Reliabilism’s Memory Loss

Author(s):  
Matthew Frise

Abstract Generativism about memory justification is the view that memory can generate epistemic justification. Generativism is gaining popularity, but process reliabilists tend to resist it. Process reliabilism explains the justification of beliefs by way of the reliability of the processes they result from. Some advocates of reliabilism deny various forms of generativism. Other reliabilists reject or remain neutral about only the more extreme forms. I argue that an extreme form of generativism follows from reliabilism. This result weakens a long-standing argument for reliabilism.

Philosophy ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mylan Engel

The internalism/externalism distinction in epistemology applies to both theories of justification and theories of knowledge. The distinction is most clearly defined for theories of justification. An internalist theory of epistemic justification is any theory that maintains that epistemic justifiedness is exclusively a function of states internal to the cognizer. Externalism is the denial of internalism. Thus, an externalist theory is any theory that maintains that epistemic justifiedness is at least partly a function of states or factors external to the cognizer, i.e., states or factors outside the cognizer’s ken. There is no unified agreement among internalists as to which internal states are epistemically relevant, and different internalisms emerge based on the subset of internal states deemed relevant. (See Internalism and Justification for details.) Internalists typically maintain that justification is a normative notion in the belief-guiding/regulative sense. Internalists also typically maintain that one can tell whether one is justified in believing p simply by reflecting on one’s internal evidence for p. The central internalist intuition, as highlighted by the New Evil Demon Problem is this: There can be no difference in justification without a difference in epistemically relevant internal states. Externalism is motivated by the intuition that epistemic justification must be conceptually connected to truth such that the conditions that make a belief justified also make it objectively probable. Externalists are also typically motivated by the view that children and animals can form justified beliefs, while failing to satisfy the internalist’s intellectualist requirements for justification. The dominant externalist theory of justification is process reliabilism, a simplified version of which holds that a belief is justified iff it’s produced by a reliable process. There is less canonical agreement when it comes to applying the internalist/externalist distinction to theories of knowledge. In one sense, every plausible epistemology is an externalist theory because every plausible epistemology requires an externalist truth condition and an externalist Gettier-blocking fillip. However, in another widely used sense, “externalist” theories of knowledge are theories that replace the internalist justification condition with either an externalist justification condition or some other externalist constraint (such as a causal or modal constraint); while “internalist” theories of knowledge hold that internalist justification is necessary for knowledge and also typically hold that no other kind of justification is needed for knowledge, though they do incorporate some sort of externalist constraint to handle the Gettier problem.


1970 ◽  
Vol 20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elżbieta Łukasiewicz

The paper discusses how evidentiality and conjunct/disjunct marking in grammar are related to reliabilism, a contemporary theory of epistemic justification developed within the Anglo-American analytic tradition. It is assumed that many problems and ideas concerned with theories of knowledge, and with justification of beliefs in particular, which are widely discussed in contemporary philosophical debates, are worth reconsidering in the light of what grammars of natural languages impose on the epistemic agent. Section two explains how the notions of knowledge, belief and justification are understood in the paper. The section also outlines the major problems concerning the internalist justification of beliefs. Section three presents an externalist view on the problem of justification: process reliabilism. The reliabilist theory of justification is set in the context of two grammatical categories: evidentiality and conjunct/disjunct marking (egophoricity). Since the two categories are still little known, section four offers a brief presentation of evidentiality and egophoricity in grammar, illustrated with data from two languages. Finally, section five addresses the problem whether the premises of reliabilism are reconcilable with ‘natural epistemology’ encoded in grammar. The final conclusion says that the externalist premises of reliabilism are certainly not congruent with grammatical evidentiality and evidentialityrelated categories, but they are not logically inconsistent therewith. Furthermore, since the reliabilist program declares interest in ‘folk epistemic practices’, the approach might greatly benefit from what ‘natural epistemology’ tells us about epistemic folk concepts and epistemic practices employed by speakers of diverse world languages.


2018 ◽  
Vol 32 (6) ◽  
pp. 680-689 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marlon O. Pflueger ◽  
Rolf-Dieter Stieglitz ◽  
Patrick Lemoine ◽  
Thomas Leyhe

2009 ◽  
Vol 37 (10) ◽  
pp. 36
Author(s):  
JEFF EVANS
Keyword(s):  

1989 ◽  
Vol 28 (01) ◽  
pp. 14-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. F. Dartigues ◽  
Ph. Peytour ◽  
E. Puymirat ◽  
P. Henry ◽  
M. Gagnon ◽  
...  

Abstract:When studying the possible effects of several factors in a given disease, two major problems arise: (1) confounding, and (2) multiplicity of tests. Frequently, in order to cope with the problem of confounding factors, models with multiple explanatory variables are used. However, the correlation structure of the variables may be such that the corresponding tests have low power: in its extreme form this situation is coined by the term “multicollinearity”. As the problem of multiplicity is still relevant in these models, the interpretation of results is, in most cases, very hazardous. We propose a strategy - based on a tree structure of the variables - which provides a guide to the interpretation and controls the risk of erroneously rejecting null hypotheses. The strategy was applied to a study of cervical pain syndrome involving 990 subjects and 17 variables. Age, sex, head trauma, posture at work and psychological status were all found to be important risk factors.


2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 13-29
Author(s):  
Mazzura Wan Chik ◽  
◽  
Nurul Aqmar Mohamad Nor Hazalin ◽  
Gurmeet Kaur Surindar Singh ◽  
◽  
...  

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