Abstract
The theories of epistemic justification advanced in recent years are commonly offered as contributions to an adequate conception of knowledge and are, perhaps in consequence, either foundational or coherentist.1 I take exception to such theories here, arguing that they exaggerate the importance of knowledge for an adequate epistemology. I claim that an adequate epistemology requires a central concept of epistemic justification not subordinate to the concept of knowledge and that the needed concept (which I attempt to identify) should presupppose a new theory of empirical justification — one that is neither foundational nor coherentist. Since the theory I accept has interesting affinities with the coherence theory recently developed by Laurence BonJour,2 I comment freely on his theory in supporting my alternative.
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Aune, B. (1989). Epistemically Justified Opinion. In: Bender, J.W. (eds) The Current State of the Coherence Theory. Philosophical Studies Series, vol 44. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-2360-7_20
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-2360-7_20
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