Appearance and Explanation: Phenomenal Explanationism in Epistemology

Kevin McCain (Professor of Philosophy, Professor of Philosophy, University of Alabama at Birmingham),Luca Moretti (Reader of Philosophy, Reader of Philosophy, University of Aberdeen)

Appearance and Explanation: Phenomenal Explanationism in Epistemology
Format
Hardback
Publisher
Oxford University Press
Country
United Kingdom
Published
28 March 2022
Pages
208
ISBN
9780192896872

Appearance and Explanation: Phenomenal Explanationism in Epistemology

Kevin McCain (Professor of Philosophy, Professor of Philosophy, University of Alabama at Birmingham),Luca Moretti (Reader of Philosophy, Reader of Philosophy, University of Aberdeen)

Phenomenal Conservatism (the view that an appearance that things are a particular way gives one prima facie justification for believing that they are that way) is a promising, and popular, internalist theory of epistemic justification. Despite its popularity, it faces numerous objections and challenges. For instance, epistemologists have argued that Phenomenal Conservatism is incompatible with Bayesianism, is afflicted by bootstrapping and cognitive penetration problems, does not guarantee that epistemic justification is a stable property, does not provide an account of defeat, and is not a complete theory of epistemic justification. This book shows that Phenomenal Conservatism is immune to some of these problems, but not all. Accordingly, it explores the prospects of integrating Phenomenal Conservatism with Explanationism (the view that epistemic justification is a matter of explanatory relations between one’s evidence and propositions supported by that evidence). The resulting theory, Phenomenal Explanationism, has advantages over Phenomenal Conservatism and Explanationism taken on their own. Phenomenal Explanationism is a highly unified, comprehensive internalist theory of epistemic justification that delivers on the promises of Phenomenal Conservatism while avoiding its pitfalls.

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