Beyond Justification

by Alston, William P.

• ISBN13: 9780801442919
• ISBN10: 0801442915
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-01-07
• Publisher: Cornell Univ Pr

Author Biography

William P. Alston is Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at Syracuse University.

Table of Contents

Preface	xi
List of Abbreviations	xv
INTRODUCTION	1	(10)
i. What Counts as Epistemology?	1	(4)
ii. Concentration on the Epistemology of Belief	5	(1)
iii. Basic Organization of the Book	6	(5)
Part I. The Naturalistic Approach
CHAPTER 1. DISPENSING WITH "JUSTIFICATION"	11	(18)
i. Conceptions of Epistemic Justification	11	(4)
ii. Comments on These Conceptions	15	(4)
iii. Conditions for the Justification of a Belief	19	(2)
iv. Attempts to Identify Epistemic Justification	21	(8)
CHAPTER 2. THE EPISTEMIC POINT OF VIEW	29	(10)
i. True Belief as the Basic Goal of Cognition	29	(5)
ii. Truth and Other Goals of Cognition	34	(3)
iii. Objects of Epistemic Evaluation	37	(2)
CHAPTER 3. THE EPISTEMIC DESIDERATA APPROACH	39	(19)
i. A List of Epistemic Desiderata	39	(8)
ii. An Outline of the Epistemic Desiderata Approach	47	(2)
iii. Interrelations of Desiderata	49	(2)
iv. Internalism and Externalism	51	(2)
v. Internalism and Externalism on Justificationism and on the Epistemic Desiderata Approach	53	(5)
CHAPTER 4. DEONTOLOGICAL DESIDERATA	58	(23)
i. Preliminaries	58	(4)
ii. Basic Voluntary Control of Believing	62	(5)
iii. Other Modes of Voluntary Control of Believing	67	(6)
iv. Indirect Voluntary Influence on Believing	73	(8)
CHAPTER 5. ADEQUACY OF GROUNDS OF BELIEF	81	(33)
i. Grounds and the Basing Relation	81	(8)
ii. Having Evidence and Basing a Belief on It	89	(3)
iii. Adequacy of Grounds and Truth	92	(2)
iv. Adequacy of Grounds-Preliminaries	94	(4)
v. Adequacy of Grounds and Epistemic Probability	98	(6)
vi. The Logical Construal of Epistemic Probability	104	(5)
vii. A Frequency Construal of Epistemic Probability	109	(5)
CHAPTER 6. RELIABILITY AND OTHER TRUTH-CONDUCIVE DESIDERATA	114	(48)
i. The Problem of Generality	114	(6)
ii. Belief-Forming Processes	120	(5)
iii. Belief-Forming Mechanisms as Psychologically Realized Functions	125	(4)
iv. The Problem of Generality Solved	129	(3)
v. Identity of Adequacy of Ground and Reliability of Process	132	(6)
vi. Objections and Complications	138	(5)
vii. Some More Serious Complications	143	(5)
viii. Proper Functioning of Cognitive Faculties	148	(4)
ix. Intellectual Virtues: Sosa and Goldman	152	(5)
x. Intellectual Virtues: Zagzebski	157	(4)
xi. Conclusion on Intellectual Virtue	161	(1)
CHAPTER 7. ADDITIONAL EPISTEMIC DESIDERATA	162	(8)
i. Group III Desiderata	162	(3)
ii. Group V Desiderata	165	(5)
CHAPTER 8. WHERE PARTICULAR DESIDERATA ARE OF SPECIAL IMPORTANCE	170	(21)
i. Introduction	170	(1)
ii. Reliability	171	(1)
iii. Group III Desiderata	172	(2)
iv. Deontological Desiderata	174	(1)
v. General Philosophical Assessment of Beliefs	175	(3)
vi. Assessment of Perceptual Beliefs: Preliminaries	178	(2)
vii. The Nature of Perception	180	(4)
viii. The Truth Conducivity of Grounds of Perceptual Beliefs	184	(7)
Part II. Ultimate Questions: The Epistemology of Epistemology
CHAPTER 9. CRITICAL QUESTIONS ABOUT EPISTEMOLOGICAL METHODOLOGY	191	(20)
i. The Demand for a Final Settlement	191	(3)
ii. The Inevitability of a Regress	194	(2)
iii. Attempts to Avoid the Regress: Doxastic Practices	196	(5)
iv. Epistemic Circularity	201	(3)
v. Avoiding Epistemic Circularity	204	(3)
vi. The Pervasiveness of Epistemic Circularity	207	(4)
CHAPTER 10. SKEPTICISM	211	(19)
i. Types of Skepticism	211	(6)
ii. Disarming the Pyrrhonian Skeptic	217	(4)
iii. Humean Skepticism	221	(3)
iv. Skepticism Concerning Various Epistemic Desiderata	224	(6)
CHAPTER 11. THE EPISTEMIC DESIDERATA APPROACH AND THE OVERALL EPISTEMIC ORGANIZATION OF BELIEF	230	(13)
i. Types of Foundationalism	230	(5)
ii. Coherentism and Contextualism	235	(4)
iii. Does the Epistemic Desiderata Approach Make a Difference?	239	(1)
iv. Are We Committed to Contextualism?	240	(3)
Envoi	243	(4)
Bibliography	247	(4)
Index	251