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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Evidentialism | 1/2 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidentialism | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T09:56:05.345615+00:00 | kb-cron |
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. 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 doxastic attitude for that proposition is epistemically justified. Feldman and Conee offer the following argument for evidentialism as an epistemic justification: (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. 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. 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.
== Criticism == 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 Babe Ruth approaches the batter's box believing that he will hit a home run despite his current drunkenness and overall decline in performance in recent games. He realizes that, however unlikely it is that his luck will change, it would increase his chances of hitting a home run if he maintains a confident attitude. In these circumstances, critics of evidentialism argue that his belief that p = Babe Ruth will hit a home run is justified, even though his evidence does not support this belief. 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. 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. 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. 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.
== Infinite regress argument == Evidentialism also faces a challenge from the infinite regress argument. This argument begins with the observation that, normally, one's supporting evidence for a belief consists of other beliefs. However, it seems that these other beliefs can do the job of justifying only if they themselves are already justified. And evidentialism demands that these supporting beliefs be justified by still further evidence if they are to be justified themselves. But this same reasoning would apply to the new, deeper level of supporting beliefs: they can only justify if they're themselves justified, and evidentialism therefore demands an even deeper level of supporting belief. According to this argument, a justified belief requires an endless supply of reasons. Some philosophers such as Thomas Nagel posit that this is an absurd conclusion. In general, responses to this argument can be classified in the following ways: