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Single Idea 22327

[filed under theme 13. Knowledge Criteria / C. External Justification / 3. Reliabilism / b. Anti-reliabilism ]

Full Idea

Knowledge might result from a reliable and an unreliable process. ...Is something knowledge if you were told it by a drunken schoolteacher?

Gist of Idea

Knowledge from a drunken schoolteacher is from a reliable and unreliable process

Source

Michael Potter (The Rise of Analytic Philosophy 1879-1930 [2020], 66 'Rel')

Book Ref

Potter,Michael: 'The Rise of Anaytic Philosophy 1879-1930' [Routledge 2020], p.432


A Reaction

Nice example. The listener must decide which process to rely on. But how do you decide that, if not by assessing the likely truth of what you are being told? It could be a bad teacher who is inspired by drink.


The 15 ideas with the same theme [objections to reliabilist justification]:

Knowledge needs more than a sensitive response; the response must also be appropriate [Russell]
External reliability is not enough, if the internal state of the believer is known to be irrational [Bonjour]
A true belief might be based on a generally reliable process that failed on this occasion [Blackburn]
If the reliable facts producing a belief are unknown to me, my belief is not rational or responsible [Bonjour]
Sometimes I ought to distrust sources which are actually reliable [Williams,M]
'Reliable' is a very imprecise term, and may even mean 'justified' [Audi,R]
Believing nothing, or only logical truths, is very reliable, but we want a lot more than that [Field,H]
Epistemic perfection for reliabilism is a truth-producing machine [Zagzebski]
More than actual reliability is needed, since I may mistakenly doubt what is reliable [Conee]
If pure guesses were reliable, reliabilists would have to endorse them [Conee]
Reliabilism is poor on reflective judgements about hypothetical cases [Conee]
Knowledge from a drunken schoolteacher is from a reliable and unreliable process [Potter]
In a sceptical scenario belief formation is unreliable, so no beliefs at all are justified? [Comesaņa]
How do we decide which exact process is the one that needs to be reliable? [Comesaņa]
Reliabilism cannot assess the justification for propositions we don't believe [Kvanvig]