Abstract

The standard view concerning types of theories of justification is that there are two types of theories: foundational and coherence theories. Foundationalism is generally taken to be what I call Minimal Foundationalism, which is a weaker form of foundationalism than Classical Foundationalism. I argue that this taxonomical scheme is inadequate since it fails to separate theories that are intuitively different, and it places some theories that are avowedly of one sort in the other type of theory. ;A different classification scheme depending on a distinction between subjectivity and objectivity is then offered. That distinction concerns whether what a person thinks, or is able to think on simple reflection, concerning his having met certain conditions for justification affects his justification. The two possible effects are that the satisfaction of a condition for justification entails that a person is able to think that this condition is satisfied, and that a person's ability to think that a condition is satisfied entails that that condition is satisfied. Thus, the most subjective theory possible is when a mutual entailment relation holds between these conditions and a person's possible thoughts about these conditions. I then show how this classification scheme is able to properly characterize many actual theories of justification, and how it can enlighten one as to the nature of different sorts of theories. ;The major task undertaken is to show that a completely subjective theory of justification is adequate to that sort of justification relevant to knowledge. A completely subjective theory of justification claims that it is logically necessary and sufficient for a belief to be justified that, roughly, the person is able to think on simple reflection that the belief is justified. It is defended that when this sort of justification is undefeated and occurs with true belief, knowledge is the result. Thus, contrary to the major views concerning knowledge in the history of philosophy, quite an extensive degree of subjectivity in justification is compatible with out intuitions concerning knowledge