Justification And The Truth Connection

Presents and defends a bold new approach to the ethics of belief and to resolving the internalism-externalism debate in epistemology.

The internalism-externalism debate is one of the oldest debates in epistemology. Internalists assert that the justification of our beliefs can only depend on facts internal to us, while externalists insist that justification can depend on additional, for example environmental, factors. In this book Clayton Littlejohn proposes and defends a new strategy for resolving this debate. Focussing on the connections between practical and theoretical reason, he explores the question of whether the priority of the good to the right (in ethics) might be used to defend an epistemological version of consequentialism, and proceeds to formulate a new 'deontological externalist' view. His discussion is rich with insights and will be valuable for a wide range of readers in epistemology, ethics and practical reason.

Michael Bergmann provides a decisive refutation of internalism and a sustained defense of externalism, developing his theory of justification by imposing both a proper function and a no-defeater requirement.

James Buchanan (1804–1870) was a Scottish minister and theologian. He joined the Free Church of Scotland in 1843, and succeeded Thomas Chalmers as professor of systematic theology at the New College of the Free Church in Edinburgh in 1847, a post he held for twenty-one years. Buchanan's magnum opus was The Doctrine of Justification, which still has great value as a classic treatment of the article by which Martin Luther says the church stands or falls. He covers biblical, systematic, and historical ground in his work, but is never far from a warm-hearted evangelical delight in the doctrines he is expounding.

What does it mean to believe in God? What passes as evidence for belief in God? What issues arise when considering the rationality of belief in God? Debating Christian Religious Epistemology introduces core questions in the philosophy of religion by bringing five competing viewpoints on the knowledge of God into critical dialogue with one another. Each chapter introduces an epistemic viewpoint, providing an overview of its main arguments and explaining why it justifies belief. The validity of that viewpoint is then explored and tested in a critical response from an expert in an opposing tradition. Featuring a wide range of different philosophical positions, traditions and methods, this introduction: - Covers classical evidentialism, phenomenal conservatism, proper functionalism, covenantal epistemology and traditions-based perspectivalism - Draws on MacIntyre's account of rationality and ideas from the Analytic and Conservatism traditions - Addresses issues in social epistemology - Considers the role of religious experience and religious texts Packed with lively debates, this is an ideal starting point for anyone interested in understanding the major positions in contemporary religious epistemology and how religious concepts and practices relate to belief and knowledge.

In the contentious debate among contemporary epistemologists and philosophers regarding justification, there is one consensus: justification is distinct from knowledge; there are justified beliefs that do not amount to knowledge, even if all instances of knowledge are instances of justified belief. In Without Justification, Jonathan Sutton forcefully opposes this claim. He proposes instead that justified belief simply is knowledge—not because there is more knowledge than has been supposed, but because there are fewer justified beliefs. There are, he argues, no false justified beliefs. Sutton suggests that the distinction between justified belief and knowledge is drawn only in contemporary epistemology, and suggests furter that classic philosophers of both ancient and modern times would not have questioned the idea that justification is identical to knowledge. Sutton argues both that we do not (perhaps even cannot) have a serviceable notion of justification that is distinct from knowledge and that we do not need one. We can get by better in epistemology, he writes, without it. Sutton explores the topics of testimony and evidence, and proposes an account of these two key epistemological topics that relies on the notion of knowledge alone. He also addresses inference (both deductive and inductive), internalism versus externalism in epistemology, functionalism, the paradox of the preface, and the lottery paradox. Sutton argues that all of us—philosopher and nonphilosopher alike—should stick to what we know; we should believe something only if we know it to be so. Further, we should not believe what someone tells us unless we know that he knows what he is talking about. These views are radical, he argues, only in the context of contemporary epistemology's ill-founded distinction between knowledge and justification.

An important issue in epistemology concerns the source of epistemic normativity. Epistemic consequentialism maintains that epistemic norms are genuine norms in virtue of the way in which they are conducive to epistemic value, whatever epistemic value may be. So, for example, the epistemic consequentialist might say that it is a norm that beliefs should be consistent, in that holding consistent beliefs is the best way to achieve the epistemic value of accuracy. Thus epistemic consequentialism is structurally similar to the family of consequentialist views in ethics. Recently, philosophers from both formal epistemology and traditional epistemology have shown interest in such a view. In formal epistemology, there has been particular interest in thinking of epistemology as a kind of decision theory where instead of maximizing expected utility one maximizes expected epistemic utility. In traditional epistemology, there has been particular interest in various forms of reliabilism about justification and whether such views are analogous to—and so face similar problems to—versions of consequentialism in ethics. This volume presents some of the most recent work on these topics as well as others related to epistemic consequentialism, by authors that are sympathetic to the view and those who are critical of it.

One of the most firmly entrenched beliefs of contemporary philosophy is that the only way to analyze a concept is to state its truth conditions. In epistemology this has led to the search for reductive analyses, to phenomenalism, behaviorism, and their analogues in other areas of knowledge. Arguing that these attempts at reductive analysis have invariably failed, John L. Pollock defends an alternative theory of conceptual analysis in this book. The author suggests that concepts should be analyzed in terms of their justification conditions rather than their truth conditions. After laying a theoretical foundation for this alternative scheme of analysis, Professor Pollock applies his theory in proposing solutions to a number of traditional epistemological problems. Among the areas of knowledge discussed are perception, knowledge of the past, induction, knowledge of other minds, and a priori knowledge. Originally published in 1975. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.