“School of Philosophy”

Back to Papers Home
Back to Papers of School of Philosophy

Paper   IPM / Philosophy / 14788
School of Analytic Philosophy
  Title:   The Aim of Justification and the Difference-making Principles
  Author(s):  H. Vahid
  Status:   Published
  Journal: Acta Analytica
  No.:  1
  Vol.:  31
  Year:  2016
  Pages:   11-29
  Supported by:  IPM
  Abstract:
The idea that truth is the aim of justification is one that is often defended by theorists who uphold different views about the nature of epistemic justification. Despite its prevalence, however, it is not quite clear how one is to cash out the metaphor that justification aims at truth. Some theorists, for example, have objected that the thesis would leave no room for justified false beliefs and unjustified true beliefs. In this paper, I offer an account of what it is for justification to aim at truth using the recently revived idea of difference-making according to which facts often make a difference to other facts. It will be argued that, thus understood, the thesis can illuminate a number of controversial debates in epistemology and that, given its explanatory power, it has a lot to recommend it.

Download TeX format
back to top
scroll left or right