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Why Pluralism About Epistemic Justification is the Worst of Both Worlds

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dc.contributor.authorHirshland, Samantha Janeen
dc.contributor.committeechairHoek, Danielen
dc.contributor.committeememberParker, Wendyen
dc.contributor.committeememberMacKenzie, Jordanen
dc.contributor.departmentPhilosophyen
dc.date.accessioned2022-07-09T08:00:08Zen
dc.date.available2022-07-09T08:00:08Zen
dc.date.issued2022-07-08en
dc.description.abstractEpistemologists often debate whether we ought to be internalists or externalists about epistemic justification. Internalists say that whether an agent's belief is justified depends on facts internally accessible to the agent, and externalists deny this. But what if internalists and externalists could both be right? This would be a pluralist view of epistemic justification. You might think that a pluralist view would be plausible because it would allow us to explain why we have different intuitions in different cases, and it would allow us to use different concepts for different purposes. In this paper, I argue the pluralist view has several serious flaws that make it much less plausible than it might initially seem. I show that pluralists run into even worse problems than monists when trying to vindicate intuitions about cases. They also run into problems when trying to specify a singular concept of epistemic justification to use for a certain purpose. It is therefore unclear what reason we would have to adopt a pluralist stance. I conclude that we ought to be monists about epistemic justification.en
dc.description.abstractgeneralEpistemologists often debate what it is that makes a belief justified. The view that the criteria for justification are internal to an agent is called "internalism" and the view that the criteria include factors external to an agent is callee "externalism." But what if internalists and externalists could both be right? This would be a pluralist view of epistemic justification. You might think that a pluralist view would be plausible because it would allow us to explain why we have different intuitions in different cases, and it would allow us to use different concepts for different purposes. In this paper, I argue the pluralist view has several serious flaws that make it much less plausible than it might initially seem.en
dc.description.degreeMaster of Artsen
dc.format.mediumETDen
dc.identifier.othervt_gsexam:34563en
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10919/111188en
dc.language.isoenen
dc.publisherVirginia Techen
dc.rightsIn Copyrighten
dc.rights.urihttp://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/en
dc.subjectEpistemologyen
dc.subjectJustificationen
dc.subjectPluralismen
dc.titleWhy Pluralism About Epistemic Justification is the Worst of Both Worldsen
dc.typeThesisen
thesis.degree.disciplinePhilosophyen
thesis.degree.grantorVirginia Polytechnic Institute and State Universityen
thesis.degree.levelmastersen
thesis.degree.nameMaster of Artsen

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