Seemings and Justification

Abstract

A popular view in epistemology holds some close variant of the following principle: If we find this principle intuitively plausible – as many do – we can endorse an analogous principle for memory: Or more generally: where ‘seeming’ is supposed to encompass looks and apparent memories, and also other states as well, including apparent a priori intuitions. All three principles stake out interesting and important positions on epistemological issues. First, they are committed to something other than beliefs serving as reasons (i.e., grounds, evidence) for beliefs. Second, they endorse traditional, non-disjunctivist views, as the relevant seemings are intended to be non-factive. Third, they endorse a kind of internalism, on the assumption that seemings are not merely non-factive but ‘internal’ in the relevant though notoriously slippery sense of the term. Finally, they postulate an important class of beliefs: those that are both epistemologically basic (a.k.a. immediately or non-inferentially justified, i.e., beliefs whose justification does not depend on the justification of other beliefs) and defeasible. Because these basic beliefs are beliefs about external objects, the principles espouse a kind of modest foundationalism, rather than a classical foundationalism; the difference is that the latter makes our justification for beliefs about the world depend on justification for beliefs about ourselves, whereas the former grants us direct epistemic access to objects and properties in the world around us.2

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