Questions tagged [justification]
The justification tag has no usage guidance.
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Is it ever rational or justified to believe in a claim X based on eyewitness accounts if X seems to contradict mainstream scientific theories? [duplicate]
Can the testimony of multiple credible witnesses challenge the conventional understanding of the laws of physics? If several trustworthy individuals report events that appear to contradict well-...
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Is it epistemologically self-consistent to use the scientific method to justify some beliefs and non-scientific justifications for others?
Let’s call B(p) the set of all beliefs a person p holds. We can denote S(B(p)) as the subset of beliefs held by p for which they can provide a scientific justification, and NS(B(p)) as the set B(p) ...
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Under physicalism, should I still be sad if my murdered wife is replaced with a perfect clone?
Context: This question follows up on Under physicalism, can my consciousness reappear in a different body?.
Assume, for the sake of argument, that some form of physicalism is true. Imagine my wife is ...
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Similarities and differences between an evidentialist justification and a reliabilist justification for a belief?
Evidentialism
Evidentialism in epistemology is defined by the following thesis about epistemic justification:
(EVI) Person S is justified in believing proposition p at time t if and only if S’s ...
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Is belief in abiogenesis justified under evidentialism and process reliabilism?
Asking whether a belief X is justified can lead to very opinion-based answers (e.g., Does life have a natural or supernatural origin?), but I don't think this necessarily has to be the case if we ...
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Can a reliabilist have a reliably justified belief in God?
Reliabilism is defined by several sources as follows:
Reliabilism is an approach to the nature of knowledge and of justified belief. Reliabilism about justification, in its simplest form, says that a ...
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What sorts of beliefs can be justified non-scientifically?
Can I be justified in believing in a proposition X through a justification that doesn't meet the standards of the scientific method? What sorts of beliefs would be justifiable in this way (non-...
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Are there non-scientific ways to have a justified belief in levitation?
Levitation, as a paranormal phenomenon, has been reported more than once. For instance, it is not totally uncommon to hear about reports of levitation among exorcists (e.g., see these sources).
Is it ...
user66156
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Does K = JTB imply KK? [closed]
Does KK imply JTB? I am asking becasue it seems I now know that I know that my wife is not a teapot, precisely becasue I can justify my strong belief that she is not. But then if I already knew that ...
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How can I justify trusting my own thoughts without begging the question?
Suppose I attempt to justify trusting my own thoughts with an argument. Suppose I read the argument and find it compelling. The very process of reading an argument (presumably written in English or ...
user66156
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Ground vs justification?
I'm wondering if there is a technical distinction I've been missing between 'ground' and 'justification' in philosophy. If I say that my true belief is 'grounded', isn't that the same as saying that ...
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If A is justified in believing in X based on their personal experience, can B also be justified in believing in X based on A's testimony?
The title already expresses the question perfectly well, so I don't see much point in complicating the question further, beyond including a few thought-provoking examples below:
Example 1: The ...
user66156
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Can belief in God be grounded in (and justified by) personal experience rather than philosophical argumentation?
Attempts at legitimizing belief in God through reasoned philosophical argumentation abound in the fields of natural theology and apologetics. This is particularly evident in formal debates and ...
user66156
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Are we only justified in holding beliefs that are supported by evidence susceptible to peer review, leading to substantial intersubjective consensus?
In other words, what about beliefs rooted in personal experiences that cannot be scrutinized or validated through a rigorous peer-review process? This often occurs in religious, mystical, or spiritual ...
user66156
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Are two persons equally rational in choosing different dogmatic stopping points in their chains of justification as per the Münchhausen trilemma?
In epistemology, the Münchhausen trilemma is a thought experiment
intended to demonstrate the theoretical impossibility of proving any
truth, even in the fields of logic and mathematics, without ...
user66156
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Can the AC-DC argument against infinitism be defused?
Infinitism is the epistemic theory that claims that justification is only achieved by an infinite chain of non-repeating reasons.
At first, this feels like the "troll" theory of epistemic ...
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Questions about the Justification part of knowledge (justified true belief)
There is a so-called Justified, true belief as knowledge.
When was the justification part of the definition of knowledge
started to become explicitly stated and not merely implied? Who
wrote about it ...
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Can private experiences justify private belief in supernaturalism?
Is it ever rational or justified to believe in supernaturalism on the basis of private experiences (of the kind for which publicly accesible evidence can hardly be produced)? If someone has private ...
user66156
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To what extent is intersubjective agreement required for one to be justified in trusting one's own subjective experiences?
Context: this is a follow-up to my last question Is the hallucination hypothesis always the best explanation?
Suppose A has a subjective experience (or multiple subjective experiences) that leads them ...
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Can I know something but not be able to justify it to anyone else?
Can I know something but not be able to justify it to anyone else? I don't necessarily mean metaphysical puzzles, but everyday examples. If I cannot - and I know I cannot - prove to anyone else, all ...
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Can God make the belief in His own existence justified (if He exists)?
In a hypothetical scenario in which God exists, would God be able to make the belief in His existence justified for humans? If so, how? What would God need to do to accomplish that goal? If not, does ...
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Infinitesimals and plural quantification
In reply to, "Does nature jump?" Mikhail Katz notes that:
There is a different idea in Leibniz called the Law of Continuity. One of its formulations is
the rules of the finite are found to ...
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Fixed/critical points of a nonexistence quantifier/function
Let j(∃0) = 1, and j(∃1) = 1, for a justification function j on ∃-sentences. So far, 0 is the initial critical point of the composite quantifier-function, and 1 is the initial fixed point.
So let ...
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What is meant by "nonreliabilist foundationalism" in the Philpapers survey? Why is it popular?
In the 2020 Philpapers survey epistemologists favour nonreliabilist foundationalism, what theories of justification does this include? Maybe classical foundationalism ala Fumerton or phenomenal ...
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What would constitute as justification?
Follow up to this post. The question here is quite short, what would constitute as justification in regards to justified belief theory? Seems something a bit vague to me.
My main motivation to this ...
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Basic truths as self-justified or parajustified
Some foundationalists maintain that basic truths are self-justifying, which means they are allowing, in some exceptional cases at least, a form of circular reasoning; petitio principii or begging the ...
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Is the (truth of) justification of political beliefs necessary given Pyrrhonism?
To explain real quick. Pyrrhonism is some sort of philosophical practice which does reject (or suspend judgment on) epistemic criteria. It is debatable if they can hold beliefs, but even if the could ...
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How do we know (i.e. justify our belief) that time exists without "proving too much"?
How do we know that time exists?
This is a complex question.
First, we cannot make sense of a question like this without first establishing what we mean by knowledge.
For convenience, let's pick the ...
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How could one distinguish crankery from serious work?
Suppose I read a work, and I don't understand it or see its meaning, then it could be that either the information itself is inconsistent/non-sensical or I don't understand it personally. How do I know ...
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Justification versus mental causation
A justification: "we know A is true because B is true."
A mental causation: "I concluded A because first I believed B and that led me to A."
There is certainly a strong ...
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