Matthias Steup

When I take a sip from the coffee in my cup, I can taste that it is sweet. When I hold the cup with my hands, I can feel that it is hot. Why does the experience of feeling that the cup is hot give me justification for believing that the cup is hot?And why does the experience of tasting that the coffee is sweet give me justification for believing that the coffee is sweet?In general terms: Why is it that a sense experience that P is a source of justification—a reason—for believing that P? Call this the Question. I will discuss various answers to the Question, and defend the one I myself favor.

Defined narrowly, epistemology is the study of knowledge and justified belief. As the study of knowledge, epistemology is concerned with the following questions: What are the necessary and sufficient conditions of knowledge? What are its sources? What is its structure, and what are its limits? As the study of justified belief, epistemology aims to answer questions such as: How we are to understand the concept of justification? What makes justified beliefs justified? Is justification internal or external to one's own mind? Understood more broadly, epistemology is about issues having to do with the creation and dissemination of knowledge in particular areas of inquiry. This article will provide a systematic overview of the problems that the questions above raise and focus in some depth on issues relating to the structure and the limits of knowledge and justification

In this paper, I examine Alston's arguments for doxastic involuntarism. Alston fails to distinguish (i) between volitional and executional lack of control, and (ii) between compatibilist and libertarian control. As a result, he fails to notice that, if one endorses a compatibilist notion of voluntary control, the outcome is a straightforward and compelling case for doxastic voluntarism. Advocates of involuntarism have recently argued that the compatibilist case for doxastic voluntarism can be blocked by pointing out that belief is never intentional. In response to this strategy, I distinguish between two types of intentionality and argue that belief is no less intentional than action is

I distinguish between Old Contextualism, New Contextualism, and the Multiple Concepts Theory. I argue that Old Contextualism cannot handle the following three problems: (i) the disquotational paradox, (ii) upward pressure resistance, (iii) inability to avoid the acceptance of skeptical conclusions. New Contextualism, in contrast, can avoid these problems. However, since New Contextualism appears to be a semanticized mirror image of MCT, it remains unclear whether it is in fact a genuine version of contextualism.

In this book, which is as much about postmodern continental philosophy as about analytic epistemology, Alcoff argues that epistemology is in need of a reorientation away from foundationalism and metaphysical realism toward coherentism and what Alcoff calls “immanent” realism. Alcoff begins, in the book’s introduction, by making an initial case for coherentism and against dismissing epistemology altogether. She considers it a valuable postmodernist insight that philosophical theorizing reflects social, gender, and ethnic hierarchies, and thus is driven by unacknowledged elements such as desire and power. Alcoff suggests, however, that it would be a mistake for philosophers to be content with simply exposing the hidden role such forces play. Epistemology as a philosophical discipline answers to important questions and concerns. But, Alcoff urges, it must transform itself if it is to preserve the postmodernist lessons. Such a transformation, if accomplished, would end the autonomy of epistemology, for it would tear down the traditional boundaries between the philosophical and the political, the normative and the sociological.

A foundationalist account of the justification of our empirical beliefs is committed to the following two claims: (1) Sense experience is a source of justification. (2) Some empirical beliefs are basic: justified without receiving their justification from any other beliefs. In this paper, I will defend each of these claims against an objection. The objection to (1) that I will discuss is due to Donald Davidson. He writes: The relation between a sensation and a belief cannot be logical, since sensations are not beliefs or other propositional attitudes. What then is the relation? The answer is, I think, obvious: the relation is causal. Sensations cause some beliefs and in this sense are the basis or ground of those beliefs. But a causal explanation of a belief does not show how or why the belief is justified. [1] There are two important thoughts in this passage. The first of these is explicitly expressed, the second implied: (3) Sense-experiential states are devoid of propositional content. (4) Necessarily, if a mental state can play the role of a justifier, it has propositional content. (3) and (4) entail that a sense-experiential state cannot play the role of a justifier. If that is true, then (1) is false. This, in any case, seems to me to be Davidson's argument. In response to it, I accept (4) but reject (3). This is an unusual move for foundationalists, who tend to accept (3) and deny (4). Nevertheless, it is what I take to be the right move.

According to Michael Bergmann, advocates of internalism face a serious dilemma. He argues that, depending on how the key notion of awareness is construed, internalism is either strong or weak. Strong internalism generates a regress Bergmann considers vicious. Weak internalism yields a notion of justification that he thinks falls victim to one of the very objections internalists level against externalism. Since in addition to its weak or strong construal, there is no middle way, internalism seems doomed. I present and defend a version of weak internalism, which in previous work I have labelled ‘internalist reliabilism’. I argue internalist reliabilism is immune to Bergmann’s objection.

Two claims are essential to foundationalist theories of knowledge. First, that there are directly evident propositions; secondly, that, in justifying a particular knowledge claim, one ultimately arrives at a directly evident proposition making another proposition evident. In this dissertation, both claims are being defended. ;In defense of the first claim, a week definition of a proposition's being directly evident is suggested. Any attack against foundationalism rejecting the first claim must show that there are no contingent directly evident propositions in the sense of this definition. According to the thesis of privileged access, what a man believes about his mental states is directly evident, or, according to different versions of this thesis, self-presenting, infallible, self-evident, indubitable, or incorrigible. Rejecting a number of objections to it, the thesis of privileged access in all of its versions is being defended. In defense of the second claim, an account of prima facie evidence is set forth, incorporating definitions of the concepts "e tends to make h evident," "i defeats the evidence e provides for h," and "e makes h prima facie evident for S." It is claimed that, if a proposition p is made prima facie evident for a person S, then there is no ground on which it is reasonable for S to doubt that p is true. ;Furthermore, two epistemic principles are being offered. The first lays down the conditions under which evidence is generated, asserting that evidence is generated in virtue of a person's being in a psychological state. The second lays down the conditions under which evidence is transmitted from a directly to an indirectly evident proposition, asserting that evidence is transmitted from a directly to an indirectly evident proposition if the former bears to the latter the relation of "e making h prima facie evident."

Eleven pairs of newly commissioned essays face off on opposite sides of fundamental problems in current theories of knowledge. Brings together fresh debates on eleven of the most controversial issues in epistemology. Questions addressed include: Is knowledge contextual? Can skepticism be refuted? Can beliefs be justified through coherence alone? Is justified belief responsible belief? Lively debate format sharply defines the issues, and paves the way for further discussion. Will serve as an accessible introduction to the major topics in contemporary epistemology, whilst also capturing the imagination of professional philosophers.

Is it possible to argue that one’s memory is reliable without using one’s memory? I argue that it is not. Since it is not, it is impossible to defend the reliability ofone’s memory without employing reasoning that is epistemically circular. Hence, if epistemic circularity is vicious, it is impossible to succeed in producing a cogent argument for the reliability of one’s memory. The same applies to any other one of one’s cognitive faculties. I further argue that, if epistemic circularity is vicious, it is impossible to produce a cogent argument for the reliability of anything. For example, if epistemic circularity were vicious, a cogent argument for the reliability of one’s car would not be possible. The seeming viciousness of epistemic circularity even threatens, I propose, the possibility of justification and knowledge. Much, therefore, hangs one the question of whether epistemic circularity is indeed bad. I argue that epistemic circularity, or bootstrapping, need not be bad. When we use a crystal ball—a source perspicuously guilty of unreliability—to confirm its own reliability, bootstrapping is foolish. When we attribute reliability to a witness solely because the witness says he is reliable, bootstrapping is dogmatic. Foolish and dogmatic bootstrapping are bad. However, when a witness provides a rich body of testimony, using that testimony to gauge the witness’s reliability need not be a vicious form of circularity. When done critically, I argue, such reasoning exemplifies a form of bootstrapping that is benign.

Epistemic deontology is the view that the concept of epistemic justification is deontological: a justified belief is, by definition, an epistemically permissible belief. I defend this view against the argument from doxastic involuntarism, according to which our doxastic attitudes are not under our voluntary control, and thus are not proper objects for deontological evaluation. I argue that, in order to assess this argument, we must distinguish between a compatibilist and a libertarian construal of the concept of voluntary control. If we endorse a compatibilist construal, it turns out that we enjoy voluntary control over our doxastic attitudes after all. If, on the other hand, we endorse a libertarian construal, the result is that, for our doxastic attitudes to be suitable objects of deontological evaluation, they need not be under our voluntary control.