Evidentialism
Encyclopedia
Evidentialism is a theory of justification
according to which the justification of a belief
depends solely on the evidence for it. Technically, though belief is typically the primary object of concern, evidentialism can be applied to doxastic attitudes
generally. Formulating evidentialism in terms of the doxastic attitude of belief its most-defended form comes from Conee and Feldman: Belief, B, toward proposition
, p, is epistemically justified for Subject,S, at time,t, if and only if
B fits the evidence S has at t.
approaches the batter's box believing that he will hit a home run
despite his current drunkenness
and overall decline in performance in recent games
. He realizes that, however unlikely it is that his luck will change, it would increase his chances of hitting a home run if he maintains a confident attitude. In these circumstances, critics of evidentialism argue that his belief that p = Babe Ruth will hit a home run is justified, even though his evidence does not support this belief.
Evidentialists may respond to this criticism by forming a distinction between pragmatic or prudential justification and epistemic justification. In Babe Ruth's case, it is pragmatically justified that he believe p, but it is nevertheless epistemically unjustified: though the belief may be justified for the purpose of promoting some other goal (a successful at bat, in Ruth's case), it is not justified relative to the purely epistemic goal of having beliefs that are most likely to be true.
A similar response follows the criticism that evidentialism implies all faith
-based beliefs are unjustified. For example, fideism
claims that evidence is irrelevant to religious beliefs and that attempts to justify religious beliefs in such a way are misguided. Superficially, fideism and evidentialism have mutually exclusive takes on religious beliefs, but evidentialists use the term "justification" in a much weaker sense than the one in which fideists most likely use it. Evidentialism merely defines the epistemic condition of a belief.
Although evidentialism states that the content of the evidence does not matter, only that it constitutes valid justification towards some proposition, a skeptical criticism may be levelled at evidentialism from uncertainty theories
. One's evidence may be objectively disproved at some point or it may be the case that one can never have absolute certainty of one's evidence. Given the logic of arguments concerning principles of uncertainty and randomness, skepticism towards knowledge merely becomes skepticism towards valid justification.
Likewise, some say that the human mind is not naturally inclined to form beliefs based on evidence, viz. cognitive dissonance
. While this may be the case, evidentialists admit, evidentialism is only meant to separate justified beliefs from unjustified beliefs. One can believe that evidentialism is true yet still maintain that the human mind is not naturally inclined to form beliefs based on evidence. He would simply have to conclude that the mind is not naturally inclined to form justified beliefs.
Others argue that evidentialism should be rejected on the grounds that it is false by its own standards. These critics claim that, since evidentialism is not itself evidenced, it is inherently paradoxical to hold this view.
In general, responses to this argument can be classified in the following ways:
Aside from these responses, some philosophers have said that evidential chains terminate in beliefs that are not justified. Others have said that, indeed, there can exist infinite chains of reasons.
Of the main responses, coherentism and skepticism are clearly consistent with evidentialism. Coherentism allows evidential support for all of our justified beliefs in the face of the regress argument by allowing for circular chains of evidential support among beliefs. And the skeptic here is utilizing an evidentialist demand to arrive at her skeptical conclusion.
But because the resulting skepticism is so sweeping and devastating, and because so many reject the legitimacy of the circular reasoning embraced by the coherentist, foundationalism is the favored response of many philosophers to the regress argument. And foundationalism does not so clearly fit together with evidentialism. At first glance, at least, the "basic" beliefs of the foundationalist would appear to be counterexamples to the evidentialist's thesis, in that they are justified beliefs that are not rational because they are supported by deeper evidence.
. The most influential proponent of reliabilism is Alvin Goldman
. According to a crude form of reliabilism, S is justified in believing p if and only if Ss belief in p is caused by a reliable process—a process that generally leads to true beliefs. Some of these reliable processes may require the processing of evidence; many others won't. So, Goldman would argue, evidentialism, on which the justification of a belief always turns completely on the issue of the belief's evidential support, is false. Likewise, evidentialism will be rejected by more sophisticated versions of reliabilism, some of which will allow evidence an important but limited role, as opposed to the all-encompassing role assigned to it by evidentialism.
Other non-evidentialist theories include: the Causal Theory, according to which S knows p if and only if Ss belief in p is causally connected in an appropriate way with Ss believing p; and Robert Nozick
's Truth Tracking Theory, according to which S knows p if and only if (i) p is true, (ii) S believes p, (iii) Ss attitude toward p tracks the truth value of p in that, when p is not true, S does not believe p and when p is true, S does believe p.
Another alternative perspective, promoted by David Hume
's 18th-century opponent, Presbyterian philosopher Thomas Reid
, and perhaps hinted at by Hume himself, at least in some moods (though this is a very controversial issue in interpreting Hume), has it that some of our "natural" beliefs—beliefs we are led to form by natural features of the human constitution—have what can be called an "innocent-until-proven-guilty" status. Contrary to evidentialism, they can be justified in the absence of any effective evidence that supports them. They are justified just so long as one doesn't have good reason to think them false.
A very important and provocative new account of the extent of our evidence is Timothy Williamson
's claim that E=K: one's evidence is what one knows. (See Williamson's book, Knowledge and Its Limits (Oxford UP, 2000).) Going by the "letter of the law," Williamson's resulting theory is not contrary to, but is rather an instance of, evidentialism. By allowing our evidence to encompass everything we know, Williamson is able to give thoroughly evidentialist accounts of many important epistemological concepts. But, traditionally, evidentialists have presupposed much more restrictive accounts of what our evidence is. Thus, Williamson's theory is opposed to the spirit of much traditional evidentialism, primarily because it turns evidentialism from an internalist account of justification to an externalist account (due to the factive nature of knowledge.) However, Williamson's work may point to a quite general way to modify traditional evidentialism to make it better able to meet the challenges it faces: Whether or not one goes so far as to accept that E=K, broadening one's view of what comprises our evidence may provide a way to address many of the objections to evidentialism, especially to those disinclined to swallow skeptical consequences of a view.
Theory of justification
Theory of justification is a part of epistemology that attempts to understand the justification of propositions and beliefs. Epistemologists are concerned with various epistemic features of belief, which include the ideas of justification, warrant, rationality, and probability...
according to which the justification of a belief
Belief
Belief is the psychological state in which an individual holds a proposition or premise to be true.-Belief, knowledge and epistemology:The terms belief and knowledge are used differently in philosophy....
depends solely on the evidence for it. Technically, though belief is typically the primary object of concern, evidentialism can be applied to doxastic attitudes
Doxastic attitudes
Doxastic - Pertaining to belief. Alternatively, also pertaining to states sufficiently like beliefs ....
generally. Formulating evidentialism in terms of the doxastic attitude of belief its most-defended form comes from Conee and Feldman: Belief, B, toward proposition
Proposition
In logic and philosophy, the term proposition refers to either the "content" or "meaning" of a meaningful declarative sentence or the pattern of symbols, marks, or sounds that make up a meaningful declarative sentence...
, p, is epistemically justified for Subject,S, at time,t, if and only if
If and only if
In logic and related fields such as mathematics and philosophy, if and only if is a biconditional logical connective between statements....
B fits the evidence S has at t.
Criticism
Critics of evidentialism sometimes reject the claim that a belief is justified only if one's evidence supports that belief. A typical counterexample goes like this. Suppose, for example, that Babe RuthBabe Ruth
George Herman Ruth, Jr. , best known as "Babe" Ruth and nicknamed "the Bambino" and "the Sultan of Swat", was an American Major League baseball player from 1914–1935...
approaches the batter's box believing that he will hit a home run
Home run
In baseball, a home run is scored when the ball is hit in such a way that the batter is able to reach home safely in one play without any errors being committed by the defensive team in the process...
despite his current drunkenness
Drunkenness
Alcohol intoxication is a physiological state that occurs when a person has a high level of ethanol in his or her blood....
and overall decline in performance in recent games
Baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The aim is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot diamond...
. He realizes that, however unlikely it is that his luck will change, it would increase his chances of hitting a home run if he maintains a confident attitude. In these circumstances, critics of evidentialism argue that his belief that p = Babe Ruth will hit a home run is justified, even though his evidence does not support this belief.
Evidentialists may respond to this criticism by forming a distinction between pragmatic or prudential justification and epistemic justification. In Babe Ruth's case, it is pragmatically justified that he believe p, but it is nevertheless epistemically unjustified: though the belief may be justified for the purpose of promoting some other goal (a successful at bat, in Ruth's case), it is not justified relative to the purely epistemic goal of having beliefs that are most likely to be true.
A similar response follows the criticism that evidentialism implies all faith
Faith
Faith is confidence or trust in a person or thing, or a belief that is not based on proof. In religion, faith is a belief in a transcendent reality, a religious teacher, a set of teachings or a Supreme Being. Generally speaking, it is offered as a means by which the truth of the proposition,...
-based beliefs are unjustified. For example, fideism
Fideism
Fideism is an epistemological theory which maintains that faith is independent of reason, or that reason and faith are hostile to each other and faith is superior at arriving at particular truths...
claims that evidence is irrelevant to religious beliefs and that attempts to justify religious beliefs in such a way are misguided. Superficially, fideism and evidentialism have mutually exclusive takes on religious beliefs, but evidentialists use the term "justification" in a much weaker sense than the one in which fideists most likely use it. Evidentialism merely defines the epistemic condition of a belief.
Although evidentialism states that the content of the evidence does not matter, only that it constitutes valid justification towards some proposition, a skeptical criticism may be levelled at evidentialism from uncertainty theories
Uncertainty
Uncertainty is a term used in subtly different ways in a number of fields, including physics, philosophy, statistics, economics, finance, insurance, psychology, sociology, engineering, and information science...
. One's evidence may be objectively disproved at some point or it may be the case that one can never have absolute certainty of one's evidence. Given the logic of arguments concerning principles of uncertainty and randomness, skepticism towards knowledge merely becomes skepticism towards valid justification.
Likewise, some say that the human mind is not naturally inclined to form beliefs based on evidence, viz. cognitive dissonance
Cognitive dissonance
Cognitive dissonance is a discomfort caused by holding conflicting ideas simultaneously. The theory of cognitive dissonance proposes that people have a motivational drive to reduce dissonance. They do this by changing their attitudes, beliefs, and actions. Dissonance is also reduced by justifying,...
. While this may be the case, evidentialists admit, evidentialism is only meant to separate justified beliefs from unjustified beliefs. One can believe that evidentialism is true yet still maintain that the human mind is not naturally inclined to form beliefs based on evidence. He would simply have to conclude that the mind is not naturally inclined to form justified beliefs.
Others argue that evidentialism should be rejected on the grounds that it is false by its own standards. These critics claim that, since evidentialism is not itself evidenced, it is inherently paradoxical to hold this view.
The infinite regress argument
Evidentialism also faces a challenge from the infinite regress argument. This argument begins with the observation that, normally, one's supporting evidence for a belief consists of other beliefs. But it seems that these other beliefs can do the job of justifying only if they themselves are already justified. And evidentialism demands that these supporting beliefs be justified by still further evidence if they are to be justified themselves. But this same reasoning would apply to the new, deeper level of supporting beliefs: they can only justify if they're themselves justified, and evidentialism therefore demands an even deeper level of supporting belief. And so on. According to this argument, a justified belief requires an endless supply of reasons. Most philosophers agree that this is an absurd conclusion.In general, responses to this argument can be classified in the following ways:
- FoundationalismFoundationalismFoundationalism is any theory in epistemology that holds that beliefs are justified based on what are called basic beliefs . This position is intended to resolve the infinite regress problem in epistemology...
: There exist beliefs that are justified, but not because they are based on any other beliefs. These are called properly basic beliefs, and they are the foundation upon which all other justified beliefs ultimately rest. - CoherentismCoherentismThere are two distinct types of coherentism. One refers to the coherence theory of truth. The other refers to the coherence theory of justification. The coherentist theory of justification characterizes epistemic justification as a property of a belief only if that belief is a member of a coherent...
: Justified beliefs are all evidentially supported by other beliefs, but an infinite set of beliefs is not generated, because the chains of evidential support among beliefs is allowed to move in a circle. On the resulting picture, a person's belief is justified when it fits together with the person's other beliefs in a coherent way in which the person's various beliefs mutually support one another. - Conditional Theory of Justification: A belief is justified by a set of beliefs. However this justification operates conditionally, as it depends on the truth of the justifying beliefs. There is not a need for basic beliefs, but one should note that this type of justification is weaker.
- SkepticismSkepticismSkepticism has many definitions, but generally refers to any questioning attitude towards knowledge, facts, or opinions/beliefs stated as facts, or doubt regarding claims that are taken for granted elsewhere...
: There cannot be any justified beliefs.
Aside from these responses, some philosophers have said that evidential chains terminate in beliefs that are not justified. Others have said that, indeed, there can exist infinite chains of reasons.
Of the main responses, coherentism and skepticism are clearly consistent with evidentialism. Coherentism allows evidential support for all of our justified beliefs in the face of the regress argument by allowing for circular chains of evidential support among beliefs. And the skeptic here is utilizing an evidentialist demand to arrive at her skeptical conclusion.
But because the resulting skepticism is so sweeping and devastating, and because so many reject the legitimacy of the circular reasoning embraced by the coherentist, foundationalism is the favored response of many philosophers to the regress argument. And foundationalism does not so clearly fit together with evidentialism. At first glance, at least, the "basic" beliefs of the foundationalist would appear to be counterexamples to the evidentialist's thesis, in that they are justified beliefs that are not rational because they are supported by deeper evidence.
Non-evidentialist theories of knowledge and justification
Many contemporary epistemologists reject the view that evidential support is the whole story about the justification of beliefs. While no sensible epistemologists generally urge people to disregard their evidence when forming beliefs, many believe that a more complete theory would introduce considerations about the processes that initiate and sustain beliefs. An example of one such theory is reliabilismReliabilism
Reliabilism, a category of theories in the philosophical discipline of epistemology, has been advanced both as a theory of knowledge and of justified belief...
. The most influential proponent of reliabilism is Alvin Goldman
Alvin Goldman
Alvin Ira Goldman is an American professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University in New Jersey. He previously taught at the University of Michigan and at the University of Arizona. He earned his PhD from Princeton University and is married to Holly Smith, a well known ethicist, former...
. According to a crude form of reliabilism, S is justified in believing p if and only if Ss belief in p is caused by a reliable process—a process that generally leads to true beliefs. Some of these reliable processes may require the processing of evidence; many others won't. So, Goldman would argue, evidentialism, on which the justification of a belief always turns completely on the issue of the belief's evidential support, is false. Likewise, evidentialism will be rejected by more sophisticated versions of reliabilism, some of which will allow evidence an important but limited role, as opposed to the all-encompassing role assigned to it by evidentialism.
Other non-evidentialist theories include: the Causal Theory, according to which S knows p if and only if Ss belief in p is causally connected in an appropriate way with Ss believing p; and Robert Nozick
Robert Nozick
Robert Nozick was an American political philosopher, most prominent in the 1970s and 1980s. He was a professor at Harvard University. He is best known for his book Anarchy, State, and Utopia , a right-libertarian answer to John Rawls's A Theory of Justice...
's Truth Tracking Theory, according to which S knows p if and only if (i) p is true, (ii) S believes p, (iii) Ss attitude toward p tracks the truth value of p in that, when p is not true, S does not believe p and when p is true, S does believe p.
Another alternative perspective, promoted by David Hume
David Hume
David Hume was a Scottish philosopher, historian, economist, and essayist, known especially for his philosophical empiricism and skepticism. He was one of the most important figures in the history of Western philosophy and the Scottish Enlightenment...
's 18th-century opponent, Presbyterian philosopher Thomas Reid
Thomas Reid
The Reverend Thomas Reid FRSE , was a religiously trained Scottish philosopher, and a contemporary of David Hume, was the founder of the Scottish School of Common Sense, and played an integral role in the Scottish Enlightenment...
, and perhaps hinted at by Hume himself, at least in some moods (though this is a very controversial issue in interpreting Hume), has it that some of our "natural" beliefs—beliefs we are led to form by natural features of the human constitution—have what can be called an "innocent-until-proven-guilty" status. Contrary to evidentialism, they can be justified in the absence of any effective evidence that supports them. They are justified just so long as one doesn't have good reason to think them false.
A very important and provocative new account of the extent of our evidence is Timothy Williamson
Timothy Williamson
Timothy Williamson is a British philosopher whose main research interests are in philosophical logic, philosophy of language, epistemology and metaphysics....
's claim that E=K: one's evidence is what one knows. (See Williamson's book, Knowledge and Its Limits (Oxford UP, 2000).) Going by the "letter of the law," Williamson's resulting theory is not contrary to, but is rather an instance of, evidentialism. By allowing our evidence to encompass everything we know, Williamson is able to give thoroughly evidentialist accounts of many important epistemological concepts. But, traditionally, evidentialists have presupposed much more restrictive accounts of what our evidence is. Thus, Williamson's theory is opposed to the spirit of much traditional evidentialism, primarily because it turns evidentialism from an internalist account of justification to an externalist account (due to the factive nature of knowledge.) However, Williamson's work may point to a quite general way to modify traditional evidentialism to make it better able to meet the challenges it faces: Whether or not one goes so far as to accept that E=K, broadening one's view of what comprises our evidence may provide a way to address many of the objections to evidentialism, especially to those disinclined to swallow skeptical consequences of a view.
External links
- http://www.iep.utm.edu/e/evidenti.htmArticle from Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy by Dan Mittag of the University of RochesterUniversity of RochesterThe University of Rochester is a private, nonsectarian, research university in Rochester, New York, United States. The university grants undergraduate and graduate degrees, including doctoral and professional degrees. The university has six schools and various interdisciplinary programs.The...
] - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on epistemology by Mathias Steup.