Problems for Explanationism on Both Sides

Abstract

This paper continues a recent exchange in this journal concerning explanationist accounts of epistemic justification. In the first paper in this exchange, Byerly (2013a, b) argues that explanationist views judge that certain beliefs about the future are unjustified when in fact they are justified. In the second paper, McCain (2014b) defends a version of explanationism which he argues escapes Byerly's criticism. Here we contribute to this exchange in two ways. In the first section, we argue that McCain's defense of explanationism against Byerly's objection is unsuccessful. Then, in the second section, we develop an independent objection to explanationism from a different direction. If our arguments in each section are sound, then not only do explanationist accounts of epistemic justification judge beliefs that are justified to be unjustified, but they judge beliefs that are unjustified to be justified. Explanationism faces problems on both sides.

Problems for Mainstream Evidentialism

“…Since these propositions entail that the golf ball will roll in the cup, on (EXP2) Byerly's evidence supports the proposition that the ball will go in the cup, as this latter proposition is available to Byerly as a logical consequence of the best explanation available to him of his evidence. 6 Whether McCain's strategy to handle lehrer's and, in particular, Byerly's counterexamples is successful has turned out to be a matter of controversy (see Byerly andMartin 2015 andMcCain 2015). Whether it is, however, is a question that for the limited purpose of this paper can be set aside.…”

“…The claim that evidential relations are explanatory in nature has been challenged by Lehrer (1974), by Goldman (2011) and, more recently, by Ryan Byerly (2013) and by Byerly and Martin (2015). The first two epistemologists, in particular, have contended that there are cases in which a given proposition Q is not part of the best explanation available to one of why a second proposition P is true, yet P epistemically supports Q because P entails Q .…”

“…Whether McCain’s strategy to handle Lehrer’s and, in particular, Byerly’s counterexamples is successful has turned out to be a matter of controversy (see Byerly and Martin 2015 and McCain 2015). Whether it is, however, is a question that for the limited purpose of this paper can be set aside.…”

Value Promotion and the Explanation of Evidential Standards

“…One serious objection to explanationism, identified by Byerly and Martin (2015), is that it is subject to a bad lot problem: sometimes the best explanation available to an epistemic subject for why they possess certain evidence is not a good explanation. If one has only bad explanations available, then believing the best one is not epistemically justified.…”

“…Explanationism, however, has the result that believing the best of a bad lot of available explanations is epistemically justified. 15 The obvious solution to this problem, also suggested by Byerly and Martin (2015), is to require that, in addition to being the best explanation for why the subject is in possession of e, the explanation of which p is a part must also be a good explanation. I agree that this would be an improvement to the account.…”