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- Title
A New Argument for Evidentialism.
- Authors
Shah, Nishi
- Abstract
When we deliberate whether to believe some proposition, we feel immediately compelled to look for evidence of its truth. Philosophers have labelled this feature of doxastic deliberation ‘transparency’. I argue that resolving the disagreement in the ethics of belief between evidentialists and pragmatists turns on the correct explanation of transparency. My hypothesis is that it reflects a conceptual truth about belief: a belief that p is correct if and only if p. This normative truth entails that only evidence can be a reason for belief. Although evidentialism does not follow directly from the mere psychological truth that we cannot believe for non-evidential reasons, it does follow directly from the normative conceptual truth about belief which explains why we cannot do so.
- Subjects
TRANSPARENCY (Optics); EVIDENCE; TRUTH; BELIEF &; doubt; PHILOSOPHY; PRAGMATISM
- Publication
Philosophical Quarterly, 2006, Vol 56, Issue 225, p481
- ISSN
0031-8094
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1111/j.1467-9213.2006.454.x