GETTIER COUNTEREXAMPLES
K ó JTB
(a) K à JTB
(b) JTBà K
If the Gettier
counterexamples are successful, which claim of implication is false?
INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL
CONDITIONS ON KNOWLEDGE
Internal Conditions: Belief
What makes this condition internal?
External Conditions: Truth
What makes this condition external?
What other necessary
conditions are there?
EXTERNALISM = All the other
necessary conditions are external conditions.
INTERNALISM = At least one
additional necessary condition is internal.
[We will consider various definitions of "internal".]
KNOWLEDGE WITHOUT JUSTIFICATION?
K ó XTB, where X is an external condition (not a
justification-condition). What is X?
The Main Idea of Goldman's
Answers:
World-to-Belief Reliability
Goldman's first answer: The Causal Analysis: that the subject's belief that p be causally
connected to the fact or state of affairs that p.
Problem: The Barn Example.
Goldman's second answer: The Distinguishability
or Discriminability Analysis: "there are no relevant counterfactual
situations in which the same belief would be produced via an equivalent percept
and in which the belief would be false."(151)
How does this handle the Barn
Example?
Talbott's Simplification of Goldman's Conditions for
Non-Inferential Perceptual Knowledge (cf. p. 150)
For S to have a
non-inferential perceptual knowledge that p on the basis of percept P:
(1) p
must be perceivable;
(2) p
must be true;
(3)(A) Percept P must be
caused by S's perceptual environment;
(B) Percept P must noninferentially
cause S to believe (or sustain the belief) that p;
(C) There must be no relevant alternative
q, such that if q were true:
(i) S would have a percept P* perceptually equivalent to P
(from which it follows that S would noninferentially
believe that p);
and (ii)
p would not be true.
GOLDMAN'S EXTERNALIST
ACCOUNT OF JUSTIFICATION
K ó XJTB
THE GOAL: J ó [non-epistemic necessary and sufficient conditions
that are appropriately deep or revelatory]
THE KEY IDEA: Justification = being caused (or causally
sustained) in an appropriate way
Examples of inappropriate causes: confused reasoning, wishful thinking,
reliance on emotional attachment, mere hunch or guesswork, and hasty generalization.
Examples of appropriate causes: perception, remembering, good reasoning, and
introspection.
What is the difference? Reliability.
Goldman's Analysis of
Justification as
Belief-to-World
Reliability
Base Clause (Unconditional Reliability Condition) =
Being caused by an unconditionally reliable belief independent cognitive
belief-forming process (or set of processes).
Recursion Clause (Conditional Reliability Condition) =
Being caused by a conditionally reliable belief-dependent cognitive
belief-forming process, where the input beliefs to the process are themselves
justified.
The "Available Process" Qualification to
Both Clauses: There is no other reliable
or conditionally reliable process available to S which, had it been used by S
would have resulted in S's not believing that p at
t.
Against Externalism
Lehrer's general objection to all versions of
externalism: A person who has no idea
that her beliefs are caused or causally sustained by a reliable belief-forming
process or who has no idea that she would not have believed what she did had it
not been true might fail to know because of her ignorance of this.
Lehrer's Mr. Truetemp
Example
(Compare BonJour on the
"cognitive thermometer".)
Cohen's Use of the Cartesian Demon
How would Goldman reply?
TWO KINDS OF
INTERNALISM ABOUT EPISTEMIC JUSTIFICATION
Call
any condition that is necessary for a subject S to be epistemically justified
in believing that p (at time t) a J-factor with respect to S and p (at
t).
(Access
Internalism Concerning Epistemic
Justification): Any adequate theory of
epistemic justification must imply the following: For S to be epistemically justified in
believing that p (at t), it is necessary that S have reflective access to the
holding of all J-factors with respect to S and p (at t). (For example, Steup
requires that whether we are justified or not in believing that p be
recognizable on reflection, at least "nearly always".)
(Psychological Internalism
Concerning Epistemic Justification): Any
adequate theory of epistemic justification must imply the following: For S to be justified in believing that p (at
t), it is necessary that all J-factors with respect to S and p be either
necessary truths or propositions whose truth is determined by psychological
facts about S.
Steup is an internalist about
justification, not knowledge. Why?
STEUP'S ACCESS INTERNALISM ABOUT JUSTIFICATION
Epistemic justification
is: (1) "nearly always"
directly recognizable (Why "nearly always"); (2) deontological;
(3) evidentialist.
What qualifies as
evidence? "Perceptual,
introspective, memorial states and states of rationally comprehending abstract
matters, such as conceptual, arithmetical, or geometric connections, and of
course beliefs."(314)
Why aren't causal connections
also among the items on the list?
Is Steup
too optimistic about direct recognizability?
Is Steup
too optimistic about the truth-conduciveness of deontological justification?
1. What would be necessary to be able to
determine on reflection whether a belief was justified? Can we do it?
2. If justification is nearly always transparent
(directly recognizable on reflection), why is it so hard to find one's
unjustified beliefs? Is it because we
don't have any (or at least, not very many)?
The surprising answer from
empirical psychology: Phenomena such as
belief perseverance (discussed in the Stich article),
the endowment effect, and other forms of motivated belief (discussed in the Gilovich excerpt) show that both justified and unjustified
beliefs typically seem to be supported by good reasons from the inside. It usually requires external evidence to
identify a person's unjustified beliefs.
BONJOUR'S EXTREME FORM OF
ACCESS INTERNALISM
The Metajustificatory Requirement is in addition to the
requirement of Access Internalism. Roughly, it is the requirement that those
with epistemically justified beliefs be able to provide a non-question-begging
answer to skeptical challenges. More
precisely, it is the requirement: To be
justified in believing that p, not only must one be able to show that one's
belief that p satisfies certain epistemic standards (or criteria), one must
also be able to show that those standards are truth conducive, that accepting
beliefs in accordance with them is likely in the long run to lead to truth.
Gilovich on
Biased Belief
(1) Cognitive
("Cold") Biases and Motivated ("Hot") Biases
(a) Cognitive: Availability Heuristic (Linda the bank
teller)
(b) Motivated:
(2) Kunda's
Constraint on Biased Belief:
People's capacity to believe what they want to believe is
constrained by their ability "to construct a justification of their
desired conclusion that would persuade a dispassionate observer. They draw the
desired conclusion only if the can muster up the evidence necessary to support
it." (Gilovich, 66)
(3) The Confirmation
Bias: three aspects:
(1) Biased test: What
evidence is there to support the (desired) belief?
(2) Biased selection of people to consult
(3) Biased end:
"optional stopping".
(4) Studies of Depressives
Talbott's Addition to Gilovich:
Self-Serving Reasons
Consider a
case in which a subject S believes that p.
When asked for reasons, S produces beliefs r, s, and t, which stand in
the correct logical or quasi-logical relations for justifying the belief that
p. Is S's belief that p justified? There are two cases of interest:
(1) Good
faith reasons. Beliefs r, s, and t are
not due to bias. They are due to an
impartial collection and evaluation of evidence. S's belief that p is justified.
(2)
Self-serving reasons. The desire to
believe that p is responsible (in part) for S's believing r, s, and t (e.g.,
via the confirmation bias or other such biases). That is, S probably would not have believed r
and s and t, were it not for the fact that they could potentially justify
p. In this case, the S's belief that p
is not justified.
Consider the example of Dr. Robert Bean reported by Stephen
Jay Gould.
Talbott's Argument Against Internalism About Justification: Given any internalist
constraints on justification, it is possible for biases to produce a set of
self-serving beliefs that satisfy those constraints. But self-serving beliefs are not
justified. So there must be a non-internalist constraint on justification.