Is evidentialism justified?

[Welsh cake]

The question for this thread is "Is evidentialism justified?"

Pragmatically justified or epistemically justified?

Epistemic.

So the actual dispute then is whether evidentialism holds up as a theory of justification, as in, does it justify propositions and beliefs or not. Let's apply it to see if it is self-defeating.

I present to you, for sake of the argument, the belief that there is a giant frog in the sun. There's absolutely no evidence to support it. It's simply a faith-based position. Evidentialism renders my belief unjustified. If you want to reject evidentialism that's your entitlement. How would you go about justifying my belief epistemically so that it may be established by a panrationalism appeal to the rational criteria?

My "belief" cannot possibly justify itself when there is scientific knowledge and empirical observation to the contrary. There are already natural explanations in place that describe stars, and none of those involve giant amphibians.

Neither can my "belief" be justified by other similar beliefs such as the giant platypus in the sun. Both cannot be supported by logic or evidence in any case. It would seem to me that your complaint actually lies with "justification" itself, as in how we go about justifying our beliefs in the first place.

Evidentialism is a claim about when beliefs are justified. As evidentialism is itself a belief, it is perfectly reasonable to apply it to itself.

No. That's a deductive fallacy you've presented. As I explained to you earlier it is a *theory of justification* which is part of epistemology, which in turn is a branch of philosophy. It is concerned with beliefs, it is not of itself a belief.

Evidence of any sort. The evidentialist thesis leaves open what counts and does not count as evidence.

Yes but hearsay can be submitted as evidence and that does not establish whether evidentialism is flawed or not. We both agree the content of the evidence is irrelevant so long as it provides a valid justification for the belief.

We're back to square one again. How do you justify your beliefs Stempy?