Clayton Littlejohn, “Justification and the Truth-Connection” (Cambridge UP, 2012)
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What is the overall debate in epistemology that frames the episode?
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Welcome to the New Books in Philosophy channel of the New Books Network. My name is Robert Talese. I'm professor of philosophy at Vanderbilt University. I co-host the channel with Carrie Figter. Today, my guest is Professor Clayton Littlejohn. will be talking about his new book, Justification and the Truth Connection, which is newly published with Cambridge University Press. Clayton is a lecturer in philosophy at King's College in London. There's a long-standing debate in epistemology between internalists and externalists about justification. Internalists think that a belief is justified in virtue of certain facts internal to the believer. Externalists deny this. They hold that facts of some other kind must obtain in order for a belief to be justified.
In his new book, Clayton Littlejohn defends the surprising view that a belief must be true in order to be justified. That is, that there are no false yet justified beliefs. This thesis is externalist. in that it holds that the justification of a belief depends upon something outside of the believer, namely, that which makes the belief true. Yet Littlejohn argues that his externalism is able to accommodate many of the concerns that typically drive epistemologists to favor internalism. To be more specific, Littlejohn claims that that his thesis that there are no false yet justified beliefs allows for a richer and more plausible account of our epistemic obligations than standing versions of externalism are able to provide.
Littlejohn's book, then, works at the intersection of contemporary epistemology and broader concerns in value theory. So let's turn to the interview. Hello, Clayton Littlejohn.
Hi, Bob. How
are you today?
Oh, I'm great. Thanks. How are you doing today?
Oh, I'm doing fine. Thank you so much for joining us on New Books and Philosophy.
Oh, thanks for having me. I was really looking forward to this.
Great. Today on New Books and Philosophy, my guest is Clayton Littlejohn. He's the author of the new book, Justification and the Truth Connection, which is newly published by Cambridge University Press. Clayton's book is a major contribution at the cutting edge of epistemology. Clayton defends a view that there are no false justified beliefs, and I take it that one needn't be a professional epistemologist to get a sense of the intrigue that accompanies that thesis. But the book is also deeply engaged with issues at the intersection of epistemology and value theory more generally. So I would say the book is recommended to a broad range of philosophers, not simply epistemologists. But Before we get into the details of Clayton's book, why don't we begin with the author himself?
So Clayton, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got into philosophy and how you came to epistemology and this project in particular?
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