Immediate Justification and Process Reliabilism

A central issue in contemporary epistemology is whether there is a species of (prima facie) justification that is immediate, direct, basic, or foundational. It is puzzling whether and how immediate justification could arise. This is perhaps the core issue that divides foundationalists from coherentists. An older conception of immediate justification is that some beliefs are capable of self-justification; they don’t need anything else to justify them. This conception of immediate justification is no longer very prevalent. Current defenders of immediate justification usually assume that a directly justified belief is rendered justified by some state of affairs distinct from it. What is special to the direct mode of justification conferral is that it doesn’t involve other justified beliefs (or states or propositions) as justifiers. Deniers of immediate justification doubt that this occurs, or even makes sense.