Reliabilism Analysis

Reliabilism, an epistemological theory created to combat skepticism, claims that a person knows that p if and only if (1) p is true, (2) this person believes that p is true, and that (3) this person has come to the conclusion p via a reliable belief-forming process. A “reliable belief-forming process” could simply be a perceptive act, since reliabilism entails externalism. Externalism claims that you can have knowledge despite not knowing how you came about it (knowing the evidence), exactly. For example, imagine a boy sitting on the beach. He sees a woman walking past him no more than twenty feet away and forms the belief that there is a woman walking past him. Now, he many not exactly understand how he reached that belief, especially when it comes to cognitive processes involved, but nevertheless the fact that his perceptual processes worked reliably justifies his belief. Reliabilism’s analysis is also consistent with fallibilism, which claims that people can be incorrect in their beliefs and still be justified in their beliefs. Once again, consider the boy on the beach. His perceptual processes have consistently served him correctly; for these processes to fail and deceive him would be extremely unlikely, rendering his belief justified even if he were somehow wrong in his belief.

Question Two

Nozick takes this further, however, with his “tracking theory”. Nozick adds conditions to the requirements of truth and belief. His conditions are as follows: (1) P is true (2) S believes that P (3) if it were not the case that P, S would not believe P (4) If it were the case that P, then S would believe P. Through this, Nozick means to show that knowledge is a belief that tracks the truth in a reliable fashion. Closure, the idea that we ...

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...bras, can deduce that he is not seeing disguised donkeys, and still fail to know that he is “is not seeing donkeys disguised to look like zebras.” Dretske’s anti-skeptical strategy is open to challenge, however. Consider a man believes that his friend, James, is the President of the United States of America at 9:00am on Friday. He holds evidence, such as the fact that he witnessed James’ inauguration ceremony, has spent time with James in the oval office, and sees vast media coverage on James’ presidency. As it turns out, James dies from a heart attack at 9:05am on Friday. It is questionable whether or not this man knows that James was president at 9:00am, 5 minutes before his death. This man would have the same reasons at 9:00am, 8:55am, and 9:05am to believe that James is president. This means that this man does not actually know that James is president at 9:00am.