Theorizing about evidence

Abstract

The paper defends the infallibilist account of evidential support in Knowledge and its limits from Jessica Brown’s objections in her book Fallibilism: Evidence and Knowledge. (1) By the standards of abductive methodology, Brown’s arguments are ineffective because she offers no developed alternative account of evidential support. (2) Most of her objections apply to the standard probabilistic structure of my account; they are not specific to its distinctively knowledge-first features. (3) Brown’s objection from ‘infelicity data’ is analogous to one from such data to standard accounts of deductive validity as truth-preservation. (4) Contrary to Brown’s assumption, my use of excusability in discussion of sceptical scenarios involves no attempt to give it a precise conceptual analysis.