Reasoning as a source of justification
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Reasoning as a source of justification Magdalena Balcerak Jackson Brendan Balcerak Jackson
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Published online: 1 March 2013 Ó Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013
Abstract In this essay we argue that reasoning can sometimes generate epistemic justification, rather than merely transmitting justification that the subject already possesses to new beliefs. We also suggest a way to account for it in terms of the relationship between epistemic normative requirements, justification and cognitive capacities. Keywords Reasoning Inference Justification Normative requirements Cognitive capacities
1 Introduction In this essay we examine three cases in which a subject arrives at a certain belief on the basis of a process of reasoning. In each case the subject’s belief is intuitively epistemically justified. And yet in each case, it is not plausible that the belief inherits all of its justification from that of any prior beliefs or other mental states involved in the reasoning; or so we will argue. If this is correct then we must recognize that reasoning can sometimes generate epistemic justification, rather than merely transmitting justification that a subject already possesses to new beliefs. We should include reasoning in the list of mental states and processes, such as perception and justification, that function as sources of justification. This is a rather surprising conclusion. We suggest a way to account for it, and for the cases themselves, in terms of the relationship between epistemic normative requirements, justification and cognitive capacities. M. Balcerak Jackson (&) B. Balcerak Jackson University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany e-mail: [email protected] B. Balcerak Jackson e-mail: [email protected]
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In Sect. 2 we present each of the three cases, and in each case motivate the diagnosis that the reasoning involved generates (rather than merely transmits) justification. The discussion of each case inevitably involves substantive claims about how particular beliefs, and particular sorts of transitions among beliefs, are epistemically justified. Such claims are bound to be controversial, of course, and along the way we consider some challenges that are likely to arise. But our argument is meant to be cumulative: while there may not be many epistemologists who would be prepared to accept our diagnosis of all of the cases we discuss, certain extremely plausible commitments in epistemology should lead one to accept our diagnosis of one or another of them. The conclusion that reasoning is a source of justification thus appears to be a ‘‘side effect’’ of various other attractive epistemological commitments. In Sect. 3, we develop a positive account of the cases. According to the account we offer, the sort of reasoning involved in the cases is subject to a kind of epistemic appraisal that is determined by the normative requirements relating beliefs and other attitudes. These normative requirements are grounded in specific cognitive capacit
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