Two new objections to explanationism

Bryan C. Appley

Gregory Stoutenburg

pp. 3069-3084

in: Andrea Kruse, Heinrich Wansing (eds), Doxastic agency and epistemic responsibility, Synthese 194 (8), 2017.

Abstract

After a period of inactivity, interest in explanationism as a thesis about the nature of epistemic justification has been renewed. Poston (Reason and explanation: a defense of explanatory coherentism, 2014) and McCain (Evidentialism and epistemic justification 2014; Erkenntnis 79:99–109, 2014) have both recently offered versions of explanationist evidentialism. In this paper, we pose two objections to explanationist evidentialism. First, explanationist evidentialism fails to state a sufficient condition for justification. Second, explanationist evidentialism implies a vicious regress.