Reflection

Abstract

Abstract Chapter 8 motivates accessibilism by appealing to William Alston’s hypothesis that the value of epistemic justification is tied to reflection, an activity that is the distinctive mark of persons who can be held responsible for their beliefs and actions. Section 8.1 argues that epistemic justification is what makes our beliefs stable under an idealized process of reflection. Section 8.2 uses this proposal in arguing for the JJ principle, which says that you have justification to believe a proposition if and only if you have justification to believe that you have justification to believe it. Sections 8.3–8.6 defend this proposal against a series of objections raised by Hilary Kornblith: the overintellectualization problem, the regress problem, the empirical problem, and the value problem. Section 8.7 concludes with some reflections on the debate between internalism and externalism about epistemic justification.