Knowledge and Evidence

by Paul K. Moser

Paul Moser's book defends what has been an unfashionable view in recent epistemology: the foundationalist account of knowledge and justification. Since the time of Plato philosophers have wondered what exactly knowledge is. This book develops a new account of perceptual knowledge which specifies the exact sense in which knowledge has foundations. The author argues that experiential foundations are indeed essential to perceptual knowledge, and he explains what knowledge requires beyond justified true beliefs. In challenging prominent sceptical claims that we have no justified beliefs about the external world, the book outlines a theory of rational belief.

Genres: Philosophy

285 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1989

About the author

Paul Moser is an American analytic philosopher who writes on epistemology and the philosophy of religion. He is professor and chair of the Department of Philosophy at Loyola University Chicago and editor of American Philosophical Quarterly. He is the author of many works in epistemology and the philosophy of religion, in which he has supported versions of epistemic foundationalism and volitional theism. His latest work brings these two positions together to support volitional evidentialism about theistic belief, in contrast to fideism and traditional natural theology. His work draws from some epistemological and theological insights of Blaise Pascal, John Oman, and H. H. Farmer, but adds (i) a notion of purposively available evidence of God’s existence, (ii) a notion of authoritative evidence in contrast with spectator evidence, and (iii) a notion of personifying evidence of God whereby some willing humans become salient evidence of God's existence.