Reliabilism
Reliabilism, a category of theories in the
Overview
A broadly reliabilist theory of knowledge is roughly as follows:
One knows that p (p stands for any proposition—e.g., that the sky is blue) if and only if p is true, one believes that p is true, and one has arrived at the belief that p is true through some reliable process.
A broadly reliabilist theory of justified belief can be stated as follows:
One has a justified belief that p if, and only if, the belief is the result of a reliable process.
Moreover, a similar account can be given (and an elaborate version of this has been given by Alvin Plantinga) for such notions as 'warranted belief' or 'epistemically rational belief'.
Leading proponents of reliabilist theories of knowledge and justification have included
One classical or traditional
Objections
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Some find reliabilism of justification objectionable because it entails
Another of the most common objections to reliabilism, made first to Goldman's reliable process theory of knowledge and later to other reliabilist theories, is the so-called generality problem.[3] For any given justified belief (or instance of knowledge), one can easily identify many different (concurrently operating) "processes" from which the belief results. My belief that there is a bird in the tree outside my window might be accorded a result of the process of forming beliefs on the basis of sense-perception, of visual sense-perception, of visual sense-perception through non-opaque surfaces in daylight, and so forth, down to a variety of different very specifically described processes. Some of these processes might be statistically reliable, while others might not. It would no doubt be better to say, in any case, that we are choosing not which process to say resulted in the belief, but instead how to describe the process, out of the many different levels of generality on which it can be accurately described.
An objection in a similar line was formulated by Stephen Stich in The Fragmentation of Reason. Reliabilism usually considers that for generating justified beliefs a process needs to be reliable in a set of relevant possible scenarios. However, according to Stich, these scenarios are chosen in a culturally biased manner. Stich does not defend any alternative theory of knowledge or justification, but instead argues that all accounts of normative epistemic terms are culturally biased and instead only a pragmatic account can be given.
Another objection to reliabilism is called the new evil demon problem.
References
- ^ a b DeRose, Keith (1999). "Responding to Skepticism". Archived from the original on 14 November 2000.
- JSTOR 3326922.
- S2CID 170425156.
- S2CID 169069884. Archived from the original(PDF) on 2010-06-14.
External links
- Reliabilism at PhilPapers
- Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). "Reliabilist Epistemology". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
- "Reliabilism". Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
- Reliabilism at the Indiana Philosophy Ontology Project