Abstract
In this article, I try to defend my conception of noninferential justification from important criticisms raised by Ted Poston in a recent article published in Philosophical Studies. More specifically, I argue that from within the framework of an acquaintance theory, one can still allow for fallible noninferential justification, and one can do so without losing the advantages I claim for the theory.
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Notes
Throughout I am discussing only what some philosophers call propositional justification—the justification one has for believing a proposition whether or not one bases one’s belief in that proposition on that justification. I have argued that basing requires causal connection and that we are not competent, qua philosophers, to assess the question of what causes or causally sustains are beliefs. If justified belief involves considerations of basing conditions, we are not competent qua philosophers to determine which of our beliefs are jsutified.
There are philosophers who argue that it there can be no unnoticed change in a genuinely phenomenal state—it is a presupposition of Williamson’s argument that this is wrong.
For a more extensive discussion of the problem of the speckled hen for classical acquaintance accounts of nonifenerential justification see Fumerton (2005).
Again, let me make clear that none of this is supposed to constitute a decisive argument in favor of the overall epistemology I endorse. The ultimate defense of my position involves my successfully objecting to a host of alternative views, including externalist accounts of mental content.
I’d like thank my colleague Evan Fales with whom I have discussed these sorts of issues for over thirty years. Evan also commented on an earlier version of Poston’s paper at the 2008 APA Pacific Meetings, and some of my comments here overlap with his.
References:
Fumerton, R. (2002). Realism and the correspondence theory of truth. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.
Fumerton, R. (2005). Speckled hens and objects of acquaintance. Philosophical Perspectives, 19, 121–139. doi:10.1111/j.1520-8583.2005.00056.x.
Hume, D. (1888). In L. A. Selby-Bigge (Ed.), A treatise of human nature. London: Oxford University Press.
Lewis, C. I. (1952). The given element in empirical knowledge. The Philosophical Review, 61, 168–175. doi:10.2307/2182907.
Williamson, T. (2000). Knowledge and its limits. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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Fumerton, R. Poston on similarity and acquaintance. Philos Stud 147, 379–386 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-009-9401-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-009-9401-y