Grounds of Knowledge
Justification
The reasoning that connects evidence to a conclusion. Two knowers can hold the same evidence and be justified in different beliefs if their inferential standards differ. Justification is what separates knowing something from happening to be right about it.
How claims are supported. These concepts ask what has to be in place before a claim earns the right to be believed, and what the difference is between a reason and a rationalisation.
IA prompts this concept is central to
The wording is the guide’s, exactly. Quote it as it stands.
- IA prompt 19What counts as a good justification for a claim?The prompt asks directly for the standard, and the productive move is to show that the standard varies by area of knowledge and by what is at stake.
- IA prompt 25How can we distinguish between knowledge, belief and opinion?The three terms are usually separated by what supports them, so the prompt is really asking what justification adds to belief.
Prompts where it is a useful second angle
- IA prompt 01What counts as knowledge?The classic move is to add justification to true belief, so the prompt cannot be answered without testing whether that addition is enough.
- IA prompt 04On what grounds might we doubt a claim?Doubt is usually directed at the inference rather than the evidence, so the grounds for doubt track the standards of justification in use.
- IA prompt 05What counts as good evidence for a claim?Evidence is only good relative to what it is being used to support, so the standard of justification sets the bar.
- IA prompt 13How can we know that current knowledge is an improvement upon past knowledge?We cannot compare past and present knowledge from outside either, so any verdict on improvement is itself a justified claim made from the present.
- IA prompt 22What role do experts play in influencing our consumption or acquisition of knowledge?Trusting an expert is a form of justification, which raises the question of how a non-expert can assess it without becoming one.
Justification under the knowledge framework
Only the elements where this concept has something substantive to say. An empty pairing is left dimmed rather than padded.
The strength of justification a field demands is calibrated to what it is for. A discipline whose errors are expensive sets a higher bar than one where a provisional answer is useful, so justification standards are partly a statement about a field's purpose.
A discipline's methods encode its standard of justification: peer review, replication, source criticism and proof are all answers to the question of when an inference has earned its conclusion. Comparing those standards across areas of knowledge is more revealing than asking which is strictest.