نوع مقاله : مقاله پژوهشی
نویسنده
استادیار گروه کلام، مؤسسه پژوهشی حکمت و فلسفه ایران، تهران، ایران
چکیده
کلیدواژهها
موضوعات
عنوان مقاله [English]
نویسنده [English]
According to the evidentialist approach, one’s ultimate stance toward propositions is the outcome of a contest between supporting and opposing evidence, and a proposition’s justification proceeds by adjudicating all the evidence that is available. Unlike the theist and the atheist, who ultimately take the evidence to favor their respective beliefs, the agnostic treats the evidence as neutral—either because of ambiguity in the kind of evidence at issue, because each item of evidence fails to be probative on its own, or because the evidences are equipollent. Sometimes, however, a private, non-shareable piece of evidence obtains in favor of one side of the proposition. Does such evidence have the capacity to confront and outweigh public evidence and thereby lift the epistemic stalemate?
The epistemic standing of private evidence is contested both in ordinary cases and in cases of evidential conflict. In epistemic predicaments that draw one toward agnosticism, such evidence can be legitimate and efficacious, but only on two conditions: Evidence for the evidence: reasons have been adduced for its epistemic credibility (there is evidence for the evidence). No overpowering public defeaters: the strength of the opposing public evidence is not so great as to make any claim of parity between them strained.
In that case, such evidence will be effective for escaping an epistemic stalemate—a stance that is neither especially well-grounded nor normatively attractive in epistemology.
کلیدواژهها [English]
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