Justification, Truth and Internalism

Two arguments against the compatibility of epistemic internalism and content externalism are considered. Both arguments are shown to fail, because they equivocate on the concept of justification involved in their premises. To spell out the involved equivocation, a distinction between subjective and objective justification is introduced, which can also be independently motivated on the basis of a wide range of thought experiments to be found in the mainstream literature on epistemology. The subjective/objective justification distinction is also ideally suited for providing new insights with respect to central issues within epistemology, including the internalism/externalism debate and the New Evil Demon intuition.

2020

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.

2017

Endriss Justify This! The Roles of Epistemic Justification 2 [J]ustification is primarily a status which knowledge can confer on beliefs that look good in its light without themselves amounting to knowledge. Timothy Williamson(2000),p. 9. 0. BACKGROUND Suppose that Smith and Jones have applied for a certain job. 1 And suppose that Smith has strong evidence for the following conjunctive proposition: (i) Jones is the man who will get the job, and Jones has ten coins in his pocket. Smith's evidence for (i) might be that the president of the company assured him that Jones would in the end be selected, and that he, Smith, had counted the coins in Jones's pocket ten minutes ago. Proposition (i) implies: (ii) The man who will get the job has ten coins in his pocket. Let us further suppose that Smith sees the implication from (i) to (ii) and accepts (ii) on the grounds of (i), for which he has strong evidence. In this case, Smith is clearly justified in believing that (ii) is true. But imagine, further, that unknown to Smith, he himself, not Jones, will get the job. And, also, unknown to Smith, he himself has ten coins in his pocket. Proposition (ii) is then true, though proposition (i), from which Smith inferred (ii), is false. In our example, then, all of the following are true: (ii) is true, Smith believes that (ii) is true, and Smith is justified in believing that (ii) is true. But it is equally clear that Smith does not know that (ii) is true; for (ii) is true in virtue of the number of coins in Smith's pocket, while Smith does not know how many coins are in Smith's pocket, and bases his belief in 1 The following case study is taken directly from Edmund Gettier's (1963/2008) "Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?" Some minor changes have been made to remove elements of the original language that are unnecessary for this paper. Endriss Justify This! The Roles of Epistemic Justification

Logos & Episteme

""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, as it has been alleged that internalism cannot account for the possibility of the justification of beliefs stored in memory. My aim in this paper is to offer a response that explains how memory justification is possible in a way that is consistent with epistemic internalism and an awareness condition on justification. Specifically, I will explore the plausibility of various options open to internalists, including both foundationalist and non-foundationalist approaches to the structure of justification. I intend to show that despite other difficult challenges that epistemic internalism might face, memory belief poses no special problems that the resources of internalism cannot adequately address.""

Episteme, 2012

The new evil demon problem is often considered to be a serious obstacle for externalist theories of epistemic justification. In this paper, I aim to show that the new evil demon problem (from now on, ‘NEDP’) also afflicts the two most prominent forms of internalism: moderate internalism and historical internalism. Since virtually all internalists accept at least one of these two forms, it follows that virtually all internalists face the NEDP. My secondary thesis is that many epistemologists – including both internalists and externalists – face a dilemma. The only form of internalism that is immune to the NEDP, strong internalism, is a very radical and revisionary view—a large number of epistemologists would have to significantly revise their views about justification in order to accept it. Hence, either epistemologists must accept a theory that is susceptible to the NEDP or accept a very radical and revisionary view.

2010

The internalism/externalism debate is of interest in epistemology since it addresses one of the most fundamental questions in the discipline: what is the basic nature of knowledge and epistemic justification? It is generally held that if a positive epistemic status obtains, this is not a brute fact. Rather if a belief is, for example, justified, it is justified in virtue of some further condition(s) obtaining. What has been called epistemic internalism holds, as the label suggests, is that all the relevant factors that determine justification must be “internal” (in a sense that needs to be specified). Epistemic externalism is the denial of internalism. Epistemic internalism about justification is the subject of this article. After introducing the central intuitive considerations that have tended to motivate internalism, this paper will explore different ways of construing the internalist position (or family of positions). In addition to classical formulations, more recent formulations will be discussed, concluding with a discussion of an emerging position known as “Epistemological Disjunctivism”, which its advocates claim preserves the most important features of more traditional forms of internalism, while avoiding their difficulties. Epistemological Disjunctivism is particularly worthy of attention since if true, it promises to bridge internalist and externalist epistemologies, bringing a rapprochement to two sides of what may otherwise appear a deep and intractable debate about the fundamental nature of epistemology.

The Externalist Challenge, 2004

Erkenntnis 71 (2009), pp.361-375

I first argue that the skeptic needs an internalist conception of justification for her argument for skepticism. I then argue that the skeptic also needs to show that we do not have perceptual access to the world if her skepticism is to be a real threat to human knowledge of the world. This, I conclude, puts the skeptic in a dilemma, for internalist conceptions of justification presuppose that we have perceptual access to the world.

The New Evil Demon. F. Dorsch and J. Dutant (ed.). To be published by Oxford University Press

While we've said more than we need to say about the distinction between justification and knowledge, epistemologists have said little about the distinction between justification and excuse. The aim of this paper is to offer some general suggestions about how this distinction should be drawn, why we should distinguish justification from rationality, and how this all sheds light on Cohen's new evil demon objection to externalism. I shall argue that externalists have nothing to fear from the demon for there's nothing wrong with saying that the deceived subject's beliefs are excused, not justified. I shall also argue that there's something wrong with Cohen's methodology. The intuitions that he hopes to elicit cannot have the significance he takes them to. A norm might be a genuine norm even if it's not demon-proofed. (No norm could be demon-proofed!)

Since the demolition of the traditional analysis of knowledge as justified true belief by Gettier's famous 1963 article, there have been apparent and endless debates between internalists and externalists over the construal or conditions for epistemic justification of beliefs with no widely accepted solution. In this paper, it is argued that justifying factors for epistemic status of one's beliefs are externally characterized with reference to the disposition of objects and property of the world. Hence, externalist theory of justification is more tenable.