Propositional Justification and Doxastic Justification

Abstract

IntroductionEpistemologists distinguish between two notions of epistemic justification: having justification to believe that p versus justifiedly believing that p. To keep track of these notions, epistemologists typically refer to the former as propositional justification and to the latter as doxastic justification. 1 The most obvious difference between these notions is that propositional justification does not require belief: one can have justification to believe p without actually believing it. Consider, for example, someone who knows that Simon said he would be home, and knows that Simon is reliable. Other things being equal, this person could go on to justifiedly believe (that is, to have a doxastically justified belief) that Simon is probably home. But this person might simply not have this belief at all. In such a case, one would still have propositional justification to believe that Simon is probably home.Most epistemologists, however, tend to think that there is more to doxastic justification than merely forming a belief in what one has propositional justification to believe. Most agree that being doxastically justified depends on there being an appropriate connection between one's reasons for believing that p and one's actual state of believing that p. Someone who believes that p on a whim, for example, lacks a doxastically justified belief that p, even if she has fantastic reasons for believing that p that were left unengaged. The nature of this appropriate connection, of course, is a matter of debate.Bearing all of this in mind, we can state what we will call the reasons-first picture of propositional and doxastic justification:1 This distinction was originally introduced by Roderick Firth (1978) as 'propositional warrant' and 'doxastic warrant'. The terminology for the same distinction has differed among epistemologists. Some prefer 'ex ante justification' and 'ex post justification' (cf. Goldman 1979), some prefer 'justification ' and 'well-founded belief' (cf. Feldman and Conee 1985), and some prefer 'justifiable ' and 'justified' (cf. Pollock and Cruz 1999).Propositional Justification (PJ): S has propositional justification to believe that p iff S has sufficient epistemic reasons to believe that p. Doxastic Justification (DJ): S has a doxastically justified belief in p iff (i) S haspropositional justification to believe that p, (ii) S believes that p, and (iii) S's belief in p is appropriately connected to S's sufficient epistemic reasons to believe it. These characterizations are quite common, and they bear on a variety of important philosophical disputes. First, there is the matter of the nature of the truth connection responsible for the epistemic character of the relevant kind of justification. Internalists and externalists have different answers, and this will impact one's views on the nature of epistemic reasons and, consequently, on the nature of justification. We will try to stay neutral on this debate. Second, there are a range of cases where agents arguably have knowledge but lack any b...

Quantum Reconstructions as Stepping Stones Toward ψ-Doxastic Interpretations?

“… 22 Here we are concerned with propositional justification (as opposed to doxastic justification). Basically, this corresponds to the distinction between “ having justification to believe that p versus justifiedly believing that p ” [ 78 ]. The former characterizes propositional justification, denoting whether a subject has justification to believe some proposition (whether or not the subject actually believes the respective proposition); the latter characterizes doxastic justification, denoting whether a subject’s actual belief is justified.…”