# Academic Epistemology

**URL:** https://discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/t/academic-epistemology/535
**Category:** Unbounded
**Tags:** epistemology
**Created:** [March 17, 2022, 6:59pm UTC](https://discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/t/academic-epistemology/535 "2022-03-17T18:59:59Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Showing post:** 34

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### Author: ![Max](https://discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/user_avatar/discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/max/32/97_2.png) [@Max](https://discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/u/Max)
#### Post date: [March 22, 2022, 10:21am UTC](https://discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/t/academic-epistemology/535/34 "2022-03-22T10:21:27Z")

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I noticed something while reading RP’s paper the other day – an explicitly anti-yes/no and anti-paths-forward bit. I think, more broadly, it’s anti-Popper, too (including being anti-CR/CF). I thought it was notable:

> Upon reflection, it surprises me that so few epistemologists have heeded Alston’s call for pluralism about the concept of justification (Alston, [2005](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11098-021-01660-x#ref-CR2)). On this view, there are a number of concepts that have equally good claim to be our concept of justification and there is no concept that has a better claim than these.

It’s notable because the claim “there are a number of concepts that have equally good claim to be our concept of justification” is explicitly something that yes/no and paths forward would help resolve. More broadly, CF/CR both reject the idea that we should accept multiple contradictory ideas simultaneously (an idea that RP seems to be adducing, or attempting to, at least).

Arguably, what RP said actually contradicts the main goal of his article: _how to choose between those concepts_. If the concepts all have an equally good claim, then there is no _rational_ way to choose (since there’s no way to differentiate them). But, if some ideas worked in some contexts, and other ideas in other contexts, then the ~quality of each idea’s claim to be “our concept of justification” _would be context dependent_, and thus there would be some _justification_ for choosing one over another for a given context.

IDK if RP tries to resolve this or even notices it (atm I don’t care to read enough to find out).

Since this is anti-CF I’ll cross-link [Critical Fallibilism Real World Examples](https://discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/t/critical-fallibilism-real-world-examples/532) here.

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