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    Carmelics

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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
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    Justification is determined by internal coherence and rel... — Carmelics
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    Challenges→We are not justified in believing that we are not victims of a skeptical scenario

    Justification is determined by internal coherence and reliability of belief-forming processes within one's actual epistemic situation, not by comparison to logically possible alternatives.

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    1 reason for
    1 reason against

    Reasons For

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    Reason for
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    • 1.We can only evaluate beliefs using cognitive resources and standards available to us; comparing to logically possible alternatives we cannot access is epistemically idle.
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    • 2.Reliable belief-forming processes in actual contexts produce justified beliefs regardless of how things could have been in distant possible worlds.
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    • 3.Internal coherence prevents self-undermining and circularity, which are necessary conditions for any justification within an agent's actual epistemic situation.
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    Reasons Against

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    Reason against
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    • 1.A belief can be internally coherent yet systematically false if one's entire belief system rests on a false foundation—coherence alone cannot guarantee truth-tracking.
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    • 2.Skeptical scenarios (brain-in-vat, evil demon) are logically possible and our actual belief-forming processes cannot distinguish them, so ignoring such alternatives seems to beg the question against skepticism.
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    • 3.Reliability requires that a belief-forming process succeeds in actual cases, not merely that it functions well given one's current assumptions about what one can know.
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    Key Terms

    Belief-Forming Processes(as used in epistemology)
    The methods and reasoning someone uses to arrive at their beliefs, like how they gather information or the logic they apply to form conclusions.
    Epistemic situation(epistemology)
    The facts about what someone knows or believes, and the circumstances around that knowledge—basically, everything relevant to whether a person actually knows something.
    Logically possible alternatives(as contrasted with your actual situation)
    Scenarios that don't contradict the laws of logic, even if they're extremely unlikely or contrary to how the world actually works (like 'what if my memories are all fake?').
    internal coherence(Used by moral skeptics to argue that coherence provides no evidence of correspondence to external moral facts.)
    The property of a set of beliefs being mutually consistent and mutually supporting within the set, without reference to anything outside the set.
    justification(Third condition of the tripartite account of knowledge)
    The condition on a knower's belief that excludes mere luck — the belief must be held in a way that is appropriate or warranted, not merely accidentally correct.

    Connections

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    Skepticism1 linked

    Related

    A belief can be internally coherent yet systematically false if one's entire bel...Internal coherence prevents self-undermining and circularity, which are necessar...Reliability requires that a belief-forming process succeeds in actual cases, not...Reliable belief-forming processes in actual contexts produce justified beliefs r...

    Details

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    claim
    Perspectives
    2 (1 for, 1 against)
    Edits
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    +3 moreShow less
    Skeptical scenarios (brain-in-vat, evil demon) are logically possible and our ac...We are not justified in believing that we are not victims of a skeptical scenari...We can only evaluate beliefs using cognitive resources and standards available t...