification that is internalist in what may justify us, foundationalist in the structure of justification, and relies on the concept of acquaintance in justifying our basic beliefs. Internalism requires that what justifies us improves the belief from the perspective of the believing subject. Foundationalism states that the justification for all beliefs depends ultimately on basic beliefs. Finally, acquaintance is a relation between a person and other things such that these other things are before the “mind’s eye” of the subject. The general idea behind each of these dilemmas, so I will argue, is to claim that acquaintance foundationalism cannot provide epistemic reasons for basic beliefs, where epistemic reason means something that contributes to justification from the subject’s perspective. Each dilemma will ask whether the alleged justifier has some feature x. However, each dilemma contends that, whether the alleged has the feature x or not, it cannot serve as an epistemic reason. For example, BonJour will ask whether our allegedly basic beliefs are cognitive or not. He argues that if they are cognitive, they need justification, but if they are not cognitive, they cannot provide justification. Thus, no allegedly basic belief can serve as an epistemic reason. I argue that the notion of acquaintance allows us to escape such dilemmas because our states of acquaintance allow us to justify our basic beliefs without requiring justification themselves. I do so by borrowing, in part, Richard Fumerton’s theory of non-inferential justification, plus adding on a few epicycles to allow us to base our basic beliefs on our acquaintances. The first chapter sets up the issues of the dissertation: it gives context to the project, defines acquaintance foundationalism and epistemic reason, and discusses our dilemmas in broad outline. It also summarizes the rest of the essay. I use epistemic reasons in a specialized sense in the dissertation, which necessitates an extended discussion. This is the focus of chapter two. I argue that an epistemic reason is a mental complex that consists of Fumertonian acquaintances. When we have an epistemic reason, we have a mental complex that is related in the appropriate way to a belief. This is just what provides justification for the belief. This chapter explicates this notion. It includes an extended discussion of Richard Fumerton’s theory of non-inferential justification, which I follow in outline but diverge from in detail. This discussion focuses on his notion of acquaintance, and the items with which we may be acquainted. I then move to a discussion of the metaphysics of epistemic reasons, explaining how they consist of these acquaintances. I also discuss the relationship between epistemic reasons and epistemic justification. The third chapter is historical in focus. I examine Sellars’s famous dilemma for foundationalism, and contend that it can be best understood as an attempt to deny the foundationalist epistemic reasons for his beliefs. I also examine Laurence BonJour’s later formulation of the Sellarsian dilemma, and again argue that it is best understood as denying epistemic reasons to foundationalists. I then review the options that an acquaintance foundationalist has to respond to these dilemmas, as these responses will allow us to see where our more recent dilemmas go wrong. Chapter four address Jack Lyons’s dilemma. I consider what Lyons says about his dilemma at some length. I then argue that it is structurally similar to the Sellarsian dilemma, and tries to undermine the internalist’s ability to offer epistemic reasons for his beliefs. I then argue that Lyons’s dilemma only seems persuasive because he misunderstands what is required for experience to provide us with an epistemic reason. When properly understood, his dilemma fails to tell against the acquaintance foundationalism. I also argue that Lyons’s version of externalism is much more radical than it might initially appear, helping to motivate acquaintance foundationalism. The fifth chapter focuses on Michael Bergmann. I give his dilemma an extended discussion, which I follow up by reframing it in terms of epistemic reasons. I argue that his dilemma, while seemingly persuasive, fails to trouble the acquaintance foundationalism. I argue that we may be strongly aware of our epistemic reasons without starting a regress, which vitiates his dilemma. I conclude with some short remarks on possibility of skepticism. (shrink)

Traditional philosophy has been under attack from several quarters in recent years. The traditional philosopher views philosophy as an armchair discipline relying, for the most part, on reason and reflection. Some philosophers doubt the legitimacy of this type of inquiry. Their arguments usually occur along two dimensions. Some argue that the primary data source for the armchair philosopher--intuition--does not provide evidence for philosophical theories. Others argue that conceptual analysis, which is the preferred method of inquiry for armchair philosophers, can't yield (...) the results the philosopher is looking for, since concepts like 'knowledge' or 'free-will' vary from culture to culture or even between persons within a culture. Finally, some philosophers argue that we should abandon the armchair program because philosophy should be an empirical enterprise continuous with the sciences. I argue that attempts to undermine intuition fail and that one can justify the evidential status of intuition in a non-question begging way. I then argue that attacks on the belief in shared concepts do not succeed because they often conflate the nature of scientific objects with those of interest to the philosopher. However, if concepts do vary from culture to culture, I show that the philosopher need not abandon the armchair. She can still do conceptual analysis but it will be only the entry point into the philosophical dialogue. I apply this approach to epistemology arguing that the central epistemic questions ought to be the existential and the normative. This approach helps to vindicate epistemic internalism. (shrink)

In Lehrer’s case of the superstitious lawyer, a lawyer possesses conclusive evidence for his client’s innocence, and he appreciates that the evidence is conclusive, but the evidence is causally inert with respect to his belief in his client’s innocence. This case has divided epistemologists ever since Lehrer originally proposed it in his argument against causal analyses of knowledge. Some have taken the claim that the lawyer bases his belief on the evidence as a data point for our theories to accommodate, (...) while others have denied that the lawyer has knowledge, or that he bases his belief on the evidence. In this paper, we move the dialectic forward by way of arguing that the superstitious lawyer genuinely infers his client’s innocence from the evidence. To show that the lawyer’s inference is genuine, we argue in defense of a version of a doxastic construal of the ‘taking’ condition on inference. We also provide a pared-down superstitious lawyer-style case, which displays the key features of the original case without including its complicated and distracting features. But interestingly, although we argue that the lawyer’s belief is based on his good evidence, and is also plausibly doxastically justified, we do not argue that the lawyer knows that his client is innocent. (shrink)