Epistemology Research Group
Speaker: Jonathan Jenkins Ichikawa (University of British Columbia)
Title: 'Justification is Potential Knowledge'
Abstract: I develop a novel theory of doxastic justification. A subject's belief is justified, on my view, if and only if it is 'potential knowledge' in a sense I will explain. I suggest that it is not circular or otherwise objectionable to characterize justification in terms of knowledge, and situate my project with respect to the 'knowledge first' program in epistemology. I identify a series of desiderata for a theory of justification, and suggest that the approach defended fares well with respect to it. I argue that my approach is preferable to recent proposals in a similar spirit, and suggest that anti-individualism about content has an important role in rendering the extension intuitively plausible.