Kevin McCain - Evidentialism and Epistemic Justification

Evidentialism is a popular theory of epistemic justification, yet, as early proponents of the theory Earl Conee and Richard Feldman admit, there are many elements that must be developed before Evidentialism can provide a full account of epistemic justification, or well-founded belief. It is the aim of this book to provide the details that are lacking; here McCain moves past Evidentialism as a mere schema by putting forward and defending a full-fledged theory of epistemic justification. In this book, McCain offers novel approaches to several elements of well-founded belief. Key among these are an original account of what it takes to have information as evidence, an account of epistemic support in terms of explanation, and a causal account of the basing relation (the relation that ones belief must bear to her evidence in order to be justified) that is far superior to previous accounts. The result is a fully developed Evidentialist account of well-founded belief.

Kevin McCain is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, USA.

Routledge Studies in Contemporary Philosophy

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26Civil Society in Liberal Democracy

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27The Politics of Logic

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28Pluralism and Liberal Politics

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29Kant and Education

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57The Affordable Care Act Decision

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59Evidentialism and Epistemic Justification

Kevin McCain

First published 2014
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2014 Taylor & Francis

The right of Kevin McCain to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

McCain, Kevin, 1980
Evidentialism and epistemic justification / Kevin McCain. 1 [edition].
pages cm. (Routledge studies in contemporary philosophy ; 59)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1.Evidence.2.Knowledge, Theory of.3.Epistemics.4.Justification (Theory of knowledge)I.Title.
BD161.M17 2014
121apos;.65dc23
2013050438

ISBN: 978-0-415-71482-2 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-88239-0 (ebk)

Typeset in Sabon
by Apex CoVantage, LLC

For my family

Thanks to all of the following colleagues and friends for helpful comments and discussion: Marshall Abrams, Jon Altschul, John G. Bennett, Mike Bishop, Kenny Boyce, Brandon Carey, Eli Chudnoff, Christopher Cloos, Earl Conee, Andy Cullison, Trent Dougherty, Rich Feldman, Bill Fitzpatrick, Richard Fumerton, Chris Gadsden, Jeff Glick, Alvin Goldman, David Grober-Morrow, Ali Hasan, Sommer Hodson, Court Lewis, Clayton Littlejohn, Todd Long, Jack Lyons, Peter Markie, Josh May, Matt McGrath, Andrew Moon, Alyssa Ney, Tim Perrine, Kate Phillips, Ted Poston, Jason Rogers, Bill Rowley, Carl Sachs, Philip Swenson, Jonathan Vogel, Brad Weslake, Ed Wierenga, Chase Wrenn, and Sarah Wright.

I owe a special debt of gratitude to Matt Frise and Jon Matheson. Matt and Jon each commented on the entire manuscript at some point in its development.

In places I draw on some of my previously published articles. In every case, I am grateful to the publishers, journal editors, and anonymous referees. Material from the following articles is reprinted with kind permission from Springer Science+Business Media B.V.: The Interventionist Account of Causation and the Basing Relation, Philosophical Studies 159, no. 3 (2012): 35782; Evidentialism, Explanationism, and Beliefs about the Future, Erkenntnis (forthcoming); and A New Evil Demon? No Problem for Moderate Internalists, Acta Analytica (forthcoming). Material from Explanationist Evidentialism, Episteme 10, no. 3 (2013): 299315, is reprinted with kind permission from Cambridge University Press. Material from A Predictivist Argument Against Scepticism.