Author ORCID Identifier

https://orcid.org/0009-0008-0807-6890

Date Available

8-12-2025

Year of Publication

2025

Document Type

Doctoral Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

College

Arts and Sciences

Department/School/Program

Philosophy

Faculty

Bob Sandmeyer

Faculty

Chris Willard-Kyle

Abstract

This dissertation applies a phenomenological method of analysis to the dispute between analytic internalists and externalists regarding epistemic justification. Traditionally, the justification condition on knowledge has been interpreted as an internal condition, but the growing popularity of the externalist antithesis has placed internalism on the defensive. Ultimately, however, the dispute appears to have fallen into an impasse. I identify a set of four arguments or cases that, when taken together, prompt us to adopt a set of contradictory conclusions about the necessary and sufficient conditions for justified belief. Moreover, none of the analytic views of justification surveyed seem to be capable of accounting for all four cases together. The entrenchment of this impasse suggests the need and the opportunity for an alternative method of analyzing the problem. I propose that Husserlian phenomenology can provide us with the tools needed to not only carve a way through the impasse but also salvage internalist theories of justification. Following this, I outline a phenomenological theory of justification that I call phenomenological evidentialism, the basic thesis of which is that certain experiences confer justification on a belief by virtue of a subject’s having conscious access to evidence through an act of originary, evidential intuition. I then show how phenomenological evidentialism can provide a plausible and consistent account of each of the four arguments or cases that constitute the impasse. I conclude by arguing that my view is in the best position to capture the internalist intuition that justification is tied to rationality.

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

https://doi.org/10.13023/etd.2025.329

Funding Information

The research for this dissertation was supported by two fellowships from the University of Kentucky's Department of Philosophy: the Ron Bruzina Fellowship (2019-2020) and the Spring Dissertation Fellowship (Spring 2024).

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