The Causal-Doxastic Theory of the Basing Relation

Abstract

The epistemic basing relation is the relation which must hold between a person's belief and the adequate reasons for holding that belief if the belief is to be epistemically justified by those reasons. Although the basing relation is a fundamental component of any adequate theory of epistemic justification, it has received scant attention in the literature. In this paper, I propose a novel causal analysis of the basing relation, one which helps to characterize an intemalist element which, I shall argue, is required of any successful account of epistemic justification, and which confirms current trends away from coherentist and reliabilist theories of justification.