Content and Justification: Prospects for Epistemological Rationalism

This dissertation adopts an epistemological approach to the nature of representational content, connects the notion of representational content with that of non-inferential epistemic justification, and develops a revisionary conception of representational content which, it is argued, permits a defense of a family of rationalist-oriented epistemological doctrines. It is intended both to breathe new life into these rationalist-oriented doctrines and to open up new frontiers for thinking about the nature of representational content.

I put forward two revisionary conceptions of representational content, both of which can be used to defend rationalist views. On the conception I opt for, the representational content of experiences is an incredibly complicated proposition no human could ever entertain. This conception of content requires a view on which a cognizer's representing a proposition is utterly distinct from an experience's having representational content. And so I argue that having an experience with representational content is not sufficient for representation to occur and that experiences do not represent their content. Once these positions are accepted, significant ground is cleared which permits us to consider revisionary conceptions of representational content.

I put the revisionary conception of representational content I develop to work. I rely on it to defend or improve upon Intentionalist, Content Internalist, and Intuitionist positions. The theoretical work the conception can be made to do is, at least for those sympathetic to the rationalist-oriented positions I defend, itself a reason to adopt it. In an historical aside, I demonstrate how one of the revisionary conceptions of content I put forward could have been endorsed by a prominent historical figure, namely Locke. Finally, I conclude by arguing that those committed to the existence of representational content (in short, most of us) must allow for something very close to a priori justification---what I term `reflective justification'--- for believing contingent propositions which concern the mind-independent world.