Defensible Knowledge and Exemplars Representation

Abstract

This chapter articulates a form of knowledge that requires the capacity to justify and defend our claims to knowledge in terms of a background system by appeal to a special form of representation of experience called exemplarization. Personal justification of a target claim to knowledge consists of defensibility against objections in terms of a background evaluation system of the person. The justification must not depend on error, as the Gettier problem showed, so the defense of the target claim must be sustained when the errors are deleted from the evaluation system in the ultrasystem of the subject. The result is justification that is undefeated or irrefutable by background error. The chapter ends with an account of exemplar representation of experience of the world that connects acceptance with truth security in the representation of experience.