PHIL 450A: Paper Topic #2:

Internalism and Externalism About Epistemic Justification

Paper #2 Deadlines

(1) By midnight on Tuesday, Nov. 13: Draft of Parts (1)-(4), but not (5)-(7), as a Web page (i.e., in HTML format) posted on PHIL 450 Peer Review Web site for Paper #2. Include your name in the body of your paper. There is a link to the PHIL 450 Peer Review Web site on the PHIL 450 Web site. Before posting your draft, make sure it complies with the Paper Guidelines, also available on the PHIL 450 Web site.

(2) By midnight on Thursday, Nov. 15: Comment on two papers on the Peer Review Web site. Positive comments are good, but you should not comment on a paper unless you have some suggestions for improving its content (not just grammar and spelling). Identify yourself in your first comment on each paper. Do not be the second person to comment on a paper unless all other papers posted on the site have already received one set of comments (or unless you have no suggestions for improving any of the papers that have not yet received any comments). Do not be the third person to comment on a paper unless all other papers posted on the site have received two sets of comments (or unless you have no suggestions for improving any of the papers that have received less than two sets of comments). When you are doing your comments, please use the checklist that I will hand out in class. You are expected to inform the author of any paper guidelines that s/he has not complied with.

(3) Before midnight on Tuesday, Nov. 20: Final drafts should be submitted to the electronic dropbox in Catalyst. (There is a link to the dropbox on the PHIL 450 Web site.) Files should be in Microsoft Word format. THE NAME OF THE FILE SHOULD BEGIN WITH YOUR LAST NAME. If you have an unusual word processing program, submit your paper as an RTF file. Before turning in your final draft, make sure you have answered all the questions in the paper topic below and make sure your paper complies with the Paper Guidelines handed out earlier.

Paper Topic #2: The paper has seven parts. Only the first four parts should be covered in the draft that you post on the Peer Review Web site.

(1) Steup is an access internalist about epistemic justification. Explain Steup's view and explain why it is an example of access internalism about epistemic justification. (If you wish, you may throughout this paper illustrate your discussion of access internalism with Steup's version of it.)

(2) Goldman is an externalist about epistemic justification. Explain the main ideas of Goldman's reliabilist account of justification and explain why it is externalist, that it, why Goldman's account is not compatible with access internalism. [Note: Recall that only one of the two Goldman articles attempts to give an externalist account of justification. That is the only article you need to discuss in this paper.] Make sure you explain what kind of reliability is involved in Goldman's account of justification. Is it world-to-belief reliability or belief-to-world reliability?

(3) What do you regard as the most compelling reason for being an access internalist about epistemic justification? Explain. (Here you should identify a positive virtue of Access Internalism that is not simply the lack of what you regard as a defect of externalism.)

(4) What do you regard as the most compelling reason in support of Goldman's externalism about epistemic justification? Explain. (Here you should identify a positive virtue of externalism that is not simply the lack of what you regard as a defect of access internalism.)

(5) What is the biggest problem for access internalism about epistemic justification?

(6) What is the biggest problem for Goldman's externalism about epistemic justification?

(7) How would you recommend solving these problems? What sort of account of epistemic justification makes the most sense to you? (If you are undecided, explain why you are undecided.) Make sure that part (7) gets significant attention in your paper. Don't try to answer it in a single paragraph.