A dilemma for internalism?

Crisp, Thomas M.

doi:10.1007/s11229-009-9457-4

Cited by 11 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…In response to the complexity problem, Leite claims that we can appeal to "demonstrative or pronominal formulations" (2005: 415). (A similar response is suggested by Klein (1999: 307) and Crisp (2010).) Spelling this idea out, consider the following sequence:…”

Section: Leite's Response To the Complexity Problemmentioning

confidence: 71%

Justification, Justifying, and Leite’s Localism

Perrine

2018

Acta Anal

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In a series of papers, Adam Leite has developed a novel view of justification tied to being able to responsibly justify a belief. Leite touts his view as (i) faithful to our ordinary practice of justifying beliefs, (ii) providing a novel response to an epistemological problem of the infinite regress, and (iii) resolving the "persistent interlocutor" problem. Though I find elements of Leite's view of being able to justify a belief promising, I hold that there are several problems afflicting the overall picture of justification. In this paper, I argue that despite its ambitions, Leite's view fails to solve the persistent interlocutor problem and does not avoid a vicious regress. In a series of papers (2004, 2005, 2008, 2011), Adam Leite has developed a novel view of justification. For Leite, for a belief to be justified is for one to be able to responsibly justify it. Thus, Leite places at the center of his view an ability shared by many human cognizers: the ability to justify our beliefs. Leite touts his view as (i) being faithful to our ordinary practice of justifying beliefs, (ii) providing an interesting response to the problem of the infinite regress that differs from some standard forms of foundationalism, coherentism, and infinitism, and (iii) resolving a problem of reasoned discourse, the "persistent interlocutor" problem (see below).Leite's account of what it is to justify a belief is quite promising. However, I hold that there are several problems afflicting the overall picture of justification. After setting out Leite's view in section I, I argue that despite Leite's aims, his view fails to solve the persistent interlocutor problem (section II) and it does not avoid vicious regresses (section III). The upshot is that, while justifying our beliefs is an important practice of ordinary life, the particular way Leite attempts to incorporate that practice into an account of justification is unpromising. 2 I. Leite's Localism On Leite's view, justified believing is tied to responsible believing. Leite holds that a belief is justified only if it is responsibly held (2008: 425). On Leite's view, this notion of justified belief extends beyond mere blameless belief (2005: 396). 3 Further, as he repeatedly emphasizes (2005: 396; 2008: 421; 2011: 162), the notion of justification here is, in some hard to specify sense, connected to truth. A justified belief need not be true, but a belief being justified "makes it more likely, in some appropriately objective sense, that one's belief is true" (2005: 409-10).Importantly, Leite sees the requirements of justified belief as the requirements of justifying one's beliefs. He writes, When we take someone to be justified in virtue of having successfully justified a belief, it is because we take him or her to have performed in a way that meets certain requirements. A theory of justification can therefore be developed by articulating those requirements. To put it sloganistically: to be justified is to be 1 For helpful feedback and conversation, I thank

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Section: Leite's Response To the Complexity Problemmentioning

confidence: 71%

Justification, Justifying, and Leite’s Localism

Perrine

2018

Acta Anal

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“…In this paper we indicate two additional and different ways in which something of which S is aware can prevent the accidental truth of S's belief B from S's perspective. 12 Rogers and Matheson (2011) and Crisp (2009) deny that this regress is vicious. See Bergmann (2013: 165)'s response.…”

Section: Bergmann's Dilemma and Phenomenal Conservatismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Phenomenal Conservatism and Bergmann’s Dilemma

Moretti

Piazza

2015

Erkenn

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In this paper we argue that Michael Huemer's (PC) phenomenal conservatism-the internalist view according to which our beliefs are prima facie justified if based on how things seems or appears to us to be-doesn't fall afoul of Michael Bergmann's dilemma for epistemological internalism. We start by showing that the thought experiment that Bergmann adduces to conclude that (PC) is vulnerable to his dilemma misses its target. After that, we distinguish between two ways in which a mental state can contribute to the justification of a belief: the direct way and the indirect way. We identify a straightforward reason for claiming that the justification contributed indirectly is subject to Bergmann's dilemma. Then we show that the same reason doesn't extend to the claim that the justification contributed directly is subject to Bergmann's dilemma. As (PC) is the view that seemings or appearances contribute justification directly, we infer that Bergmann's contention that his dilemma applies to (PC) is unmotivated. In the final part, we suggest that our line of response to Bergmann can be used to shield other types of internalist justification from Bergmann's objection. We also propose that seeminggrounded justification can be combined with justification of one of these types to form the basis of a promising version of internalist foundationalism. 2 defining principle of Huemer's view says that: (PC P) If it seems to [a subject] S that P, then, in the absence of defeaters S thereby has some degree of justification for believing that P. (Huemer 2007: 30) 2 Most phenomenal conservatives hold that S's having a seeming that P is a matter of S's having a certain sort of experience, which has propositional content P but is unanalyzable in terms of belief. According to this popular conception, all experiences constituting seemings are essentially characterized by felt veridicality-i.e. the feel of a mental state whose propositional content reveals how things really are (cf. Tucker 2013: §1.1). (PC P) is customarily read as a principle about propositional, rather than doxastic, justification (see for instance McGrath 2013: 233). 3 Note the 'thereby' in (PC P), which signals that S's justification for P is based on only S's seeming that P. In other words, according to (PC P), in absence of defeaters, S's seeming that P provides S with some degree of non-inferential justification for believing P. That is to say, in absence of defeaters, S's seeming that P supplies S with some justification for believing P that is not based on justification for believing any other proposition (cf. Huemer 2013: §1c). (PC P)'s philosophical appeal seems to rest on at least three reasons: 4 first, (PC P) supplies a rationale for many of our ordinary epistemic practices. In ordinary circumstances we might have more or less explicit beliefs about, say, the trustworthiness of our experiences or the reliability of our faculties, but our reasons for holding many of our ordinary beliefs don't seem to include the reasons we have for these additional beliefs. Ins...

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“…But then one needs concept application A 2 in order to be justified in connecting S 2 to A 1 , etc., etc. While I will not do so in this paper, it is worth noting that some have challenged the notion that the ensuing regress is vicious (Rogers and Matheson 2011;Crisp 2010;Fales 2014). 8 More interesting for my purposes is interpretation (b) of the strong version of IPC.…”

Section: Pc and Bergmann's Dilemma Part I: Ipc Smentioning

confidence: 99%

Phenomenal Conservatism and the Subject’s Perspective Objection

Gage

2015

Acta Anal

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For some years now, Michael Bergmann has urged a dilemma against internalist theories of epistemic justification. For reasons I explain below, some epistemologists have thought that Michael Huemer's principle of Phenomenal Conservatism (PC) can split the horns of Bergmann's dilemma. Bergmann has recently argued, however, that PC must inevitably, like all other internalist views, fall prey to his dilemma. In this paper, I explain the nature of Bergmann's dilemma and his reasons for thinking that PC cannot escape it before arguing that he is mistaken: PC can indeed split its horns.

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A dilemma for internalism?

Cited by 11 publications

References 11 publications

Justification, Justifying, and Leite’s Localism

Justification, Justifying, and Leite’s Localism

Phenomenal Conservatism and Bergmann’s Dilemma

Phenomenal Conservatism and the Subject’s Perspective Objection

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