Defending Klein on Closure and Skepticism

Abstract

In this paper, I consider some issues involving a certain closure principle for Structural Justification, a relation between a cognitive subject and a proposition that’s expressed by locutions like ‘S has a source of justification for p’ and ‘p is justifiable for S’. I begin by summarizing recent work by Peter Klein that advances the thesis that the indicated closure principle is plausible but lacks Skeptical utility. I then assess objections to Klein’s thesis based on work by Robert Audi and Anthony Brueckner. One finding is that the typical statement of the relevant closure principle can express a number of different closure principles, and that recognizing this helps to resolve certain disputes.