Abstract

According to Roderick Chisholm, every proposition one is justified in believing is justified, at least in part, by some relation that it bears to propositions which are epistemologically privileged. There are two categories of such "basic" of self-justifying propositions--the self-presenting and the directly evident. Justification is a matter of degree, and Chisholm establishes a five-fold ranking of epistemic privilege in terms of which the two concepts of the self-presenting and the directly evident are defined and in terms of which the "reconstruction" of belief can proceed. ;In this study I first attempt to clarify the five terms of epistemic appraisal which define degrees of justification and to relate them first to probability then, failing in that, to Shackle's potential surprise. I suggest there that the key concept of being evident is suspect. Next we turn to the concept of the self-presenting, where we find that few of the states Chisholm takes to be self-presenting satisfy the definition he provides. When we turn to the concept of being directly evident, we find that if what is directly evident is what is entailed by the self-presenting, the directly evident is not a suitable terminus for chains of justification, as Chisholm maintains. ;The only hint of an argument Chisholm provides for thinking that privileged propositions are necessary for being justified is a version of the regress argument. Here we try to show that the regress argument is defective, an instance of the fallacy of false dilemma. ;Since Chisholm suggests that no belief would be justified if there were no privileged propositions, the failure of his enterprise would have as consequence a radical skepticism. If the threat posed by skeptical arguments were defused, the Chisholmian enterprise would seem to lack a point. If we look at foundationalism as a response to skeptical arguments , then if we can provide a more satisfactory response to skeptical arguments we have some reason for refusing to embrace foundationalism. ;If we distinguish between local and global justification, where, roughly, this is analagous to part/whole justification, and distinguish between justification of coming to believe and of continuing to believe, we can formulate a plausible set of criteria of being justified which does not require privileged propositions. Passages from Chisholm himself suggest such a theory. ;In brief, the suggestion is that A person is justified in coming to accept a proposition p at t if that person's set of prior beliefs at t confirms p to a degree high enough to satisfy his degree of caution. A person is justified in continuing to accept a proposition p at t if nothing he believes at t tends to disconfirm p. A person is justified in continuing to accept at t the non-skeptical second order belief , that most of the propositions he believes are true, if nothing he believes at t tends to disconfirm . The third is a proposal for circumventing global skepticism. A global skeptic might insist that his skeptical hypothesis, e.g., of a malign demon, is incompatible with , and unless one can disprove his hypothesis, one is not justified in continuing to accept . This I reject. ;If, as I hope, we have a satisfactory response to the challenge of skeptical arguments and a plausible set of criteria of being justified, motivation for pursuing foundationalism evaporates