
Contents
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24.1 Introduction 24.1 Introduction
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24.2 Reasons: Some Distinctions 24.2 Reasons: Some Distinctions
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24.3 The Modal Questions 24.3 The Modal Questions
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24.3.1 The Challenge to Necessity 24.3.1 The Challenge to Necessity
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24.3.2 Solution: Possessing Reasons as an Achievement 24.3.2 Solution: Possessing Reasons as an Achievement
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24.3.3 The Other Edge of the Sword 24.3.3 The Other Edge of the Sword
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24.3.4 The Challenge to Sufficiency 24.3.4 The Challenge to Sufficiency
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24.3.5 ϕ-ing for Normative Reasons as an Achievement 24.3.5 ϕ-ing for Normative Reasons as an Achievement
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24.3.5.1 Strategy 1: Connecting to Specific Favorers 24.3.5.1 Strategy 1: Connecting to Specific Favorers
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24.3.5.2 Strategy 2: Apt Rationales 24.3.5.2 Strategy 2: Apt Rationales
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24.3.5.3 The Upshot 24.3.5.3 The Upshot
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24.4 Relative Fundamentality and the Bedrock 24.4 Relative Fundamentality and the Bedrock
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24.5 Can the Priority of Competence Be Resisted? 24.5 Can the Priority of Competence Be Resisted?
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24.6 The Deliberative Authority of Reasons 24.6 The Deliberative Authority of Reasons
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References References
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24 The Place of Reasons in Epistemology
Get accessKurt Sylvan is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Southampton. He received his PhD in 2014 from Rutgers University. He works in epistemology and the philosophy of practical reason, and has published papers in these areas in journals such as Mind, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Philosophical Studies, and Philosophical Quarterly. He is currently co-editing the Routledge Handbook of Practical Reason with Ruth Chang.
Ernest Sosa is Board of Governors Professor at Rutgers University.
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Published:10 July 2018
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Abstract
This chapter defends a middle ground between two extremes in the literature on the place of reasons in epistemology. Against members of the “reasons first” movement, we argue that reasons are not the sole grounds of epistemic normativity. We suggest that the virtue-theoretic property of competence is rather the key building block. To support this approach, we note that reasons must be possessed to ground central epistemic properties, and argue that possession is grounded in competence. But while we here diverge with reasons-firsters, we also distance ourselves from those who deem reasons unimportant. Indeed, we hold that having sufficient epistemic reasons is necessary and sufficient for propositional justification, and that proper basing on them yields doxastic justification. But since possession and proper basing are grounded in competence, reasons are not the end of the road: competence enables them to do their work, putting them—and us—in the middle.
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