Justification: Insights from Corpora

Abstract

In this paper I use insights from exploratory analyses on large English language corpora to consider the extent to which there is a widely used ordinary notion of justification that attaches to beliefs. I will show that this has ramifications for one broad approach to theorising about justification – the folk justification approach. I will argue that the corpus-based findings presented pose a challenge to the folk justification approach insofar as they suggest that “justify” is not widely used talk about the justification of our beliefs. I will conclude by presenting the possible solutions to this challenge, and remarking on their feasibility.

A defence of conceptual analysis as a linguistic endeavour

“…If there is some common notion of epistemic justification, it is not plausibly investigated by considering the ordinary usage of 'justify'. SeeGrindrod (2022).…”