Discrepancy between Propositional vs. Doxastic justification.
There is a major discrepancy between definitions and examples in epistemic literature, SEP, etc. on propositional vs doxastic justification.
Kornblith says, “Roughly, one is propositionally justified when one has good reasons for believing a proposition; one is doxastically justified when one holds a belief on the basis of good reasons.”
This doesn’t match up with what other scholars have said about propositional justification. Firstly, it is wholly possible that someone could justifiably believe that P even if she doesn’t believe in P on the basis of the evidence that makes P propositionally justified. This already conflicts with what Kornblith has said.
On the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, there is an example given as well. “Suppose that Ingrid ignores a great deal of excellent evidence indicating that a given neighborhood is dangerous, but superstitiously comes to believe that the neighborhood is dangerous when she sees a black cat crossing the street. Since forming beliefs on the basis of superstition is not an epistemically appropriate way of forming beliefs, Ingrid’s belief is not doxastically justified; nevertheless, she does have good reason to believe as she does, so she does have propositional justification for the proposition that the neighborhood is dangerous.” This doesn’t match up with what Kornblith says though, because someone can only be justified in believing that P if one has good reasons for P. Well, the black cat example is vague, because many wouldn’t consider that a good reason. Can someone explain this please??
Posted Jul 2, 2025, 3:20 PM UTC