The Philosophy of Reliabilism

Paper Summary:

This paper explains Alvin Goldman's reliabilism agrees with classical theory that knowledge must be a true belief and that its justification can be any mechanism, which produces a belief with a high degree of accuracy, but that justification must be a causality as the final necessary condition. The author stresses two comparative differences: (1) Goldman's theory is broad, consuming the classical definition and expanding it, which is naturally better at dealing with difficult cases because it has more possible explanations from which to choose, but (2) this broad interpretation does not necessarily make the definition better in terms of clarity. The paper, using two examples, the dolphin's echolocation ability and a person's blind sight, to highlight the difference in knowledge between reliabilism and the classical theorist, concludes that reliabilism is a better epistemic position because this definition of knowledge seems infinitely more practical in terms of explaining scientific discoveries.

From the Paper:

"There are many assumptions made about what can make beliefs and how we determine those believes to be true. For example, can animals have beliefs? What kind of thoughts count as a belief? Are subconscious decisions beliefs? Justification plays an even larger role in comparing these two models. Classical theorists define justification as a sound syllogism or inductively sound arguments. Edmund Gettier tries to argue that justified true belief is not sufficient for knowledge."

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