Beyond "Justification": Dimensions of Epistemic Evaluation - Softcover

Alston, William P.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0801473322 ISBN 13: 9780801473326

Publisher: Cornell University Press, 2006

Synopsis

Much of the writing in Anglo-American epistemology in the twentieth century focused on the conditions for beliefs being "justified." In a book that seeks to shift the ground of debate within theory of knowledge, William P. Alston finds that the century-long search for a correct account of the nature and conditions of epistemic justification misses the point. Alston calls for that search to be suspended and for talk of epistemic justification to cease. He proposes instead an approach to the epistemology of belief that focuses on the evaluation of various "epistemic desiderata" that may be satisfied by beliefs.

Alston finds that features of belief that are desirable for the goals of cognition include having an adequate basis, being formed in a reliable way, and coherence within bodies of belief. In Alston's view, a belief's being based on an adequate ground and its being formed in a reliable way, though often treated as competing accounts of justification, are virtually identical. Beyond "Justification" also contains discussions of fundamental questions about the epistemic status of principles and beliefs and appropriate responses to various kinds of skepticism.

About this title

About the Author

The late William P. Alston was Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at Syracuse University. His books include A Realist Conception of Truth, Illocutionary Acts and Sentence Meaning, The Reliability of Sense Perception, and Perceiving God: The Epistemology of Religious Experience (all from Cornell).

From the Back Cover

"William P. Alston illuminates epistemology's dark core issues. It is wonderful to see his powerful intelligence once again so helpfully at work." Ernest Sosa, Brown University and Rutgers University

"This book is a wide-ranging and powerful challenge to traditional epistemology by one of the foremost epistemologists of our time. It is both indispensable for specialists and so lucid and concrete that it is readily accessible to general readers who want an account of many of the major topics occupying epistemology in the past half century--belief-formation, explanation, foundations of knowledge, intellectual virtue, internalism and externalism, perception, reliability, skepticism, and many others." Robert Audi, University of Notre Dame, author of The Architecture of Reason, The Structure of Justification, and Epistemology

"This book has all of the virtues one has come to expect from William P. Alston s work. His unpretentious, straightforward writing is a welcome return to the philosophical classics of earlier times. Alston makes many interesting and important claims both in criticizing and defending various accounts of epistemic justification now reinterpreted by him as attempts to suggest epistemic desiderata of beliefs. Beyond Justification makes an extremely valuable contribution to the field of epistemology." Richard Fumerton, F. Wendell Miller Professor of Philosophy, University of Iowa

Edition details

• Publisher: Cornell University Press
• Publication date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0801473322
• ISBN 13: 9780801473326
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 274