Evidential Basis in Epistemic Justification Essay

Jonathan Vogel wrote Skepticism and Inference to the Best Explanation as a solution to accept the real world hypothesis over any skeptical hypothesis. Vogel presents a compelling argument for a definitive reason to accept that the world we are experiencing is in fact the real world. I believe that Vogel’s argument falls short of proving a reason for accepting the real world hypothesis over a skeptical one. In this paper I will clearly explain Vogels argument, explain some important concepts to understand, and attempt to refute the argument.

Coherentism is the view that individuals have justified beliefs, which result from a finite system of beliefs that promote each other non-circularly without the requirement for justification outside of the system (2014). For coherentism, justification is a procedure in which all of the beliefs are seen wholly as a system rather than individual parts. For example, V", V', and V are beliefs. The beliefs V", V', and V work together to achieve epistemic justification without the need for any further

People read from an abundant number of sources and retain the information presented. However, if people forgot the source of the information, would they be justified in the knowledge they have gained? Having a justification for knowledge is a necessary condition to have epistemic justification. According Earl Conee and Richard Feldman epistemic justification could be gained through internalism. Internalism should be understood as a person’s beliefs that are justified only by ideas that are internal to oneself.

Born in 1845, William Clifford was a mathematician and philosopher famed for his philosophy of science and quest for answering ethical questions through scientific evidence (Encyclopedia Britannica, 2014). Clifford recognized several difficulties in Emmanuel Kant’s argument related to philosophy, which inspired him to begin a search for answers related to innate belief, personal responsibility of guilt, and overall creation. In the Ethics of Belief, Clifford asserts that it is always wrong to believe based on insufficient evidence, a theme that would follow his opinion on every issue he chose to tackle.

This paper will address the problem of skepticism. My focus will be exclusively on Global Skepticism as it is more controversial than Local Skepticism. The stance I am seeking to persuade you to take is one regarding the question of whether or not Global Skepticism is justified. In this paper I will discuss and analyze what other philosophers have said about the topic, my argument, how my opponents might object to my arguments, and how I respond to those objections. My hope is the conclusion to my argument will convince you that Global Skepticism is not justified and we can, in fact, come to ‘know’ things about our reality and obtain knowledge.

In the report “Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?” by Edmund L. Gettier, he explains his arguments against a common analysis used to define ways in which knowledge is obtain by individuals. Gettier argues against the theory called “Justified True Belief,” in which an opinion must be supported by a justified true belief in order to be correct. Gettier’s essay on “Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?” successfully establish his objections by clearly explaining why true belief does not always acquire knowledge for individuals, the support gain from other important figures for his objection, and the clarity given in his explanation against the knowledge system.

Gettier’s short paper “Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?” demonstrates that contrary to the classic definition of Knowledge, which is seen as equivalent to justified true belief, there are cases where justified true belief does not exactly match up to what we generally understand as knowledge. Gettier uses two specific cases to illustrate that even when something is true and backed up with reasonable evidence, it still does not mean we actually know it. Therefore, justified true belief does not necessarily mean it is knowledge. Having understood Gettier’s argument, the title “Is Knowledge Justified True Belief?” is a confusing one for it seems to have two separate meanings. First, we can understand the title as, whether knowledge justified

In this paper I will argue for an externalist view that I consider to be the strongest rebuttal to skepticism. Before I present the argument I think it is important that we define skepticism and externalism.

It has been disputed whether an externalist conception of the individuation of intentional states, such as beliefs and desires, is compatible with self-knowledge, that is, the claim that one's judgments about one's intentional states are non-evidential, non-inferential, and authoritative. I want to argue that these theses are indeed incompatible, notwithstanding an important objection to this incompatibility claim. The worry has been raised that if externalism is true, then for a subject to know, say, that he or she believes that p, the subject would need to know, on the basis of some evidence, the external conditions which determine the belief's content. Thus, externalism would be

Throughout history, philosophers have been trying to come up with a clear way to provide the justification of our beliefs and knowledge. Noah Lemos offers readers explanations of both foundationalism and coherentism for theories of justification. These two different theories offer very different ways to explain the basis of our beliefs. For a foundationalist, they believe that all of our beliefs can be broken down until we reach a basic belief. This belief would be largely independent of other beliefs and not derived from other beliefs. A coherentist feels that a belief can be reasonably justified if it is coheres with our other beliefs.

Epistemology is purposed with discovering and studying what knowledge is and how we can classify what we know, how we know it, and provide some type of framework for how we arrived at this conclusion. In the journey to identify what knowledge is the certainty principle was one of the first concepts that I learned that explained how we, as humans, consider ourselves to know something. The certainty concept suggests that knowledge requires evidence that is sufficient to rule out the possibility of error. This concept is exemplified in cases like The Gettier problem in the instance that we suppose (S) someone to know (P) a particular proposition. As Gettier established the Justified True Belief as a conceptual formula for knowledge, certainty

Published in 1982, Willard Van Orman Quine wrote an epistemological book title, The Pursuit of Truth. Quine ranges from different aspect, from evidence to reference, in his quest to gain epistemological truth from science. This is a short summary of the book 's contents then the latter half of the paper is critique and review of the book and Quine’s points within.

Reason is a priori. All humans are born with it. It is a way of knowing as it is used in every area of knowledge and in collaboration with the other ways of knowing. Unlike the implication of the prescribed essay topic, reason is not a distinctive way of knowing. To say that is an oversimplification of the complexity of knowing. Knowledge can only be obtained through the inextricably linked ways of knowing.

Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that evaluates the acquisition, limitations, and origins of human knowledge. One of the theories found in epistemology is the theory of empiricism. Empiricism is the belief that knowledge is gained through experience, that there is no such thing as “innate knowledge,” or knowledge that one is born with. Empiricism stands in stark contrast to the rationalist theory, the belief that humans possess innate knowledge, and that one can have knowledge, without sensory information or experience, through reason. In this paper I will evaluate the theory of empiricism, comparing it to rationalism and discussing advantages and disadvantages of the empiricists perspective on the acquisition of knowledge, and then I will discuss why I consider empiricism the superior theory of knowledge.

The production of knowledge is a process that occurs through a sequence of related actions, these series of actions allows for the Ways of Knowing to interact in a way that works to develop the knowledge that is being produced. From the prescribed title we can claim that while the Ways of Knowing may appear to be acting in isolation when forming knowledge, they are actually working in a variety of different ways in the construction and formation. In some cases, the Ways of Knowing are interacting so closely together that it is often hard to differentiate between them, for example emotion and reason, or imagination and memory. Given the right circumstances faith can be isolated to a point where it can be acting by itself to produce knowledge. However, this knowledge is often deemed as unreliable, due to faith being seen as one of the more “subjective” ways of knowing. This inability to differentiate the ways of knowing from each other during the production of knowledge, raises the questions “Can any knowledge in any Area of Knowledge be produced by a single Way of Knowing?” and “Is it possible to distinguish between Ways of Knowing if they are working together?”. While reason is used in almost all production of knowledge, it is the other Ways of Knowing used that can determine whether the knowledge is reliable or not, as some Ways of Knowing are more subjective than others. This essay will attempt to