RE: Is evidentialism justified?
January 7, 2011 at 8:15 am
(This post was last modified: January 8, 2011 at 6:51 am by Edwardo Piet.)
If you have your own sort of special mix of pragmatic and epistemic justification then maybe you can justify beliefs, I'm not sure how that works though.
But if you try to use epistemic justification alone, I don't see how you can justify your beliefs.
I only justify my beliefs pragmatically. I can give explanations for why I believe that refer to my own experience and what is useful for me, but when it comes to knowledge I can't justify my beliefs. I know that I believe but I don't know why because the "why?" question always leads to the infinite regress of the begging the question fallacy, and the only escape from that is to commit the circular reasoning fallacy.
We COULD justify things epistemically: But only if we redefine the meaning of "epistemic justification", and then we're not talking about the same thing. That's the way I see it.
I think that the most succinct and valid thing I said so far on this thread was this:
So I'd just like to quote it here and comment that what I'm saying is the question is PRAGMATICALLY relevant (the question "why do you believe X?"). And it's only relevant "epistemtically" in the sense that it demonstrates the impossibility of epistemic justification. Obviously I don't justify skepticism itself epistemically because that would contradict itself. I justifiy it pragmatically. That is why I consider the question relevant: I find it useful.
I find it useful because I have to ask the question to realize how pointless it is (and I also realize the fact that any answer leads to fallacy unless we redefine the meaning of the question!).
But if you try to use epistemic justification alone, I don't see how you can justify your beliefs.
I only justify my beliefs pragmatically. I can give explanations for why I believe that refer to my own experience and what is useful for me, but when it comes to knowledge I can't justify my beliefs. I know that I believe but I don't know why because the "why?" question always leads to the infinite regress of the begging the question fallacy, and the only escape from that is to commit the circular reasoning fallacy.
We COULD justify things epistemically: But only if we redefine the meaning of "epistemic justification", and then we're not talking about the same thing. That's the way I see it.
I think that the most succinct and valid thing I said so far on this thread was this:
DvF Wrote:It's a relevant question to ask because it makes me become aware that it commits the begging the question fallacy as it is defined. Because it commits the begging the question fallacy it can't lead to any conclusion. The fact that it can't lead to any conclusion demonstrates its unjustifiability.
So I'd just like to quote it here and comment that what I'm saying is the question is PRAGMATICALLY relevant (the question "why do you believe X?"). And it's only relevant "epistemtically" in the sense that it demonstrates the impossibility of epistemic justification. Obviously I don't justify skepticism itself epistemically because that would contradict itself. I justifiy it pragmatically. That is why I consider the question relevant: I find it useful.
I find it useful because I have to ask the question to realize how pointless it is (and I also realize the fact that any answer leads to fallacy unless we redefine the meaning of the question!).
