12 found
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  1. Epistemological Disjunctivism and the New Evil Demon.B. J. C. Madison - 2014 - Acta Analytica 29 (1):61-70.
    In common with traditional forms of epistemic internalism, epistemological disjunctivism attempts to incorporate an awareness condition on justification. Unlike traditional forms of internalism, however, epistemological disjunctivism rejects the so-called New Evil Genius thesis. In so far as epistemological disjunctivism rejects the New Evil Genius thesis, it is revisionary. -/- After explaining what epistemological disjunctivism is, and how it relates to traditional forms of epistemic internalism / externalism, I shall argue that the epistemological disjunctivist’s account of the intuitions underlying the New (...)
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  2. On justifications and excuses.B. J. C. Madison - 2017 - Synthese 195 (10):4551-4562.
    The New Evil Demon problem has been hotly debated since the case was introduced in the early 1980’s (e.g. Lehrer and Cohen 1983; Cohen 1984), and there seems to be recent increased interest in the topic. In a forthcoming collection of papers on the New Evil Demon problem (Dutant and Dorsch, forthcoming), at least two of the papers, both by prominent epistemologists, attempt to resist the problem by appealing to the distinction between justification and excuses. My primary aim here is (...)
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  3. Epistemic Value and the New Evil Demon.B. J. C. Madison - 2017 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 98 (1):89-107.
    In this article I argue that the value of epistemic justification cannot be adequately explained as being instrumental to truth. I intend to show that false belief, which is no means to truth, can nevertheless still be of epistemic value. This in turn will make a good prima facie case that justification is valuable for its own sake. If this is right, we will have also found reason to think that truth value monism is false: assuming that true belief does (...)
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  4. Internalism in the Epistemology of Testimony Redux.B. J. C. Madison - 2016 - Erkenntnis 81 (4):741-755.
    In general, epistemic internalists hold that an individual’s justification for a belief is exhausted by her reflectively accessible reasons for thinking that the contents of her beliefs are true. Applying this to the epistemology of testimony, a hearer’s justification for beliefs acquired through testimony is exhausted by her reflectively accessible reasons to think that the contents of the speaker’s testimony is true. A consequence of internalism is that subjects that are alike with respect to their reflectively accessible reasons are alike (...)
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  5. Internalism and Externalism.B. J. C. Madison - 2017 - In Sven Bernecker & Kourken Michaelian (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Memory. New York: Routledge. pp. 283-295.
    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.
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  6. On Social Defeat.B. J. C. Madison - 2020 - Canadian Journal of Philosophy 50 (6):719-734.
    Influential cases have been provided that seem to suggest that one can fail to have knowledge because of the social environment. If not a distinct kind of social defeater, is there a uniquely social phenomenon that defeats knowledge? My aim in this paper is to explore these questions. I shall argue that despite initial appearances to the contrary, we have no reason to accept a special class of social defeater, nor any essentially social defeat phenomenon. We can explain putative cases (...)
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  7. Epistemic Internalism, Justification, and Memory.B. J. C. Madison - 2014 - Logos and Episteme 5 (1):33-62.
    Epistemic internalism, by stressing the indispensability of the subject’s perspective, strikes many as plausible at first blush. However, many people have tended to reject the position because certain kinds of beliefs have been thought to pose special problems for epistemic internalism. For example, internalists tend to hold that so long as a justifier is available to the subject either immediately or upon introspection, it can serve to justify beliefs. Many have thought it obvious that no such view can be correct, (...)
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  8. Reliabilists Should Still Fear the Demon.B. J. C. Madison - 2021 - Logos and Episteme 12 (2):193-202.
    In its most basic form, Simple Reliabilism states that: a belief is justified iff it is formed as the result of a reliable belief-forming process. But so-called New Evil Demon cases have been given as counterexamples. A common response has been to complicate reliabilism from its simplest form to accommodate the basic reliabilist position, while at the same time granting the force of NED intuitions. But what if despite initial appearances, Simple Reliabilism, without qualification, is compatible with the NED intuition? (...)
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  9. On the Possibility of Knowledge through Unsafe Testimony.B. J. C. Madison - 2020 - Social Epistemology 34 (5):513-526.
    If knowledge requires safety, then one might think that when the epistemic source of knowledge is testimony, that testimony must itself be safe. Otherwise, will not the lack of safety transfer from testimony to hearer, such that hearer will lack knowledge? Resisting this natural line of reasoning, Goldberg (2005; 2007) argues that testimonial knowledge through unsafe testimony is possible on the basis of two cases. Lackey (2008) and Pelling (2013) criticize Goldberg’s examples. But Pelling goes on to provide his own (...)
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  10. Disqualifying ‘Disqualifiers’.B. J. C. Madison - 2022 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 65 (2):202-214.
    In addition to the notion of defeat, do we need to expand the epistemological repertoire used in accounting for the context dependence of justification? It has recently been argued that we ought to admit a hitherto unrecognized fundamental epistemic kind called ‘disqualifiers’. Disqualifiers are taken to be not reducible to any other epistemic notion. Rather, they are meant to be primitive. If this is correct, it is a surprising and novel discovery, and so it is worthy of further epistemological investigation. (...)
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  11. On the Nature of Intellectual Vice.B. J. C. Madison - 2017 - Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 6 (12):1-6.
    Vice epistemology, as Quassim Cassam understands it, is the study of the nature, identity, and significance of the epistemic vices. But what makes an intellectual vice a vice? Cassam calls his own view “Obstructivism” – intellectual vices are those traits, thinking styles, or attitudes that systematically obstruct the acquisition, retention, and transmission of knowledge. -/- I shall argue that Cassam’s account is an improvement upon virtue-reliabilism, and that it fares better against what I call Montmarquet’s objection than its immediate rivals. (...)
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  12. Peacocke’s A Priori Arguments Against Scepticism.B. J. C. Madison - 2011 - Grazer Philosophische Studien 83 (1):1-8.
    In The Realm of Reason (2004), Christopher Peacocke develops a “generalized rationalism” concerning, among other things, what it is for someone to be “entitled”, or justified, in forming a given belief. In the course of his discussion, Peacocke offers two arguments to the best explanation that aim to undermine scepticism and establish a justification for our belief in the reliability of sense perception, respectively. If sound, these ambitious arguments would answer some of the oldest and most vexing epistemological problems. In (...)
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