Evidentialism is a thesis in epistemology which states that one is justified to believe something if and only if that person has evidence which supports said belief.
Suppose, for example, that Babe Ruth approaches the batter's box believing that he will hit a home run despite his current drunkenness and overall decline in performance in recent games.
He realizes that, however unlikely it is that his luck will change, it would increase his chances of hitting a home run if he maintains a confident attitude.
[citation needed] A similar response follows the criticism that evidentialism implies all faith-based beliefs are unjustified.
Superficially, fideism and evidentialism have mutually exclusive takes on religious beliefs, but evidentialists use the term "justification" in a much weaker sense than the one in which fideists most likely use it.
[citation needed] Likewise, some say that the human mind is not naturally inclined to form beliefs based on evidence, viz.
One can believe that evidentialism is true yet still maintain that the human mind is not naturally inclined to form beliefs based on evidence.
[citation needed] But because the resulting skepticism is so sweeping and devastating, and because so many reject the legitimacy of the circular reasoning embraced by the coherentist, foundationalism is the favored response of many philosophers to the regress argument.
[citation needed] Many contemporary epistemologists reject the view that evidential support is the whole story about the justification of beliefs.
[citation needed] Other non-evidentialist theories include: the causal theory, according to which S knows p if and only if S's belief in p is causally connected in an appropriate way with S's believing p; and Robert Nozick's truth tracking theory, according to which S knows p if and only if (i) p is true, (ii) S believes p, (iii) S's attitude toward p tracks the truth value of p in that, when p is not true, S does not believe p and when p is true, S does believe p.[citation needed] Another alternative perspective, promoted by David Hume's 18th-century opponent, Presbyterian philosopher Thomas Reid, and perhaps hinted at by Hume himself, at least in some moods (though this is a very controversial issue in interpreting Hume), has it that some of our "natural" beliefs—beliefs we are led to form by natural features of the human constitution—have what can be called an "innocent-until-proven-guilty" status.
By allowing our evidence to encompass everything we know, Williamson is able to give thoroughly evidentialist accounts of many important epistemological concepts.
However, Williamson's work may point to a quite general way to modify traditional evidentialism to make it better able to meet the challenges it faces: whether or not one goes so far as to accept that E=K, broadening one's view of what constitutes our evidence may provide a way to address many of the objections to evidentialism, especially to those disinclined to swallow skeptical consequences of a view[citation needed]