I will first need to outline some epistemological ideas about justification and defeaters. These ideas serve my purpose of explaining in a brief and simple way the current academic situation, but, since epistemology is both a highly controversial field and a conceptually precise and argumentative rigorously field, I cannot (if only for reasons of space) engage in critical argumentation against other epistemological theories. I shall have to leave it to epistemologists who hold different theories than the one I briefly outline to either �grasp the general gist of what I am saying� or else to conceptually translate the ideas I outline into their own epistemological theories.

I begin with the notion of justification. A person is justified in believing that p because that person�s belief that p is based on her belief that q (and, in addition, some other conditions, to be mentioned later, are met). A belief that p is �justified� in a derivative sense, i.e., if it is the belief that p mentioned in the preceding sentence. A proposition is �justified� in a derivative sense if it is the proposition p mentioned in the preceding sentences. Arguments can be treated as complex propositions, e.g., by placing a conjunction (expressed by �and�) between the premises and including the conclusion, as well as the inference relation (expressed by �therefore�) in the same proposition as the conjoined premises. I often use �justifies� in a derivative sense.

Some of the other conditions that must be met for a person to be justified in believing that p are stated in the following way. A person is justified in believing that p because that person�s belief that p is based on her belief that q and 1) q�s being true would be an epistemically good reason for the person to believe that p, and 2) any defeater which is an adequate ground for believing q is not an adequate reason for p or that q is not true is cognitively inaccessible to the person.

A defeater is cognitively inaccessible to the person if the defeater involves evidence, theses, arguments, etc. that the person lacks the ability to comprehend and believe, or the person is prevented from believing the evidence, theses, or arguments, etc., by the person�s situation. A clear case of such prevention would be that the person is in a situation where the evidence, theses or arguments have not been discovered yet due to a relevantly legitimate reason, e.g., the person requires modal logic to understand an argument, the person lacks expertise in logic and modal logic has not yet been discovered by those with expertise in logic.