Evidence: Fundamental Concepts and the Phenomenal Conception. Philosophy Compass 3

The concept of evidence is among the central concerns of epistemology broadly construed. As such, it has long engaged the intellectual energies of both philosophers of science and epistemologists of a more traditional variety. Here I briefly survey some of the more important ideas to have emerged from this tradition of reflection. I then look somewhat more closely at an issue that has recently come to the fore, largely as a result of Williamson (2000): that of whether one’s evidence supervenes on one’s non-factive mental states