Abstract

Richard Feldman and Ram Neta have recently noted that philosophers give relatively little attention to specifying the conditions under which S has something as evidence at a time. This issue is significant to evidentialists. Evidentialism states that which doxastic attitude S is epistemically justified in taking toward a proposition at a time depends upon what is supported by the total evidence S has at that time. What we regard as being necessary and sufficient for S’s having something as evidence partly determines evidentialism’s implications in all cases. Evidentialists need to offer a plausible account that, when conjoined with evidentialism, yields plausible results about epistemic justification in all cases. Here’s what I do in this paper. After considering and rejecting two attempts to identify when S has something as evidence, I present and explain Richard Feldman’s recent account. I argue that evidentialists ought to reject Feldman’s account, too