{"title":"The Obvious.","authors":"Robin Jeshion","doi":"10.2307/2653489","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Infallibilism about a priori justification is the thesis that for an agent A to be a priori justified in believing p, that which justifies A's belief that p must guarantee the truth of p. No analogous thesis is thought to obtain for empirically justified beliefs. The aim of this article is to argue that infallibilism about the a priori is an untenable philosophical position and to provide theoretical understanding why we not only can be, but rather must be, a priori justified in believing some false propositions. The argument develops notions of obviousness and conceptual understanding as a means of affording insight into the conditions for having a priori justification and, consequently, into why infallibilism cannot stand.","PeriodicalId":87462,"journal":{"name":"Canadian journal of comparative medicine (Gardenvale, Quebec)","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2000-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"31","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Canadian journal of comparative medicine (Gardenvale, Quebec)","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.2307/2653489","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 31
Abstract
Infallibilism about a priori justification is the thesis that for an agent A to be a priori justified in believing p, that which justifies A's belief that p must guarantee the truth of p. No analogous thesis is thought to obtain for empirically justified beliefs. The aim of this article is to argue that infallibilism about the a priori is an untenable philosophical position and to provide theoretical understanding why we not only can be, but rather must be, a priori justified in believing some false propositions. The argument develops notions of obviousness and conceptual understanding as a means of affording insight into the conditions for having a priori justification and, consequently, into why infallibilism cannot stand.