Standing in a garden of forking

Book chapter

Littlejohn, Clayton. (2018). Standing in a garden of forking. In In McCain, Kevin (Ed.). Believing in accordance with the evidence : New essays on evidentialism pp. 223-243 Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95993-1_13
AuthorsLittlejohn, Clayton
EditorsMcCain, Kevin
Abstract

According to the Path Principle, a thinker has the propositional justification that she does because of the evidence she has and the support relations this evidence provides. Whenever a thinker properly added a belief to her belief set, this is (in part) because her evidence provided her a path that took her to this belief. Whenever a thinker cannot properly add a belief to her belief set, this is because her evidence does not provide her with the right path. Epistemic standing, on this view, is largely determined by the paths provided by a thinker’s evidence. If we can give an account of evidence, its possession, and evidential support in non-normative terms, we could then use the Path Principle to give a nice, reductive account of justification. It might appear that the Path Principle is platitudinous, but appearances are sometimes misleading. I'll raise two kinds of problems for the Path Principle.

Keywordsepistemic standing; evidential support; path principle; propositional justification; doxastic justification
Page range223-243
Year2018
Book titleBelieving in accordance with the evidence : New essays on evidentialism
PublisherSpringer
Place of publicationCham, Switzerland
SeriesSynthese library : Studies in epistemology, logic, methodology, and philosophy of science ; volume 398
ISBN9783319959924
9783319959931
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95993-1_13
Scopus EID2-s2.0-85114799404
Open accessPublished as green open access
Research or scholarlyResearch
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Output statusPublished
Publication dates
Online03 Oct 2018
Publication process dates
Deposited02 Jun 2022
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