Problems for Explanationism on Both Sides

This paper continues a recent exchange in this journal concerning explanationist accounts of epistemic justification. In the first paper in this exchange, Byerly (2013a, b) argues that explanationist views judge that certain beliefs about the future are unjustified when in fact they are justified. In the second paper, McCain (2014b) defends a version of explanationism which he argues escapes Byerly's criticism. Here we contribute to this exchange in two ways. In the first section, we argue that McCain's defense of explanationism against Byerly's objection is unsuccessful. Then, in the second section, we develop an independent objection to explanationism from a different direction. If our arguments in each section are sound, then not only do explanationist accounts of epistemic justification judge beliefs that are justified to be unjustified, but they judge beliefs that are unjustified to be justified. Explanationism faces problems on both sides.