Evidentialism
This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these template messages)
|
Evidentialism is a thesis in epistemology which states that one is justified to believe something if and only if that person has evidence which supports said belief.[1] Evidentialism is, therefore, a thesis about which beliefs are justified and which are not.
For philosophers Richard Feldman and Earl Conee, evidentialism is the strongest argument for justification because it identifies the primary notion of epistemic justification. They argue that if a person's attitude towards a proposition fits their evidence, then their
(EJ) Doxastic attitude D toward proposition p is epistemically justified for S at t if and only if having D toward p fits the evidence.[citation needed]
For Feldman and Conee one's doxastic attitude is justified if it fits one's evidence. EJ is meant to show the idea that justification is characteristically epistemic. This idea makes justification dependent on evidence.[citation needed]
Feldman and Conee believe that because objections to EJ have become so prominent their defense for it is appropriate. The theses that object EJ are implying that epistemic justification is dependent upon the "cognitive capacities of an individual or upon the cognitive processes or information-gatherings practices that lead to an attitude." For Feldman and Conee, EJ is in contrast to these theses; EJ contends that the epistemic justification for an attitude is only dependent upon evidence. [citation needed]
Criticism
Plantinga's Reformed epistemology is a challenge against evidentialist epistemology. What Plantinga says is that the deliverances of reason consist of both properly basic beliefs and also beliefs based on propositional evidence. This is not the same as fideism, that is to say, "a leap of faith". The properly basic beliefs are deliverances of reason.[2][3][4][5]
Critics of evidentialism sometimes reject the claim that a conclusion is justified only if one's evidence supports that conclusion. A typical counterexample goes like this. Suppose, for example, that
Evidentialists may respond to this criticism by forming a distinction between pragmatic or prudential justification and epistemic justification. In Babe Ruth's case, it is pragmatically justified that he believe p, but it is nevertheless epistemically unjustified: though the belief may be justified for the purpose of promoting some other goal (a successful at bat, in Ruth's case), it is not justified relative to the purely epistemic goal of having beliefs that are most likely to be true.[citation needed]
A similar response follows the criticism that evidentialism implies all faith-based beliefs are unjustified. For example, fideism claims that evidence is irrelevant to religious beliefs and that attempts to justify religious beliefs in such a way are misguided. Superficially, fideism and evidentialism have mutually exclusive takes on religious beliefs, but evidentialists use the term "justification" in a much weaker sense than the one in which fideists most likely use it. Evidentialism merely defines the epistemic condition of a belief.[citation needed]
Although evidentialism states that the content of the evidence does not matter, only that it constitutes valid justification towards some proposition, a skeptical criticism may be levelled at evidentialism from uncertainty theories. One's evidence may be objectively disproved at some point or it may be the case that one can never have absolute certainty of one's evidence. Given the logic of arguments concerning principles of uncertainty and randomness, skepticism towards knowledge merely becomes skepticism towards valid justification.[citation needed]
Likewise, some say that the human mind is not naturally inclined to form beliefs based on evidence, viz. cognitive dissonance. While this may be the case, evidentialists admit, evidentialism is only meant to separate justified beliefs from unjustified beliefs. One can believe that evidentialism is true yet still maintain that the human mind is not naturally inclined to form beliefs based on evidence. He would simply have to conclude that the mind is not naturally inclined to form justified beliefs.[citation needed]
Infinite regress argument
Evidentialism also faces a challenge from the
In general, responses to this argument can be classified in the following ways:
- basic beliefs, and they are the foundation upon which all other justified beliefs ultimately rest.
- Coherentism: Justified beliefs are all evidentially supported by other beliefs, but an infinite set of beliefs is not generated, because the chains of evidential support among beliefs is allowed to move in a circle. On the resulting picture, a person's belief is justified when it fits together with the person's other beliefs in a coherent way in which the person's various beliefs mutually support one another.
- A modest reasoner subset of Coherentism would insist that all justifiable beliefs be statements about "some objects" since the negation/complement of a some statement is another some statement.
- Skepticism: There cannot be any justified beliefs.
- A modest reasoner subset of Scepticism like the subset of Coherentism would likewise insist and define all justifiable beliefs be statements about "some objects" since the negation/complement of a some statement is another some statement.
- Infinitism: Aside from these responses, some philosophers have said that evidential chains terminate in beliefs that are not justified. Others have said that, indeed, there can exist infinite chains of reasons.[citation needed]
Of the main responses, coherentism and skepticism are clearly consistent with evidentialism. Coherentism allows evidential support for all of our justified beliefs in the face of the regress argument by allowing for circular chains of evidential support among beliefs. And the skeptic here is utilizing an evidentialist demand to arrive at her skeptical conclusion.[citation needed]
But because the resulting skepticism is so sweeping and devastating, and because so many reject the legitimacy of the circular reasoning embraced by the coherentist, foundationalism is the favored response of many philosophers to the regress argument. And foundationalism does not so clearly fit together with evidentialism. At first glance, at least, the "basic" beliefs of the foundationalist would appear to be counterexamples to the evidentialist's thesis, in that they are justified beliefs that are not rational because they are not supported by deeper evidence.[citation needed]
Non-evidentialist theories of knowledge and justification
This section needs additional citations for verification. (September 2022) |
Many contemporary epistemologists reject the view that evidential support is the whole story about the justification of beliefs. While no sensible epistemologists generally urge people to disregard their evidence when forming beliefs, many believe that a more complete theory would introduce considerations about the processes that initiate and sustain beliefs. An example of one such theory is reliabilism. The most influential proponent of reliabilism is Alvin Goldman. According to a crude form of reliabilism, S is justified in believing p if and only if S's belief in p is caused by a reliable process—a process that generally leads to true beliefs. Some of these reliable processes may require the processing of evidence; many others won't. So, Goldman would argue, evidentialism, on which the justification of a belief always turns completely on the issue of the belief's evidential support, is false. Likewise, evidentialism will be rejected by more sophisticated versions of reliabilism, some of which will allow evidence an important but limited role, as opposed to the all-encompassing role assigned to it by evidentialism.[citation needed]
Other non-evidentialist theories include: the
Another alternative perspective, promoted by
A new account of the extent of our evidence is Timothy Williamson's claim that E=K: one's evidence is what one knows.[6] Going by the "letter of the law," Williamson's resulting theory is not contrary to, but is rather an instance of, evidentialism. By allowing our evidence to encompass everything we know, Williamson is able to give thoroughly evidentialist accounts of many important epistemological concepts. But, traditionally, evidentialists have presupposed much more restrictive accounts of what our evidence is. Thus, Williamson's theory is opposed to the spirit of much traditional evidentialism, primarily because it turns evidentialism from an internalist account of justification to an externalist account (due to the factive nature of knowledge.) However, Williamson's work may point to a quite general way to modify traditional evidentialism to make it better able to meet the challenges it faces: whether or not one goes so far as to accept that E=K, broadening one's view of what constitutes our evidence may provide a way to address many of the objections to evidentialism, especially to those disinclined to swallow skeptical consequences of a view[citation needed]
Notes
- ^ Mittag, Daniel M. "Evidentialism". Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
- ^ Plantinga, Alvin; Wolterstorff, Nicolas (1983). "'Reason and Belief in God' in Faith and Rationality". Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press: 16–93.
{{cite journal}}
: Cite journal requires|journal=
(help) - ISBN 9780195078619. Archived from the original(PDF) on 2021-02-07. Retrieved 2021-05-12.
- ISBN 9780195078640.
- ISBN 978-0195131925.
- ^ See Williamson's book, Knowledge and Its Limits (Oxford UP, 2000).
References
- Conee; Feldman (2004), Evidentialism, Oxford University Press.
External links
- "Evidentialism". Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. by Dan Mittag of the University of Rochester
- Kelly, Thomas. "Evidence". In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
- Evidentialism at the Indiana Philosophy Ontology Project
- Evidentialism at PhilPapers