Combining Philosophers

Ideas for Gorgias, Alvin I. Goldman and Alfred North Whitehead

unexpand these ideas     |    start again     |     choose another area for these philosophers

display all the ideas for this combination of philosophers


2 ideas

13. Knowledge Criteria / C. External Justification / 3. Reliabilism / a. Reliable knowledge
Justification depends on the reliability of its cause, where reliable processes tend to produce truth [Goldman]
     Full Idea: The justificational status of a belief is a function of the reliability of the processes that cause it, where (provisionally) reliability consists in the tendency of a process to produce beliefs that are true rather than false.
     From: Alvin I. Goldman (What is Justified Belief? [1976], II)
     A reaction: Goldman's original first statement of reliabilism, now the favourite version of externalism. The obvious immediate problem is when a normally very reliable process goes wrong. Wise people still get it wrong, or right for the wrong reasons.
Reliability involves truth, and truth is external [Goldman]
     Full Idea: Reliability involves truth, and truth (on the usual assumption) is external.
     From: Alvin I. Goldman (Internalism Exposed [1999], §6)
     A reaction: As an argument for externalism this seems bogus. I am not sure that truth is either 'internal' or 'external'. How could the truth of 3+2=5 be external? Facts are mostly external, but I take truth to be a relation between internal and external.