CHAPTER SIX

THEORIES OF JUSTIFICATION

Abstract

What precisely is involved in knowing a fact? Whatever it is, it is widely recognized that some of our cognitive successes fall short of knowledge. An agent may, for example, conduct himself in a way that is intellectually infallible, and yet still end up believing a false proposition. You have every reason to believe that your birthday is December 1: it says so on your birth certificate and all of your medical records, and everyone in your family insists that it is December 1. Nevertheless, if all of this evidence is the result of a time-keeping mistake made at the time of our birth, your belief about your birthday is false, despite being well justified. Debates concerning the nature of justification can be understood as debates concerning the nature of such non-knowledge-guaranteeing cognitive successes as the one given above.