Justification and evidence

This article is part of Religious Studies’ new initiative to publish a series of interviews with distin- guished philosophers of religion. Each interview explores the personal and academic background of the interviewee and discusses their core philosophical views. The aim is to inspire students and scholars and to provide an overview of some of the most important works developed by contempo- rary philosophers of religion. In the first interview, Max Baker-Hytch interviews Richard Swinburne, covering such topics as his upbringing, his days as a student in Oxford in the 1950s, and his views on natural theology, the problem of evil, and the mind-body problem.

Da dove viene un fatto non ancora noto? Come accade che sia possibile pensarlo? Se la possibilità di ogni nuova associazione riposa sul già noto, come può venire riconosciuta una configurazione che non lo è ancora? Domande di questo genere derivano dal pragmatismo peirciano. In particolare, nell’affrontare il rapporto tra l’identità del riconoscimento e il suo attuarsi come interpretazione sempre differente, verrà trattato il pensiero di Charles S. Peirce secondo lo staglio del filosofo Carlo Sini. Per uscire dalla contraddizione di una regola differente da se stessa, diventa necessario distinguere fra tre categorie differenti di interpretante. La regola, intesa come novità associativa, si risolve nell’interpretare secondo plausibilità. In secondo luogo, l’induzione configura un oggetto noto su base probabilistica, nella scommessa di poterlo riconoscere concretamente. Infine, può avere luogo la regola deduttiva, come certezza pienamente positiva dell’identico.

When an empirical prediction E of hypothesis H is observed to be true, such observation is said to confirm, i.e., support (although not prove) the truth of the hypothesis. But why? What justifies the claim that such evidence supports the hypothesis? The widely accepted answer is that it is justified by induction. More specifically, it is commonly held that the following argument: (1) If H then E; (2) E; (3) Therefore, (probably) H—here referred to as ‘hypothetico-deductive con-firmation argument’—is inductively strong. Yet this argument looks nothing like an inductive generalisation, i.e., it doesn’t seem inductive in the term's traditional, enumerative sense. If anything, it has the form of the fallacy of affirming the consequent. This paper aims to solve this puzzle. True, in recent decades, ‘in-duction’ has been sometimes used more broadly to encompass any non-deductive, i.e., ampliative, argument. Applying Bayesian confirmation theory has famously demonstrated that hypothetico-deductive confirmation is indeed inductive in this broader, ampliative sense. Nonetheless, it will be argued here that, despite appearance, hypothetico-deductive confirmation can also be recast as a strong enumerative induction. Hence, by being enumeratively inductive, the scientific method of hypothetico-deductive confirmation is justified through this traditional, more restrictive type of induction rather than merely by ampliative induction.

Im Handeln und Urteilen spielen Beispiele eine nicht unerhebliche Rolle. Dabei haben wir es stets mit einer Vermittlung zwischen Besonderem und Allgemeinen zu tun. Gleichwohl lassen sich zwei gegenläufige Funktionen ausmachen: Während das Beispiel einerseits eine rein illustrative Funktion haben kann, die der Veranschaulichung eines Allgemeinen dient, kann es andererseits auch eine exemplarische Funktion haben, insofern es ein Allgemeines zum Ausdruck bringt, das sich (noch) nicht in einer Regel fassen lässt. Am Exempel besteht in jüngerer Zeit gerade auch innerhalb der Moralphilosophie und der politischen Philosophie ein wachsendes Interesse ...

How are justified belief and rational belief related? Some philosophers think that justified belief and rational belief come to the same thing. Others take it that justification is a matter of how well a particular belief is supported by the evidence, while rational belief is a matter of how well a belief coheres with a person's other beliefs. In this paper, I defend the view that justification is a dimension of rationality, a view that can make sense of both of these conflicting accounts. When it modifies belief, 'rational' is a multidimensional adjective, as there are multiple dimensions along which a belief can be rational. I will argue that one of these dimensions is justification, an account that can not only explain why philosophers give diverging theories of the relationship between justified belief and rational belief, but can also reveal why rational belief and justified belief are closely related despite being distinct.

This essay aims to investigate the paradoxical architecture of ideal structures in the thought of Robert Musil and Nicolai Hartmann. In opposition to the primacy of the concept of function established by Ernst Mach and the Neo-Kantian school, it is emphasized how Musil and Hartmann shared the need to reintroduce the concept of causality into their epistemological reflection. In this regard, the modal declination of the concept of causality emerges. Following Musil, causality implies the symmetrical opening of a set of equiprobable cases. According to Hartmann, the investigation of causality must justify the univocal and necessary correlation between cause and its singular effect. The paradoxical character of ideal structures thus emerges in the context of a reflection regarding the concept of possibility, which in Musil is declined through the use of statistical method, whereas according to Hartmann it takes on the sense of irrevocable determinism.

It is a utilitarian rationality that one must have spent the whole wealth on the winning lottery ticket because it maximizes welfare. Obviously, it strikes everyone as an unreasonable recommendation because, given the integrity of the lottery system, we never knew before the drawing what the winning lottery ticket is. The orthodox decision theory, the expected utility theory, has an alternative rationality that maximizes only expected utility, with a corresponding better guidance for action in our daily life filled with uncertainties. In this Thesis, I investigate reasonableness through distinguishing it from rationality. I first present a case of the claustrophobic, bringing out his reasonableness even given his irrationality – his irrational fear of confined area. Although it is an issue in ethics, I then borrow from epistemology to discuss context, especially in what alternatives to a decision are relevant to it. Afterwards, I discuss safety, which entails immunity from error, and interact it with context through the margin for error. This brings out what risk is, in contrast to luck, which I discuss next. Given some competence, the success of an act leaves a residue of luck inversely proportional to one’s competence. Lastly, I will discuss responsibility, in interaction with justification in unfavourable situation. These four Chapters include famous cases from epistemology, the case of the cleverly painted mule, the bank case, the case of fake barn, and the new evil demon. Competence minimizes luck whereas safety minimizes risk, and the present externalist rationality entails justification with success: the degree of justification is determined by how much it contributes to success. Since we shall not always know before an act that it would have outputted the outcome of success, some act is irrational though reasonable. The present treatise thus informs any theory of decision under uncertainty in a philosophical way.

Formal modal logic is mostly mathematical in its methods, regardless of area of application. This Handbook presents a wide variety of mathematical techniques developed over decades of studying the intricate details of modal logic. Also included among relatively recent general purpose sources on the mathematics of modal logic are monographs [57, 75, 99, 114, 153] and a survey paper [115]. For that matter, the applications of mathematics in modal logic are overwhelming, while those in the dual category, the uses of modal logic in ...

According to the innovative account of the structure of rational evaluation offered by Wittgenstein in his final notebooks, published as On Certainty, our rational practices necessarily presuppose arational hinge commitments. These are everyday, apparently mundane, commitments that we are optimally certain of, but which in virtue of the 'hinge' role that they play in our rational practices cannot themselves enjoy rational support. Granted that there are such hinge commitments, what is the nature of the propositional attitude in play? Many commentators have described this propositional attitude as a kind of trusting, on account of how our hinge commitments are effectively a groundless kind of presupposition. In contrast, I want to push back against this way of thinking about hinge commitments and argue instead that it is crucial to our understanding of Wittgenstein's proposal especially in terms of its implications for radical scepticism to realize that hinge commitments are not presuppositions and that the hinge propositional attitude is not one of trusting.

In *Night Thoughts* (1983), H.S. Harris exhibits how deeply Hegel had imbibed naturalism in Jena. In *Guida al De orbitis planetarum di Hegel* (1995) and related research, C. Ferrini exhibits how Hegel began his careful studies of Newton and natural philosophy even earlier, no later than Hegel's stay in Tschug. Paul Ziche's excellent annotated edition of C.F. von Pfleiderer's 1804 lectures on physics, *Physik. Naturlehre nach Klügel*, shows what and how much Hegel would have extended his knowledge in Tübingen, where Pfleiderer taught. Ziche's edition enables us to recognize how fundamental a role Hegel’s views on nature and science play, not only in his philosophy of nature, but in his *Logic* and the *Phenomenology*. Hegel scholars cannot afford to neglect these fundamental aspects of Hegel's views, texts and issues.

(Wide) pro-theism is the view that the world is better overall if theism is true. (Wide) anti-theism is the view that our world would be better overall if atheism is true. Arguments for pro-theism and anti-theism typically make use of traditional theism (the view that an omni-God exists) and generic atheism (the view that an omni-God doesn't exist). In my view, when the debate between pro-theists and anti-theists makes use of traditional theism and generic atheism, pro-theism clearly comes out on top. In this paper, I consider whether this result (i.e. pro-theism's advantage over anti-theism) changes if we bring axiarchism into the mix: I compare axiarchistic theism and axiarchistic atheism. General axiarchism is the view that the world exists because it is good that it exists, and extreme axiarchism is the view that the world exists because it is the best possible world. When we take general axiarchistic theism and general axiarchistic atheism as our worldviews for comparison, I argue that there is no significant change with respect to anti-theism and pro-theism: neither position is able to capture goods that are traditionally associated with the other position, and so pro-theism still wins out. However, if we instead compare extreme axiarchistic atheism with extreme axiarchistic theism there is a significant change: while the case for pro-theism remains the same (because, I argue, it is not able to capture any of the goods of anti-theism), the case for anti-theism is greatly strengthened, because it is able to capture nearly all of the goods of pro-theism (e.g. the good of an afterlife, of cosmic justice, of there being no gratuitous evil). In other words, given extreme axiarchism, atheistic worlds can (and will) house goods that are traditionally associated with theistic worlds (e.g. those listed prior). This means that, given extreme axiarchism, pro-theists can't appeal to those goods as favoring their position: they obtain whether our world is atheistic or theistic. Thus, they don't favor pro-theism over anti-theism; the case for anti-theism has been strengthened. (Alternatively, we may say that the case for pro-theism has been weakened.) Ultimately, there is one good that extreme axiarchistic atheism does not enable anti-theism to capture-namely, God's intrinsic unlimited goodness-and I argue that this shows that there is still a gap between pro-theism and anti-theism; while the gap has been substantially narrowed, it has not been eliminated. Thus, I suggest that the best route forward for anti-theists is to cast doubt on the view that God's intrinsic goodness is unlimited.

Philosophical reflections on scientific discovery:
- discovery as "reading," according to Galileo Galilei
- Francis Bacon's "method"
- Gregor Mendel's laws
- the discovery of the planet Neptune
- the precession of Mercury's perihelion
- the discovery of the positron
- the cosmic background radiation
- "observing" versus "interpreting"
.- the creative character of scientific discovery
- context of discovery and context of justification
- discovering or inventing
- the psychology of problem-solving
- "incubation" versus "enlightenment"
- the computational models of scientific discovery
- geniality and pathology

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The knowledge from falsehood (KFF) advocates present us with putative examples of inferential knowledge in which a subject S apparently acquires knowledge by competently inferring it from a falsehood. If they are right, then we will have to face some major problems for the epistemology of reasoning. However, in this paper, I will argue that there is no knowledge from falsehood (KFF), that the cases presented by KFF advocates are not cases of genuine inferential knowledge at all, and that the intuitive reaction to attribute knowledge to the subject in such cases has no relation with the falsehood. My opposition to KFF will be directed to the KFF account put forward by Peter Klein in his paper "Useful False Beliefs" (2008). In particular, I show that Klein's account fails because (i) it is unable to describe how the falsehood can inferentially provide a positive epistemic status to the inferred belief in order to upgrade it to knowledge; and (ii) it is incompatible with a tacit and widespread notion of inference.

The knowledge from falsehood (KFF) advocates present us with putative examples of inferential knowledge in which a subject S apparently acquires knowledge by competently inferring it from a falsehood. If they are right, then we will have to face some major problems for the epistemology of reasoning. However, in this paper, I will argue that there is no knowledge from falsehood (KFF), that the cases presented by KFF advocates are not cases of genuine inferential knowledge at all, and that the intuitive reaction to attribute knowledge to the subject in such cases has no relation with the falsehood. My opposition to KFF will be directed to the KFF account put forward by Peter Klein in his paper "Useful False Beliefs" (2008). In particular, I show that Klein's account fails because (i) it is unable to describe how the falsehood can inferentially provide a positive epistemic status to the inferred belief in order to upgrade it to knowledge; and (ii) it is incompatible with a tacit and widespread notion of inference.

Peer review influences decisively personal advancement, research opportunities, salaries, grantfunding, promotion, and tenure. It claims to exert quality control of manuscripts and improve them, to promote innovative research, foster dissemination of new research, and to serve as a means to rank researchers, journals, and institutions. Nowadays per review mainly serves the purpose of imprinting a signal of quality on a scholar's research. This requires a perfect performance of peer review. However, Artículo recibido en mayo de 2005 y aceptado para su publicación en octubre de 2005. Artículo disponible en versión lectrónica en la página www.revista-eea.net, ref.:-23301.

This article provides a partial explanation of the non-replicability problem that has recently embarrassed the field of psychology and other research fields and caused many to lose confidence in our research methods and findings. Specifically, it demonstrates that there are other factors contributing to the problem other than the “bad apples” of dishonest or inadvertently biased researchers. This paper demonstrates mathematically that a very significant part of the non-replicability problem is statistical in nature and is inevitable as long as the existing systems and norms of academic, scientific publishing are as they are. It is demonstrated that the very selectivity of the editorial boards of the refereed journals dramatically effects the probabilities that almost all statistically based hypothesis testing research is based. Another factor is the testing of multiple hypotheses in a single study which also induces error for purposes of replicability into our standard statistical t...

I offer a counterpoint to the prevailing risk literature that focuses not on (mis)perceptions of danger but on the production and circulation of different forms of evidence and the environmental claims they promote. Rather than reproduce the epistemic dichotomies associated with risk discourse, I discuss attempts by waste-industry technicians, government inspectors, lawyers, area residents, and activists to generate persuasive accounts of a large, U.S. landfill and its porous boundaries. I argue that the differential influence of their various claims is best understood by examining what it means to know and care for a place.

Justification logics are modal-like logics with the additional capability of recording the reason, or justification, for modalities in syntactic structures, called justification terms. Justification logics can be seen as explicit counterparts to modal logic. The behavior and interaction of agents in distributed system is often modeled using logics of knowledge and time. In this paper, we sketch some preliminary ideas on how the modal knowledge part of such logics of knowledge and time could be replaced with an appropriate justification logic.

In this paper, I offer two counterexamples to the so-called 'Uniqueness Thesis.' As one of these examples rely on the thesis that it is possible for a justified belief to be based on an inconsistent body of evidence, I also offer reasons for this further thesis. On the assumption that doxastic justification entails propositional justification, the counterexamples seem to work.

Phenomenal Conservatism is a view of epistemic justification that has been gaining in popularity of late. Michael Huemer (2001, 2007) expresses the principle of Phenomenal Conservatism in the following manner: PC If it seems to S that p, then, in the absence of defeaters, S thereby has at least some degree of justification for believing that p. (Huemer 2007: 30) Supporters of PC claim that it not only provides an internalist account of justification, but it offers a way to respond to external world skepticism, it can make plausible an account of ethical intuitionism, and it solves puzzles about noninferential justification, including the problem of the speckled hen. 1 Despite all of these purported benefits, Nathan Hanna (Forthcoming) has recently argued that PC faces a serious problem; it is false. 2 He supports his claim by way of a reductio ad absurdum of PC. Very roughly, Hanna argues that in some instances a belief that p can behave like an appearance that p, which would make PC equivalent to a version of epistemic conservatism in those instances. 3 Since Hanna takes epistemic conservatism to be absurd, he concludes that PC must be false. In what follows I begin by explaining Hanna's argument and his support for it. Next, I argue that given any of the four plausible ways of understanding what it is for a belief that p to behave like an appearance that p Hanna's argument is unsound or has insufficiently supported premises.

Sloppiness‖ respectively, arguing that they withstand Peels's criticisms. I will conclude by drawing together important lessons of this discussion. 3 The Distinction Between Propositional and Factice Ignorance In defending the Standard View, Le Morvan (2012, 2011) argued that Peels conflated factive and propositional ignorance in making his case for the New View and against the Standard View. Let's review this distinction. Propositions have truth conditions, and we can distinguish between these propositions and their truth-conditions on the one hand, and the satisfaction of those truth-conditions on the other. Consider the following three propositions: p1-21 is evenly divisible by 7. p2-22 is evenly divisible by 7. p3-Every odd number greater than 7 can be expressed as the sum of three odd primes. Clearly, p1 is true while p2 is false. As for p3 (-the Three Primes Problem‖), it is presumably either true or false, but we don't know its actual truth-value given the current state of number theory. Each of these three propositions has truth-conditions, and our considering each entails that we are not ignorant of them. This is so even if, as in p2, these truth-conditions are not satisfied, or, as in p3, we are not (at least yet) in a position to ascertain whether they are satisfied. Worth noting is that a proposition's

Interest in epistemic entitlement as a distinctive notion in epistemology derives from the epistemological projects of Tyler Burge and Crispin Wright. Burge contrasts entitlement and justification as distinct species of warrant, that property of belief that serves as a reliable route to true belief and knowledge. Wright contrasts entitlement and justification as two different types of grounds for a doxastic attitude. Justification for Wright is evidential support to believe a proposition. Entitlement for Wright is non-evidential support to trust a proposition. This entry first explicates Burge’s distinction before turning to Wright’s.

As organizações são redes sociais cujos membros estabelecem entre si ligações de diversos tipos, formais e informais, positivas e negativas. O conflito entre atores é um processo comum que pode ser explicado com base num conjunto diverso de fatores. Contudo, o conflito interno às organizações tem sido pouco estudado, numa perpetiva de redes sociais. Para além disto, o conflito interorganizacional, analisado ao nível dos atores individuais, tem sido ainda menos estudado. No presente artigo, procuramos abordar o modo como as redes sociais das organizações estão associadas a perceções de conflito, quer intraorganizacional, quer interorganizacional, num contexto de proximidade física entre organizações. O estudo empírico, que envolveu duas organizações que partilhavam o mesmo espaço físico, mostra que, apesar da grande proximidade espacial entre ambas, os laços de amizade tendiam a concentrar-se no interior de cada organização e as perceções de conflito eram maiores entre as organizações do que no interior das mesmas. Os resultados são discutidos à luz das teses relativas aos efeitos da propinquidade física sobre a atração interpessoal entre membros de grupos distintos.

This book consists of seven essays previously published and five new essays, plus an introduction. It is divided into four sections dealing with: I. Moral Epistemology,II. Ethical Concepts and Moral Realism,III. Character, Responsibility, and Virtue, and IV. Practical Reason and the Foundations of Ethics.It develops and combines both meta-ethical and ethical positions.In it, Prof. Audi shows himself (again) to be a master at making, defining, explicating, and tracking the implications of important philosophical distinctions. In Part I Audi divides accounts of moral justification into internalist accounts, where that which justifies belief has "introspective accessibility,"

Skeptical theism is the view that human knowledge and understanding are severely limited, compared to that of the divine. The view is deployed as an undercutting defeater for evidential arguments from evil. However, skeptical theism has broader skeptical consequences than those for the argument from evil. The epistemic principles of this skeptical creep are identified and shown to be on the road to global skepticism. KEYWORDS: problem of evil, skeptical theism, total evidence skepticism, global skepticism 1. There are instances of evil that God could have prevented without losing some greater good or failing to prevent some greater evil.

The development of an information systems (IS) strategy for a mineral extraction and processing plant operated by Rio Tinto Zinc (RTZ) in South Africa is described. The participative approach used was developed from soft OR and systems thinking. The aim of the Richards Bay project was to test commercially whether the Participative Information Management Strategy (PIMS) methodology could be used as a standard method to be applied to the development of an information systems strategy at any mine site. The paper describes the implementation of the process and the problems encountered. More generally it discusses the diffusion of new ideas in an international company, illustrated by the use of the participative approach for other activities including systems development. Conclusions are drawn about the value of participative approaches based on soft OR in this context.

Some externalists have recently argued that the unity of theoretical and practical reason implies that epistemic justification is factive. It is argued that arguments for the factivity of epistemic justification either (i) equate two actions that are in fact different, or (ii) make the unwarranted assumption that the by-relation transmits justification. The unity of reason does not imply that epistemic justification is factive.

Plato’s “Euthyphro” demonstrates that Christianity loses because maybe God is not supreme or good. Contrary to Plato, I argue here that there is no Law over God. Morality is based on God’s indisputable character; He is impeccably good and his directives are not notions but deeply ingrained in His righteousness. Therefore, I clarify that humans can have absolute or certain moral knowledge via religious inspiration after reviewing Plato’s contrary argument on the same.

I defend a novel account of scientific progress centred around justification. Science progresses, on this account, where there is a change in justification. I consider three options for explicating this notion of change in justification. This account of scientific progress dispels with a condition for scientific progress that requires accumulation of truth or truthlikeness, and it emphasises the social nature of scientific justification.

The paper investigates an evidence-based semantics for epistemic logics. It is shown that the properties of knowledge obtained from a potentially infinite body of evidence are described by modal logic S5. At the same time, the properties of knowledge obtained from only a finite subset of this body are described by modal logic S4. The main technical result is a sound and complete bi-modal logical system that describes properties of these two modalities and their interplay.

From the Greek philosopher Epicurus to William L. Rowe, Victor J. Stenger and the rest, the argument that God does not exist because there are evils in our world, has been raging among atheist scientists and philosophers. This paper is based on extracts from my recent book titled “The World Cannot be a Paradise: Recent Response to Arguments for Atheism and Skeptical Theism,” published in 2022 through the Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing platform. The book reviews, among others, the arguments for atheism by William L. Rowe who is noted for formulating the evidential problem from evil, Paul Draper, a philosopher and follower of Darwinian naturalism, and Victor J. Stenger, a member of the New Atheists group, who denies the existence of any supernatural being and regards the human species as a result of an accident. It reviews arguments for skeptical theism and expounds how theodicies responded to the argument from evil. It also detects some deficiencies in the response of four Christian theists, including William P. Alston and Tim Stratton, to the argument from evil. The book then responds to the arguments for atheism and skeptical theism by adducing reasons to show why evil and suffering co-exist with Almighty God in the world that cannot be a Paradise, and proves that Rowe’s controversial, evidential argument from evil is dead and buried.
This paper specifically presents parts of the arguments for atheism by Epicurus, Aaron Jones, George H. Smith and William J. Stenger, and my response to them which I extracted from the first and seventh chapters of the book. The goal of the paper is to show that taking a world without any form of evil and suffering as a necessary condition for the existence of God is not only illogical but also utopian. The paper begins with a definition of atheism and ends with a conclusion and implications for being an atheist, and for believing in God.

Background: There has been a widespread call to adopt evidence-based practices and policies in various fields, including healthcare, education, social work, criminal justice, business management, and environmental management.

Key points: This article discusses when it is justified for an individual or organisation to claim that a specific practice or policy is evidence-based. My argument is that this is the case if, and only if, three conditions are met. First, the individual or organisation possesses comparative evidence about the effects of the specific practice or policy in comparison to the effects of at least one alternative practice or policy. Second, the specific practice or policy is supported by this evidence according to at least one of the individual's or organisation's preferences in the given practice or policy area. Third, the individual or organisation can provide a sound account for this support by explaining the evidence and preferences that lay the foundation for the claim.

Conclusions and implications: My argument has at least three noteworthy implications. First, it is possible that some, but not others, are justified in claiming a given practice or policy is evidence-based. Second, being justified in claiming that a practice or policy is evidence-based does not imply that this practice or policy ought to be implemented, not even according to the claimant. Third, the individual's or organisation's preferences ought to guide the collection of evidence to help them identify what the best practices and policies are based on their normative stance.

Eva Schmidt argues that facts about incoherent beliefs can be non-evidential epistemic reasons to suspend judgment. In this commentary, I argue that incoherence-based reasons to suspend are epistemically superfluous: if the subjects in Schmidt's cases ought to suspend judgment, then they should do so merely on the basis of their evidential reasons. This suggests a more general strategy to reduce the apparent normativity of coherence to the normativity of evidence. I conclude with some remarks on the independent interest that reasons-first epistemology might have within an evidentialist framework.