Beyond "justification": Dimensions of Epistemic Evaluation

William P. Alston

Cornell University Press, 2005 - Philosophy - 256 pages

Much of the writing in Anglo-American epistemology in the twentieth century focused on the conditions for beliefs being "justified." In a book that seeks to shift the ground of debate within theory of knowledge, William P. Alston finds that the century-long search for a correct account of the nature and conditions of epistemic justification misses the point. Alston calls for that search to be suspended and for talk of epistemic justification to cease. He proposes instead an approach to the epistemology of belief that focuses on the evaluation of various "epistemic desiderata" that may be satisfied by beliefs.Alston finds that features of belief that are desirable for the goals of cognition include having an adequate basis, being formed in a reliable way, and coherence within bodies of belief. In Alston's view, a belief's being based on an adequate ground and its being formed in a reliable way, though often treated as competing accounts of justification, are virtually identical. Beyond "Justification" also contains discussions of fundamental questions about the epistemic status of principles and beliefs and appropriate responses to various kinds of skepticism.

Contents

• INTRODUCTION I: 1
• DISPENSING WITH JUSTIFICATION II: 11
• THE EPISTEMIC POINT OF VIEW: 29
• THE EPISTEMIC DESIDERATA APPROACH: 39
• An Outline of the Epistemic Desiderata Approach: 47
• Interrelations of Desiderata: 49
• Internalism and Externalism: 51
• Internalism and Externalism on Justificationism and on the Epistemic Desiderata Approach 333: 53
• DEONTOLOGICAL DESIDERATA: 58
• Basic Voluntary Control of Believing: 62
• Other Modes of Voluntary Control of Believing: 67
• Indirect Voluntary Influence on Believing: 73
• ADEQUACY OF GROUNDS OF BELIEF: 81
• Having Evidence and Basing a Belief on It: 89
• Adequacy of Grounds and Truth: 92
• Adequacy of GroundsPreliminaries: 94
• Adequacy of Grounds and Epistemic Probability: 98
• The Logical Construal of Epistemic Probability: 104
• A Frequency Construal of Epistemic Probability: 109
• RELIABILITY AND OTHER TRUTHCONDUCIVE DESIDERATA: 114
• BeliefForming Processes: 120
• BeliefForming Mechanisms as Psychologically Realized Functions: 125
• The Problem of Generality Solved: 129
• Identity of Adequacy of Ground and Reliability of Process: 132
• Objections and Complications: 138
• Some More Serious Complications: 143
• Proper Functioning of Cognitive Faculties: 148
• Sosa and Goldman: 152
• Zagzebski: 157
• Conclusion on Intellectual Virtue: 161
• ADDITIONAL EPISTEMIC DESIDERATA: 162
• Group V Desiderata: 165
• WHERE PARTICULAR DESIDERATA ARE: 170
• The Truth Conducivity of Grounds of Perceptual Beliefs: 184
• CRITICAL QUESTIONS ABOUT EPISTEMOLOGICAL: 191
• SKEPTICISM: 211
• THE EPISTEMIC DESIDERATA APPROACH: 230
• Envoi: 243
• Index: 251

About the author

The late William P. Alston was Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at Syracuse University. His books include A Realist Conception of Truth, Illocutionary Acts and Sentence Meanings, The Reliability of Sense Perception, and Perceiving God: The Epistemology of Religious Experience, all from Cornell.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Beyond "justification": Dimensions of Epistemic Evaluation
• Author: William P. Alston
• Edition: reprint
• Publisher: Cornell University Press, 2005
• ISBN: 0801442915, 9780801442919
• Length: 256 pages
• Subjects: Philosophy / Epistemology; Philosophy / Religious; Religion / Christian Theology / General; Religion / Philosophy