Is evidentialism justified?
January 4, 2011 at 10:03 am
(This post was last modified: January 4, 2011 at 11:26 am by Stempy.)
In this thread, "evidentialism" is defined to be the view that:
"Person S is justified in believing proposition p at time t if and only if S’s evidence for p at t supports believing p."[1]
The question for this thread is "Is evidentialism justified?" For if it is not, then it is simply an arbitrary criterion which we are at liberty to reject. Applying evidentialism to itself, we are only justified in believing that evidentialism is true if our evidence supports evidentialism. But do we have any evidence supporting evidentialism? I'm not aware of any (in fact, prima facie it doesn't even seem possible that there could be any), and so by evidentialism's own lights I am free to reject it.
A second question (if you agree that evidentialism is not justified) is this: is it possible to adapt the evidentialist thesis in such away that it doesn't have this self-defeating character?
A final tertiary question for those who say "no" to the second question is "Are there any criterion for epistemic justification that are not self-defeating?"
Stempy.
[1] Evidentialism, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
"Person S is justified in believing proposition p at time t if and only if S’s evidence for p at t supports believing p."[1]
The question for this thread is "Is evidentialism justified?" For if it is not, then it is simply an arbitrary criterion which we are at liberty to reject. Applying evidentialism to itself, we are only justified in believing that evidentialism is true if our evidence supports evidentialism. But do we have any evidence supporting evidentialism? I'm not aware of any (in fact, prima facie it doesn't even seem possible that there could be any), and so by evidentialism's own lights I am free to reject it.
A second question (if you agree that evidentialism is not justified) is this: is it possible to adapt the evidentialist thesis in such away that it doesn't have this self-defeating character?
A final tertiary question for those who say "no" to the second question is "Are there any criterion for epistemic justification that are not self-defeating?"
Stempy.
[1] Evidentialism, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
