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The Function of Epistemic Justification

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Frederick Adams
Frederick Adams*
Affiliation:
Central Michigan University, Mt. Pleasant, MI, 48859, U.S.A.
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Extract

There is a venerable and thoroughly entrenched tradition of regarding epistemic justification as playing an essential cognitive role in the acquisition, maintenance, or even loss of knowledge. Hold fixed that p is true and that S believes that p. Given this, whether S comes to know that p, still knows that p, or no longer knows that p essentially depends upon whether S has acquired, sustained, or lost justification for believing that p. I shall call any theory which regards epistemic justification as playing this essential epistemological function in cognition a Jn-theory. To simplify, we will say that a Jn-theorist is one who holds that - when the truth of p is held constant and S's belief that p is held constant - S's knowledge that p varies directly with the victory of S's justification and indirectly with its defeat.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 16 , Issue 3 , September 1986 , pp. 465 - 492
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 1986

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