Abstract

In the philosophical tradition marked by Descartes and empiricism, the idea of epistemic justification was most often seen in terms of construction on foundations that would be as many immediately justified starting points. The article exposes a completely different approach to the question, due to the philosopher Keith Lehrer. In this approach the epistemic justification derives from a coherence relationship between beliefs that are never immediately justified starting points. What is then decisive for the justification of a belief is to discard or neutralize all the objections that can be raised against it. From an example, the article presents this approach to epistemic justification and exposes a difficulty that it encounters.