Jeremy Fantl

This paper brings together two recent developments in the theory of epistemic justification: practical conditions on justification, and infinitism (the view thatjustification is a matter of having an infinite series of non-repeating reasons). Pragmatic principles can be used to argue that, if we’re looking for an ‘objective’ theory of the structure of justification – a theory that applies to all subjects independently of their practical context – infinitism stands the only chance at being the correct theory.

New and thoroughly updated, Epistemology: An Anthology continues to represent the most comprehensive and authoritative collection of canonical readings in the theory of knowledge. Concentrates on the central topics of the field, such as skepticism and the Pyrrhonian problematic, the definition of knowledge, and the structure of epistemic justification Offers coverage of more specific topics, such as foundationalism vs coherentism, and virtue epistemology Presents wholly new sections on 'Testimony, Memory, and Perception' and 'The Value of Knowledge' Features modified sections on 'The Structure of Knowledge and Justification', 'The Non-Epistemic in Epistemology', and 'The Nature of the Epistemic' Includes many of the most important contributions made in recent decades by several outstanding authors.

A rigorous, authoritative new anthology which brings together some of the most significant contemporary scholarship on the theory of knowledge Carefully-calibrated and judiciously-curated, this strong and contemporary new anthology builds upon Epistemology: An Anthology, Second Edition (Wiley Blackwell, 2008) by drawing a concise and well-balanced selection of higher-level readings from a large, diverse, and evolving body of research. Includes 17 readings that represent a broad and vital part of contemporary epistemology, including articles by female philosophers and emerging thought leaders Organized into seven thoughtful and distinct sections, including virtue epistemology, practical reasons for belief, and epistemic dysfunctions among others Designed to sit alongside the highly-successful anthology of canonical essays, Epistemology: An Anthology, Second Edition (Wiley Blackwell, 2008) Edited by a distinguished editorial team, including Ernie Sosa, one of the most influential active epistemologists Highlights cutting edge methodologies and contemporary topics for advanced students, instructors, and researchers.

Some recent epistemologists propose that certainty is the norm of action and assertion. This proposal is subject to skeptical worries. If, as is usually supposed, certainty is very hard to come by, legitimate action and assertion will be rare. To remedy this, some have conjoined their certainty-norms with a context-sensitive semantics for ‘certainty’. For a proposition to be certain for you, you only need to be able to exclude relevant alternatives. I argue that, depending on what makes an alternative relevant, this kind of view is disingenuous. In particular, if an alternative can be made relevant by being relevant to rational action, it allows an escape from the skeptical consequences only by licensing David Lewis-style utterances of the form, “You know that p only if there is no probability, no matter how small, that not-p—Psst!—Unless that probability is really small.” While there are legitimate ways to exclude some possibilities from relevance, it is disingenuous, I argue, to exclude possibilities from relevance on the basis of the very characteristic—low but nonzero probability—that is claimed to be incompatible with certainty.

Shifty epistemologists allow that the truth value of “knowledge”-ascriptions can vary not merely because of such differences, but because of factors not traditionally deemed to matter to whether someone knows, like salience of error possibilities and practical stakes. Thus, contextualists and subject-sensitive invariantists are both examples. This paper examines two strategies for arguing for shifty epistemology: the argument-from-instances strategy, which attempts to show that the truth-value of knowledge-ascriptions can vary by proposing cases in which they vary (e.g., the bank cases, the airport case), and the argument-from-principles strategy, which attempts to specify general features of knowledge or ‘knowledge’ which guarantee the existence of cases of truth-value variation. This paper urges shifty epistemologists to consider the merits of emphasizing the latter strategy over the former.

I argue in favor of the possibility of real a priori justification. Some writers have claimed that, to adequately defend against the naturalist, we should grant that a priori justification can be defeated by further experiential evidence. Such writers generally view a priori faculties as on a par with empirical faculties but with different proper objects. While perceptual objects are the contingently existing things with which we are in causal contact, a priori objects are either necessarily true propositions or necessarily existing abstract objects with which we are not in causal contact. ;Though I admit that there is a weak sense of a priori justification according to which an a priori justified belief can become irrational in the face of experiential evidence, I argue that genuine a priori justification cannot be overridden by further experiential considerations . Allowing that a priori justification admits of degrees, we can be more or less a priori justified in a belief, depending on the extent to which that belief is revisable in the face of experiential evidence. In this way, I argue that the naturalist, in saying that a priori justification can always be defeated by experiential evidence, does not impugn the possibility that some beliefs can have a greater degree of a priori justification than others . I further argue that experiential beliefs derive much of their justification from a large background network of beliefs with a high degree of a priori justification. Some inference rules, I argue, in licensing the revision of empirical beliefs, must be unrevisable in their own right. Thus, if the naturalist is right, and a priori justification does require mysterious, occult processes, then so does experiential justification. If mysterious, occult processes are to be avoided at all costs, naturalism commits us to a rather extreme form of philosophical skepticism