Epistemic justification of democracy

Epistemic Democracy

Epistemic Justification: Foundationalism and Beyond

number of things I believed to be true. A few examples: I believed I was in Port aux Basques, Newfoundland. I believed I was caught up on my student loan payments. I believed that, when I was seven, a dog named Tuffy lived across the street with a family whose name I can’t recall. I believed all these things, but I was less confident in some of those beliefs than others. Why? One way of explain...

On epistemic logic with justification

The true belief components of Plato’s tripartite definition of knowledge as justified true belief are represented in formal epistemology by modal logic and its possible worlds semantics. At the same time, the justification component of Plato’s definition did not have a formal representation. This paper introduces the notion of justification into formal epistemology. Epistemic logic with justifi...

The limits of epistemic democracy

The so-called doctrinal paradox reveals that a jury that decides by majority on the truth of a set of propositions, may come to a conclusion that is at odds with a legal doctrine to which they all subscribe. The doctrinal paradox, and its subesequent generalization by List and Pettit (2003), reveal the logical difficulties of epistemic democracy. This paper presents several generalizations of t...

The Role of Coherence in Epistemic Justification

Among many reasons for which contemporary philosophers take coherentism in epistemology seriously, the most important is probably the perceived inadequacy of alternative accounts, most notably misgivings about foundationalism. But coherentism also receives straightforward support from cases in which beliefs are apparently justified by their coherence. From the perspective of those against coher...