Philosophy 440 – Theory of Knowledge
Spring 2009, Wilburn
Paper Assignment #2
I have decided to pose a number of related questions, to which you should give concise but informative
answers. In a minimum of four and maximum of seven pages, do the following, formatting your paper in
the same way in which the questions are formatted (e.g., your answer to IA(1). should be labeled
“IIA(1),” and clearly separated with a natural break from the paragraphs before and after it.)
I. Think about Goldman’s paper, “Reliabilism: What is Justified True Belief?”
A. (1) What is the infallibility (indubitibility) account of knowledge that Goldman rejects? (2) Describe
and explain one of his reasons for rejecting it?
If S believes p, and p is indubitable for S, then S’s belief in p is justified.This is the base clause. In
itself, it doesn’t tell us what “ indubitability” means. One possibility is, “S has no ground for doubting
that p.” This won’t do for Goldman, since “ground” is an epistemic term. Thus, the only remaining
reading is, “S is psychologically incapable of doubting that p.” So, on this version, one is justified in
believing that p only if one is incapable of believing it.
But this is implausible: there are all sorts of things that ideologues and religious fanatics are
psychologically incapable of doubting, but which are in no way justified.
B. (1) What is the incorrigibility account of knowledge that Goldman rejects? (2) Describe and explain
one of his reasons for rejecting it?
If p is an incorrigible proposition, and S believes p, then S’s belief that p is justified.
Once again, this is the base clause. It doesn’t tell us what “incorrigibility” means. Goldman suggests
the following: Proposition p is incorrigible if and only if: necessarily, for any S, if S believes that p,
then p is true for S. In other words, propositions are justified only if one’s believing them guarantees
their truth.
“Incorrigibility” is multiply interpretable, depending upon how we interpret the sense of necessity
involved. If we intend it nomologically, then it is easy to generate counter-examples in which the
relation between the fact that p and the belief that p are completely fortuitous. For instance, one might
be the case than whenever one believes he is in brain-state p, he is in brain state b (since b is identical
to the state of believing that one is in precisely that brain state. Now, suppose that a neurosurgeon’s
hand slips, stimulating that brain state into existence. One will believe that he is in brain state b, but he
probably won’t be justified in this belief.
If we intent the notion of “necessity” in a logical sense, then other counter-examples pose themselves.
Mathematical and logical truths are logically necessary. If one believes them, then they are true. But,
one may very well believe them on the basis of confused reasoning. In this case, we would not want to
say that one’s beliefs are justified.
Finally, what if we restrict our account so that it merely covers contingent incorrigible propositions (on
the grounds that mathematical/logical truths are likely to be special cases in which there is no obvious
link between truth and belief. Here Goldman manufactures his “Humperdink” case. Suppose X
believes that a certain disjunctive proposition is true because he has learned from Y that all
disjunctions with forty disjuncts are true. In fact, the disjunction is true only because the sixteenth
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disjunct is “I exist.” Here we have a proposition which is incorrigible (i.e., If one believes it, it is true).
However, X is clearly not justified in believing it. (I know: this example makes my eyes glaze over too!)
C. (1) What diagnosis does he offer of what goes wrong with these and all other traditional internalistic
accounts? (2) Describe and explain the alternative approach that he proposes. (For this purpose, you can
deal with the preliminary version (#7) of Goldman’s account of justification presented on p. 169.)
(1)
Goldman thinks that the problem with all such internalistic accounts is that they endeavor to
ascribe “justificational” status on beliefs without regard to the question of what causally initiates and
sustains the beliefs in question. Most of the counter-examples in the literature arise precisely because
the beliefs are caused in some bizarre or non-standard way.
(2)
The alternative approach that Goldman proposes is his reliabilist account, on which S is
justified in his belief that p only if this belief is ultimately caused in the right way (i.e., generally, by the
fact that p itself). Formulation #7 (on p. 169) encapsulates this idea, but ultimately fails because it
includes an epistemic term in the base clause.
II. Think about Conee and Feldman’s paper “Evidentialism”
A.
In no more than two pages, describe the central objection to externalist reliabilism that these two
authors articulate in Section V of their paper. In the course of this, cite two alleged counter-examples to
externalist reliabilism, including an original one of your own (you might consider modeling it on the
Truetemp case we discussed in class).
Their central objection can be stated in the form of principle EJ: one’s belief that p is justified only
when one’s belief fits the evidence. They take this principle to identify the basic concept of epistemic
justification.One’s beliefs are justified by evidence, not by reliable belief-forming processes.
Additionally, they think that the doctrine of reliabilism is itself essentially unclear. What beliefs it
counts as justified depends upon how it characterizes the pertinent belief-forming processes (e.g., is a
process reliable by virtue of having produced largely true beliefs up till now, or is one concerned with
future long-run reliability instead.)
But their main objection, again, takes the form of principle EJ. Perhaps beliefs that are brought about
by reliable belief-forming processes deserve some term of epistemic commendation, but “reliable” is
not it. In effect, they think that the externalist is simply changing the subject from reliability to
something else.
To make their point, Conee and Feldman invoke their own clairvoyant example (e.g., a clairvoyant’s
beliefs about distant events are caused by reliable belief-forming processes of which he is unaware. Is
his justified? They say “no.”
B. Do you agree with C and F’s objection (described above) or not? Explain and justify your answer.
As suggested in class, the question you probably want to ask yourself here is the following: do you take
the externalist to simply be changing the subject?
III. Consider Bonjour’s papers “Can Empirical Knowledge Have a Foundation?”
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A.
Consulting the first of these papers, describe the epistemic regress problem and the four
traditional strategies for dealing with it.
The epistemic regress problem is the following: unless we can provide some kind of privileged grounding
for our beliefs, it seems to be the case that our process of justification never gets off the ground.
Traditional Strategies:
1. Foundationalism (show that there is a ground of epistemically privileged beliefs).
2. Arbitrary foundation (accept as a fact of life that our justifications just stop with a set of
beliefs which is, in no way, epistemically privileged).
3. Coherentism (show that our chain of justifications circle back on themselves, but in a
special “coherent’ fashion.
4. Infinitism (accept as a fact of life that our chain of justication just retreats back forever).
B. Describe why Bonjour takes foundationlism to be an unacceptable resolution of the epistemic
regress problem. His argument occurs primarily on p. 225 through the first non-full paragraph on
p. 228.
The problem is essentially this: The foundationalist typically takes his basic beliefs to concern
immediately apprehended states of affairs (concerning the sensory given). In this, he is a
“givinist.” For the givenist, then, first-order beliefs are beliefs about first-person experience.
This means that three items are necessary for the foundationalist to get off the ground, the
belief, the state of affairs which is the object of the belief, and the immediate apprehension of
that state of affairs which makes the belief possible. But now the question arrises: what is the
status of this state of immediate apprehension? If it is experience-like (non-cognitive), then it
has no propositional content, and hence can’t justify the first-order belief. But if it is belieflike, then it expresses a propositional content which itself stands in need of justification. In
neither case does it do all of the work required of it.
C. In this connection, describe and explain the main criticism that Bonjour offers of the notion of
“confrontation” insofar as this notion is supposed to help the foundationalist.
The notion of “confrontation” is typically used to explain how this state of immediate
apprehension works. On this account, the mind directly confronts reality. One’s experiences
are directly present to consciousness and consciousness reads their character off them without
mediation, and thus without the possibility of error.
Bonjour simply rejects this view as a Cartesian cartoon, too simple to explain much of
anything.
D. Do you agree with this criticism? Describe and justify your answer.
You don’t have to solve the problem here. But, as this is the most central recurrent
issue in the history of epistemological debate, get clear on what you think about it.
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