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19567
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The 'defeasibility' approach says true justified belief is knowledge if no undermining facts could be known [Kvanvig]
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Full Idea:
The 'defeasibility' approach says that having knowledge requires, in addition to justified true belief, there being no true information which, if learned, would result in the person in question no longer being justified in believing the claim.
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From:
Jonathan Kvanvig (Truth is not the Primary Epistemic Goal [2005], 'Epistemic')
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A reaction:
I take this to be an externalist view, since it depends on information of which the cognizer may be unaware. A defeater may yet have an undiscovered counter-defeater. The only real defeater is the falsehood of the proposition.
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6373
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Internalism says if anything external varies, the justifiability of the belief does not vary [Pollock/Cruz]
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Full Idea:
Internalist theories make justifiability of a belief a function of the internal states of the believer, in the sense that if we vary anything but his internal states the justifiability of the belief does not vary.
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From:
J Pollock / J Cruz (Contemporary theories of Knowledge (2nd) [1999], §5.4.3)
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A reaction:
This seems to be a nice clear definition of internalism (and, by implication, externalism). It favours externalism. I know my car is in the car park; someone takes it for a joyride, then replaces it; my good justification seems thereby weakened.
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19730
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Epistemic virtues: love of knowledge, courage, caution, autonomy, practical wisdom... [Kvanvig]
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Full Idea:
Virtue theorists may focus on the particular habits or virtues of successful cognizers, such as love of knowledge, firmness, courage and caution, humility, autonomy, generosity, and practical wisdom.
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From:
Jonathan Kvanvig (Virtue Epistemology [2011], III)
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A reaction:
[He cites Roberts and Wood 2007] It is interesting that most of these virtues do not merely concern cognition. How about diligence, self-criticism, flexibility...?
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19678
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Strong foundationalism needs strict inferences; weak version has induction, explanation, probability [Kvanvig]
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Full Idea:
Strong foundationalists require truth-preserving inferential links between the foundations and what the foundations support, while weaker versions allow weaker connections, such as inductive support, or best explanation, or probabilistic support.
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From:
Jonathan Kvanvig (Epistemic Justification [2011], II)
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A reaction:
[He cites Alston 1989] Personally I'm a coherentist about justification, but I'm a fan of best explanation, so I'd vote for that. It's just that best explanation is not a very foundationalist sort of concept. Actually, the strong version is absurd.
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6353
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People rarely have any basic beliefs, and never enough for good foundations [Pollock/Cruz]
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Full Idea:
We argue that all foundations theories are false, for the simple reason that people rarely have any epistemological basic beliefs, and never have enough to provide a foundation for the rest of our knowledge.
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From:
J Pollock / J Cruz (Contemporary theories of Knowledge (2nd) [1999], §1.5.3)
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A reaction:
Once surprising things start to happen in a film, we rapidly jettison our normal basic beliefs, to be ready for surprises. However, it seems to me that quite a lot of beliefs are hard-wired into us, or inescapably arise from the use of our senses.
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6357
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Reason cannot be an ultimate foundation, because rational justification requires prior beliefs [Pollock/Cruz]
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Full Idea:
Reasoning, it seems, can only justify us in holding a belief if we are already justified in holding the beliefs from which we reason, so reasoning cannot provide an ultimate source of justification.
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From:
J Pollock / J Cruz (Contemporary theories of Knowledge (2nd) [1999], §2.1)
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A reaction:
This sounds slick and conclusive, but it isn't. If we accept that some truths might be 'self-evident' to reason, they could stand independently. And a large body of rational beliefs might be mutually self-supporting, as in the coherence theory of truth.
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6354
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Coherence theories fail, because they can't accommodate perception as the basis of knowledge [Pollock/Cruz]
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Full Idea:
All coherence theories fail, because they are unable to accommodate perception as the basic source of our knowledge of the world.
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From:
J Pollock / J Cruz (Contemporary theories of Knowledge (2nd) [1999], §1.5.3)
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A reaction:
An interesting claim, which the authors attempt to justify. They say it is direct realism, because the perceptions justify, without any intervening beliefs. My immediate thought is that they might justify knowledge of primary qualities, but not secondary.
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6370
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Externalism comes as 'probabilism' (probability of truth) and 'reliabilism' (probability of good cognitive process) [Pollock/Cruz]
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Full Idea:
There are two major kinds of externalist theory in the literature - probabilism (which expresses justification in terms of probability of the belief being true), and reliabilism (which refers to the probability of the cognitive processes being right).
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From:
J Pollock / J Cruz (Contemporary theories of Knowledge (2nd) [1999], §4.1)
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A reaction:
A useful clarification. Reliabilism has an obvious problem, that a process can be reliable, but only luckily correct on this occasion (a clock which has, unusually, stopped). A ghost is more probably there if I believe in ghosts.
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6358
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One belief may cause another, without being the basis for the second belief [Pollock/Cruz]
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Full Idea:
If I fall flat on my back running to a class, my belief that I was late for class may cause me to have the belief that there are birds in the trees, but I do not believe the latter on the basis of the former.
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From:
J Pollock / J Cruz (Contemporary theories of Knowledge (2nd) [1999], §2.3.1)
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A reaction:
A nice example, which fairly conclusively demolishes any causal theory of justification. My example is believing correctly that the phone ring is from mother, because she said she would call. Maybe causation is needed somewhere in the right theory.
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