as above

1. Reliabilism in Standard Form What are its strengths?
How does it contrast with other views? What is (arguably) wrong with it?
Variant 2
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•

2. From Infallibilism to Reliabilism

3. Reminder: Infallibilism
• Goldman characterises this as the ‘traditional Cartesian perspective
in epistemology’.
• It is the notion that knowledge is certain (infallible = ‘can’t be
wrong’ or: knowledge must have infallible foundations.
• Goldmann: ‘Its theory of knowledge asserts that S knows that p at t
only if either a) p is self-warranting for S at t or b) p is strongly
confirmed by propositions each of which is self-warranting for S at
t.’
– So Gettier counter-examples are not examples of justified true belief, so are
not examples of knowledge anyway.
– But it is rare that we can rule out the possibility of error (so infallibilism argues
that we can have very few beliefs that in fact are knowledge).
– Is there a definition of knowledge that allows us more knowledge, perhaps
more probable knowledge?

4. Issues with Infallibilism
• As a theory of justification, it’s too restrictive: too many knowledge-
claims are ruled out.
• What we can know for sure (the Cogito, mathematical knowledge,
perhaps basic sensory experiences) is too limited.
• Key Cartesian claims – the Cogito etc – don’t show what they’re
claimed to.
• It’s not easy to show how these infallible foundations link to other
knowledge-claims e.g. Descartes’ attempt to reconstruct knowledge
on new foundations isn’t plausible, as it relies on God’s existence
etc.
• A key step in the infallibilist argument (‘If you know P, you can’t be
mistaken about P’ is ambiguous: does it mean ‘in fact aren’t
mistaken at this moment’ or ‘can’t ever be mistaken’. The second
meaning is needed, but isn’t plausible.

5. Reliabilism defined – first version
• Goldmann: ‘whether we know something or not
depends not upon what justification we have for
believing it, but on whether our belief was produced by
a reliable process.’
• Laid out in Standard Form: S knows that P iff
– (Truth-condition) P is true.
– (Internal condition) S believes that P.
– (Justification condition is replaced by) This belief is caused by
a reliable cognitive process.

6. Reliabilism defended
• Advantages
– A ‘reliable cognitive process’ is just one that produces
probabilistically true beliefs. (What % is high enough, though?)
– So memory, sensation, trustworthy testimony, deductive and
inductive reasoning – all count.
– And so we can have much more knowledge than in the case of
infallibilism.
– And reliabilism explains how we can be mistaken/are prone to error
( cases of falsehood, error etc are explained: they rest on a false
belief so simply aren’t knowledge.)
– ‘Black Box’ explanation: no deeper explanation of how any reliable
process works is needed (so ‘children and idiots’ can know things).
– Rules out scepticism: ‘epistemic justification requires de facto
reliability rather than utterly vindicated reliability’ (John Greco)

7. Reliabilism attacked I: ‘Barn County’ revisited
• Remember: Henry is excellent at identifying barns non-
inferentially
• So in most parts of the world, not Barn County, we would be
happy to say that his knowledge-claim succeeds: if he
identifies something as a barn, he knows.
• But in Barn County there are many fake barns, and some real
ones.
– So if Henry saw one of the fake ones, he would mistake it for a
barn.
– And if Henry saw one of the real ones, he would take it for a
barn, but be right by luck.
• So here even if Henry actually were to see a real barn, we would
not want to say that he knows that what he sees is a barn…
• Why?

8. • Does our first version of
reliabilism help in Barn
County?
• Is the notion of ‘reliable
method’ any use?
• Isn’t Henry’s normal
perceptual approach
– Reliable?
– Yet consistently, in these
cases, wrong?
Reliabilism attacked I: ‘Barn County’ revisited

9. Why does ‘Barn County’ show the first
formulation of reliabilism to be inadequate?
• What explains the change in our view about whether Henry knows?
– [The traditional empiricist account of knowledge cannot explain the change in
our view, since in both scenarios, Henry has the same justification (an
immediate sense-perception) for believing that he sees a barn. ]
– [The ‘No False Lemmas’ account cannot explain the change in our view, since
Henry is not relying on any false intermediate steps in his knowledge-claim:
perceptual knowledge is non-inferential.]
– The initial formulation of reliabilism cannot explain the change in our views, as
Henry has a true belief that is arrived at by a reliable process.
• So in fact he can’t reliably distinguish between true barns and fake
ones…
• Solution when 3 conditions aren’t enough…?

10. Goldman (1976): Relevant alternatives
• Goldman’s response to the Barn County example: ‘someone is said
to know that P in cases where he distinguishes or discriminates the
truth of P from relevant alternatives.’
• So Goldman suggests that to know that it is a barn would require
ruling out any relevant alternative in which it isn’t a barn.
• So, in Barn County, Henry doesn’t know it’s a barn because:
– There is a relevant alternative state of affairs in which what Henry sees is a
fake barn.
– And Henry is unable perceptually to discriminate seeing a barn from seeing a
fake barn.
– But Henry would have known were he able to discriminate between these
relevant alternatives.

11. Reliabilism refined: version 2
• ‘A process is reliable if (i) it produces true beliefs in actual
situations and (ii) would produce true beliefs (or at least
inhibit false beliefs) in relevant counterfactual situations.’
• Laid out in Standard Form: S knows that P iff
• P is true
• S believes that P
• This belief is caused by a reliable cognitive process
• The actual state of affairs in which p is true is
distinguishable or discriminable by S from relevant
possible states of affairs in which p is false.
• Objection: it is not clear which factual and counterfactual
situations are relevant.
• Reply: we do not have to have all of these in mind.

12. Reliabilism attacked II: The Evil Demon
• Does the reliabilist escape the epistemic closure
of the Evil Demon problem?
• In the demon’s closed world, beliefs are reliably
formed (i.e. have predictive accuracy etc) and so
are justified
• Yet do they still amount to knowledge?
• Does Goldman’s fourth condition – discrimination
between relevant counterfactuals – help here?
– Can the demonic reliabilist ever tell the difference
between real and illusion?

13. Reliabilism attacked III – Brain Lesions
• Counter-examples exist where highly reliable cognitive
processes don’t produce adequate justification:
• Rare Brain Lesions – ‘Suppose that S suffers from a
rare sort of brain lesion, one effect of which is to cause
the victim to believe that he has a brain lesion.
However, S has no evidence that he has such a
condition, and even has evidence against it: he has
been given a clean bill of health by highly competent
neurologists. His belief that he has a brain lesion is
unjustified, even though it has been produced by a
highly reliable cognitive process.’ (John Greco)

14. Reliabilism attacked IV:
The New ‘Evil Demon Problem’
• Reliability can in fact be argued to be unnecessary for
epistemic justification.
• Ernest Sosa’s ‘new Evil Demon problem’: ‘Consider the
victim of the evil demon…her belief system is as coherent
as our own…she bases her beliefs on her experience as we
do, and reasons to new beliefs as we do…Clearly, her
beliefs cannot amount to knowledge, since she is the victim
of a massive deception…still, it seems wrong to say that her
beliefs are not justified at all…[yet] the victim’s beliefs are
not reliably formed. The problem for reliabilism is to
explain why the victim’s beliefs are nevertheless justified.’
(John Greco)
• How would we justify these beliefs?

15. Goldmann’s defence of reliabilism I
Against Cartesian Infallibilism:
• ‘My theory protects the possibility of knowledge by making
Cartesian-style justification unnecessary.
• Yet: ‘an adequate account of the term ‘know’ should make the
temptations of scepticism comprehensible, which my theory
does, [as it acknowledges] scepticism by its stance on
relevant alternatives.’
• But: ‘it should also put scepticism in a proper
perspective…Cartesian-like conceptions of justification or
vindication [have a foolish] tendency to overintellectualise or
overrationalize the notion of knowledge.’

16. • ‘My theory requires no justification for external-world
propositions that derives entirely from self-warranting
propositions.
• ‘It requires only, in effect, that beliefs in the external world
be suitably caused, where ‘suitably’ comprehends a process
or mechanism that not only produces true belief in the actual
situation, but would not produce false belief in relevant
counterfactual situations.’
• Its compatibility with empiricism:
– ‘A fundamental facet of animate life…is telling things
apart…the concept of knowledge has its roots in this kind
of cognitive activity.’
Goldmann’s defence of reliabilism II
Against Cartesian Infallibilism’s problems demonstrating that the
sensory world exists:

17. Robert Nozick: Truth-Tracking
• Nozick’s ‘Truth-tracking’ theory of knowledge is from
‘Philosophical Explanations’ (1981)
• It could be seen as a further refinement of what Goldman says
about weighing up alternatives in order to confirm a
knowledge-claim.
• Laid out in Standard Form, S knows that P iff
– P is true
– S believes that p
– if p were true, S would believe that p
– if p weren't true, S wouldn't believe that p
• So what S knows tracks the truth, reliably.

18. Discussion Questions
• How does Goldmann define reliabilism?
• What strengths does he see it as possessing,
particularly against infallibilism?
• Does his account of reliabilism answer the
Argument from Dreaming and the Evil Demon
argument?