Defeat is the loss of justification for believing something in light of new information. This Element mainly aims to work towards developing a novel account of defeat. It distinguishes among three broad views in the epistemology of defeat: scepticism, internalism, and externalism and argues that that sceptical and internalist accounts of defeat are bound to remain unsatisfactory. As a result, any viable account of defeat must be externalist. While there is no shortage of externalist accounts, the Element provides reason to think that extant accounts remain unsatisfactory. The Element also explains the constructive tasks of developing an alternative account of defeat and showing that it improves on the competition.
Author(s): Christoph Kelp
Series: Elements in Epistemology
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Year: 2023
Language: English
City: Cambridge
Cover
Title page
Copyright page
The Nature and Normativity of Defeat
Contents
1 Introduction
2 Defeat Scepticism
2.1 Introduction
2.2 The Case for Defeat Scepticism
2.3 Error Theories
2.4 Defeat Despite Good Dispositions
2.5 Conclusion
3 Internalism and Defeat
3.1 Introduction
3.2 External Defeat
3.3 Defeat Defeat
3.4 Conclusion
4 Externalism and Defeat
4.1 Introduction
4.2 Goldman
4.3 Sosa
4.4 Goldberg
4.5 Simion
4.6 Conclusion
5 Virtue Epistemology and Internal Defeat
5.1 Introduction
5.2 Virtue Epistemology
5.3 The Structure of Defeat: Defeaters as Range-Shifting
5.4 The Substance of Defeat: Defeaters as Evidence for Unsuccessful Attempts
5.5 Conclusion
6 Virtue Epistemology and External Defeat
6.1 Introduction
6.2 The Problem of External Defeat
6.3 The Functionalist Account of Abilities
6.4 Proficiencies
6.5 External Defeat
6.6 Conclusion
References
Funding Statement
