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Questions

If you do not ask the right questions, you do not get the right answers. *Edward Hodnett

These questions are related to the theory of epistemic justification and knowledge that I’m in the process of developing.

  • Are facts truth makers or simply truth bearers?
  • How does a propositional account of evidence accomodate non-inferential evidence?
  • What is the relationship between epistemic and doxastic justification?
  • What theory of the epistemic basing relation is most tenable (i.e., causal, counterfactual, doxastic, causal-doxastic)?
  • How can the same epistemic reason be both normative and explanatory?
  • How does my principle (evidence and reasons for belief–ERB) result in epistemic justification when all things are considered (e.g., all evidence and reasons are accounted for)?
  • How is ERB a more defeasible principle of epistemic justification than its competitors?
  • If evidence is a subset of the total facts about a case is one still rationally required to assess the total evidence in one’s evidence set when assessing the justification of a belief? If the total evidence principle is not rationally required, then what is the alternative principle that prevents irrational yet justified beliefs?
  • What are my responses to the three arguments against foundationalism proposed by Howard-Snyder and Coffman (2006)?
  • How is my version of foundationalism different from Alston’s two-tier model?
  • How is my reasons and evidence-based theory of justification related to evidentialism of the Conee and Feldman type?
  • How does my factive account of evidence defend itself against evidence is sometimes non-factive views?
  • Does my account of justification lend itself to an account of knowledge? How does it handle the sort of counterexamples proposed by Neta in “Defeating the Dogma of Defeasibility” found in the book on Williamson’s theory of knowledge?
  • How does my account of knowledge relate to or differ from the E = K thesis?