Abstract
The theories of epistemic justification advanced in recent years are commonly offered as contributions to an adequate conception of knowledge and are, perhaps in consequence, either foundational or coherentist.1 I take exception to such theories here, arguing that they exaggerate the importance of knowledge for an adequate epistemology. I claim that an adequate epistemology requires a central concept of epistemic justification not subordinate to the concept of knowledge and that the needed concept (which I attempt to identify) should presupppose a new theory of empirical justification — one that is neither foundational nor coherentist. Since the theory I accept has interesting affinities with the coherence theory recently developed by Laurence BonJour,2 I comment freely on his theory in supporting my alternative.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Aune, Bruce. Rationalism, Empiricism, and Pragmatism. New York: Random House, 1970.
Aune, Bruce. Metaphysics: The Elements. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1985.
Aune, Bruce. “Epistemic Justification,” Philosophical Studies 40 (1981), 419–429.
Aune, Bruce. “Action and Ontology,” Philosophical Studies, forthcoming (1988).
Bergmann, Gustav. The Metaphysics of Logical Positivism. New York: Longmans, Green, & Co., 1954.
Binkley, Robert. “A Theory of Practical Reason,” Philosophical Review 74 (1965), 423–448.
BonJour, Laurence. The Structure of Empirical Knowledge. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1985.
Clifford, W. K. “The Ethics of Belief,” (1859), cited, in part, in A. Castell (1963), 62–64.
Castell, Aubrey. A Modern Introduction to Philosophy, second edition, New York: Macmillan, 1963.
Davidson, Donald. “The Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme,” in Davidson, Essays into Truth and Interpretation, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984, 183–198.
de Finetti, Bruno: 1937, Foresight: Its Logical Laws, Its Subjective Sources, trans, by H.E. Kyburg, in H.E. Kyburg & H.E. Smokier (1964), 93–158.
Elgin, Catherine. “The Epistemic Efficacy of Stupidity,” in Nelson Goodman and Catherine Elgin (1988), 135–152.
Goodman, N. and C. Elgin. Reconceptions in Philosophy, Indianapolis: Hackett, 1988.
Glymour, Clark. Theory and Evidence. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980.
Hardin, C.L. Color for Philosophers. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1986.
Herbert, Nick. Quantum Reality. New York: Doubleday, 1987.
Kyburg, H.E., and H.E. Smokier. Studies in Subjective Probability. New York: Wiley, 1964.
Mill, John Stuart. On Liberty. (1859). Many editions.
Phillips, Lawrence, D. Bayesian Statistics for Social Scientists. London: Nelson, 1973.
Putnam, Hilary. Mind, Language, and Reality: Philosophical Papers, Vol. 2, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975.
Ramsey, Frank P. “Truth and Probability,” in Kyburg and Smokier (1964), 61–92.
Rosenkrantz, Roger. Inference, Method and Decision. Dordrecht: Reidel, 1977.
Russell, Bertrand. Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits. London: Allen and Unwin, 1948.
Russell, Bertrand. My Philosophical Development. London: Allen & Unwin, 1959.
Salmon, Wesley. The Foundations of Scientific Inference. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1967.
Schiffer, Stephen. The Remnants of Meaning. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1987.
Skyrms, Brian. Choice and Chance: An Introduction to Inductive Logic. Encino, Calif.: Dickinson, 1975.
Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus trans. W.K. Ogden, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1922.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1989 Kluwer Academic Publishers
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Aune, B. (1989). Epistemically Justified Opinion. In: Bender, J.W. (eds) The Current State of the Coherence Theory. Philosophical Studies Series, vol 44. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-2360-7_20
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-2360-7_20
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-010-7563-3
Online ISBN: 978-94-009-2360-7
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive