The Structure of Justification - Softcover

Audi, Robert

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0521446120 ISBN 13: 9780521446129

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 1993

Synopsis

This collection of papers (including three completely new ones) by one of the foremost philosophers in epistemology transcends two of the most widely misunderstood positions in philosophy--foundationalism and coherentism. Audi proposes a distinctively moderate, internalist foundationalism that incorporates some of the virtues of both coherentism and reliabilism. He develops important distinctions between positive and negative epistemic dependence, substantively and conceptually naturalistic theories, dispositional beliefs and dispositions to believe, episodically and structurally inferential beliefs, first and second order internalism, and rebutting as opposed to refuting skepticism. These contrasts are applied not only to rational belief, but to rational action and the rationality of desires and intentions. The overall position is a pluralist, moderately rationalistic, internalist theory of justification and a partly externalist conception of knowledge. However, by virtue of offering a theory of rationality as well as an account of knowledge and justified belief, it will interest philosophers of ethics, science, and the social sciences and teachers and students of epistemology.

About this title

Book Description

Transcending two of the most widely misunderstood positions in philosophy,--foundationalism and coherentism, this collection of papers by a renowned epistemologist offers a theory of rationality as well as an account of knowledge and justified belief.

Review

"His grasp of modern (analytical) American epistemology is striking. ... This new book is a notable one by a noted philosopher." Canadian Philosophical Reviews

Edition details

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 1993
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0521446120
• ISBN 13: 9780521446129
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 496