Epistemic Entitlement

This volume collects new work on epistemic entitlement partly motivated by Tyler Burge’s and Crispin Wright’s seemingly identical distinctions between two forms of warrant: entitlement and justification. But despite nomenclature, Burge and Wright are engaged in different projects. Recognizing that we cannot provide a non-question begging evidential reply to the sceptic, Wright seeks an a priori, non-evidential, rational right to accept and claim to know cornerstone propositions. He calls these rights epistemic entitlements. Epistemic justifications are evidential warrants, contributors to knowledge. Tyler Burge does not engage the sceptic. Instead, he assumes knowledge and investigates its structure. Burge’s two core notions are warrant and reasons. Warrants are exercises of belief-forming competences that are good routes to truth and knowledge. A reason is a proposition with a mode that contributes to an explanation of the belief-worthiness of a belief for the individual. A justification is a warrant with reasons. An entitlement is a warrant without reasons. The volume begins with a substantial chapter by Burge. Burge discusses the functional structure of epistemic norms, the case against internalism, clairvoyance and demon world cases, Moore’s anti-sceptical argument, so-called “easy-knowledge”, and Bayesianism in perceptual psychology and objections from Bayesianism to moderate foundationalism. The other chapters by leading figures in epistemology further advance our understanding and possibility of both forms of epistemic entitlement and related topics central to ongoing research in epistemology.