Branches of Reliabilism in Philosophy - Essay Example

PHILOSOPHY We all should agree that a person can only believe reasonably when he has evidence for the propositions believed – (Haack, 1995) Historically, there have been several debates and arguments both – in favor of and against the elements such as – knowledge, beliefs and reliability of the evidence on which such knowledge is based. Epistemology is one such branch of philosophy, which deals with the character, foundation and extent to which such knowledge influences human thoughts and actions. Debates centered on knowledge has basically aimed at exploring the notions of truth and belief and the same has assumed greater significance in the study of epistemology which is discussed and refuted widely through Reliabilism and Gettier Cases, both of which have highly contrasting views and opinions on the aspect of knowledge particularly in the context of ‘justified true belief’. This paper attempts to analyze, discuss and evaluate the various arguments put forward by both these branches and assess how the concept of ‘justified true belief’ is refuted by Gettier case, and thereby fails to solve the counter problems posed by the same. There are various branches of reliabilism, all of which are centered on the single notion of ‘justified true belief’ with regard to explanations regarding knowledge. Some of such theories are discussed hereunder, to explain how it helps or fails in providing logical solution to the problems raised by Gettier. Reliabilism is one of the most widely used and debated theories in contemporary epistemology of which process reliabilism is one such aspect which makes the study of processes that lead to and upholds such beliefs, extremely crucial. The basic idea propagated by process reliabilism theories is that: "A belief is justified if and only if it is produced by a process that reliably leads to true beliefs" (Sosa et al, 2000). Reliabilism, on the other hand, in general is an approach which stresses on the importance of formation of truth, through a specific method, or a belief-forming process. The concept of reliability pertains to theories of knowledge such as the tracking theory, which lays greater significance on extracting or seeking truth. In a narrow definition of reliabilism it refers to process reliabilism that is used to seek justification for the knowledge held. The theory of Reliabilism is propagated as a theory of knowledge and justified belief. Accordingly, in terms of knowledge, reliabilism can be explained and interpreted as follows: P (here, it refers to a proposition) knows that the sky is blue, if and only if P is true, one may believe that P is true, and one believes that P is true because P has arrived at that knowledge / belief that the sky is blue, through some reliable process. This theory was refuted by Gettier in the Gettier problem, whereby the concept of ‘knowledge’ as it pertains to ‘justified true belief’ was challenged. The Gettier problem or the Gettier cases was put forward by Edmund Gettier, in a short paper published in 1963 titled “Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?” The Gettier problem refers to the basic issues in contemporary epistemology, which seeks to challenge the proposition of “justified true belief” as propagated by the Reliabilism theory (DeWesse et al, 2006). Gettier argued that “justified true belief” (hereinafter referred to as JTB), is not true knowledge by providing certain examples which in turn were followed by counter examples. This further heated the debate surrounding JTB and its credibility, which, for several years was taken for granted, to be true. According to the JTB principle, any knowledge can be regarded as true if the following conditions are satisfied: S (denotes a subject) knows that P (a proposition) is true, if and only if S believes that P P is true And that, S is manifestly reasonable if S believes P to be true Gettier, through his paper, challenged this belief stating that a knowledge need not necessarily be true if all the above three conditions are satisfied and it also does not justify that reliability on such sources naturally manifests itself into formation of a true justified belief, thereby claiming that JTB is false and baseless and hence asserting the need for developing a correct definition of what constitutes knowledge. Gettiers counterexamples Gettier based his counter examples / counter claims regarding JTB by way of two different cases, wherein the conditions required for JTB are duly fulfilled, yet, they are not cases of knowledge. The two cases are discussed hereunder (Bonjour, 2002): Case One: Sam works in an office where one of his co-workers - James, drives a Mercedes and wears clothes sporting the Mercedes logo, and receives mails from the same brands clubs etc. Sam thus strongly believes that James owns a Mercedes. In reality though, James is not the "owner" of the Mercedes he drives, but merely rents it, and the other things such as receiving mails from Mercedes clubs, and wearing Mercedes logo t-shirts is all a part of a hoax to make people believe that he owns a Mercedes. Jill on the other hand actually owns a Mercedes but rarely uses it, which despite being the actual truth, is not known to Sam, as he does not have any evidence to believe that Jill does own a Mercedes and James does not. Thus, the belief, in this scenario, that one of Sams co-workers owns a Mercedes is partly true, but is a "general" belief, the specific belief would be in knowing which co-worker actually "owns" one and which of them merely "drives" one. Case Two: While driving through the country, the subject "A" spots several sheep standing behind a fence right next to the road and subsequently believes that there are sheep in the field. The reality though, is that there "are" sheep in the field in question, but they are "out of sight" and the animals that the subject "A" sees and believes to be sheep are in fact dogs that are bred specifically to resemble sheep, when viewed from a distance. In this case, it is important to note that the belief that there are sheep is true, but it is a general belief that the animals that the subject "A" sees are sheep and they are IN the field. With reference to the above cases, Gettiers first claim is that although, all the three conditions as required by the JTB principle are duly satisfied, it is not the complete truth, and in fact it is far from truth. He claims that it is a weak interpretation of knowledge since neither of the two subjects, i.e., Sam in Case one, and subject "A" in case two, knew specific details about the propositions in question, and their beliefs are based on intuition rather than the actual truth. The difference between knowledge derived from intuition and truth, as explained by Gettier is that, although the knowledge derived intuitively resembles or justifies the proposition, it is merely a lucky accident, in the absence of which the beliefs of both the subjects would be "justified" but "false". Thus, this is the basic foundation of the counter examples or problems raised by Gettier regarding the principle of JTB, on which knowledge is based, in the theory of Reliabilism. Thus, according to Gettier, for a JTB to hold true, it merely requires an assumption, which although they are false, as observed in the above two cases, they hold are “justified” through mere chance or accident but valid enough to support the beliefs of the subjects, regarding a given proposition. The basic response, as can be interpreted from the above discussion, is that if one has a certain belief regarding a proposition which is (technically) true, then one may end up with the same “true” interpretation of the scenario before them, irrespective of whether the justification with which such conclusions are derived are true in reality, and hence the flawed justification on the basis of which the subjects arrives at a conclusion, is irrelevant as the ultimate knowledge derived there from remains unchanged. Thus, although the inflexibility of the JTB principle may be challenged and argued against, but the ultimate knowledge derived from analysis of the given situations, would nevertheless remain the same. The Gettier problem is by far one of the most significant problems in the field of contemporary epistemology which is evident from the fact that it managed to garner widespread attention followed by debates and innumerable attempts on the part of other scholars to offer alternative solutions and logical responses to the concerns raised by him. All the responses were directed at resolving Gettier’s arguments that, if knowledge is indeed JTB then there cannot be any cases of JTB at all and ultimately no knowledge since as observed from the counter examples the beliefs could be justified even though they are based on false knowledge, which is not the truth and any knowledge based on flawed knowledge cannot be classified as knowledge. Thus, making it obligatory for the others to accept the fact that Gettier’s counter claims are true and there indeed is no knowledge at all, if it is based on the principle of JTB, or, try to refute the claims raised by him, and sustain the belief that JTB does equal knowledge. The common consensus reached with respect to the Gettier problem, by most of the philosophers, attempting to find logical solutions to the Gettier problem is that, the conventional formation of the definition of knowledge is indeed, incomplete and that a fourth condition, is required to be added to it, over and above the three conditions included in JTB, to rule out any discrepancies (Plantinga, 1993). This is described as the JTB + G analysis, which is an analysis formulated to include a fourth condition which when assimilated within the three conditions of JTB would lend more credibility with the derivation of knowledge by eliminating flawed analysis. Alvin Goldman, who offered a response to the Gettier problem came up with the suggestion that the inclusion of the fourth or the causal condition – i.e. the subject’s belief would hold true and hence justified if and only if the truth of such a belief has led the subject to have that belief and for a reasonably true belief, to count as knowledge the subject must also be able to appropriately and effectively mentally restructure the causal chain. However, Goldman’s analysis failed to provide a logical solution to the problem raised by Gettier, since his solution lacked the framework to differentiate and clearly define the scope of the word “appropriate” and how and in what manner it differed from an inappropriate one. Another response was put forward by Robert Nozick, who stated that knowledge is derived from a belief which the subject believes to be true, and the subject would not have had it, had they known that it was false, meaning thereby that the subject holds the knowledge because he believes it to be true and has reason to believe (whether or not such belief is in fact true) it to be true. Thus, Nozick attempts to hold Goldman’s perception to be true, which also suggests that the possibility that the knowledge can be derived and justified to be true but such a justification may be accidental in nature, and seeks to eliminate the option of “accidentally true beliefs”. Nozick’s idea was highly criticized by others accusing him of trying to ignore the problem of accidental truth, as raised by Gettier, rather than making an attempt to resolve it, thereby further justifying the fact that Nozick, similar to Goldman, failed to solve the Gettier problem (Glymour, 1997). Lehrer and Paxon, (1969) offered another alternative solution to resolve the Gettier problem, which involved adding a “defeasibility condition” to the JTB principle. Lehrer and Paxon were of the view that knowledge is an undefeated JTB i.e., a JTB would qualify as knowledge if and only if there is no other truth attached with it. Thus, when explained against the background of the Gettier problem if the subject had known that his / her knowledge about a given proposition was based on false premises, which would have defeated their belief, then they would not have relied on that information or knowledge. Thus, if in case one, Sam’s justification for believing that James owned a Mercedes were based on the facts presented before him – i.e. James driving a Mercedes or wearing Mercedes logo t-shirts or receiving mails from the Mercedes clubs, etc. But if Sam knew that James did not actually own the Mercedes and that he merely drove it to office, then such a knowledge would have defeated the justification for his belief. But, such a condition i.e. the existence of a defeater clause, has been severely criticized by others (Swaine, 1974) who argued that the notion of a defeasibility fact cannot be highlighted to ignore the problems raised by Gettier, thereby further ruling out the legitimacy of the manner in which knowledge is defined in Reliabilism. As observed through the above discussions, various authors and scholars who attempted to provide logical and reasonable responses to the Gettier problem have failed to do so, and the attempts to generate and include a fourth condition to resolve the cases were futile as well. Thus it can be concluded with reasonable certainty that the Gettier case, remains unsolved. Also, it highlights the fact that a mere addition of a fourth condition would not suffice in resolving the Gettier problem as the fundamental problem lies in the three independent conditions, which were originally used to define true justified knowledge, which has misguided the formulation of a true definition of knowledge since the outset. Knowledge as observed in the above discussions is an epistemological tie between beliefs and truth and for this problem to be resolved a the concept of knowledge needs to be studied extensively against various propositions put forward in this behalf, and redefined appropriately. 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Warrant and Proper Function, Oxford University Press, Pp. 32 - 35 Sosa, E., Kim, J., McGrath, M., (2000). Epistemology: An Anthology, Wiley-Blackwell Publishers, Pp. 392 Swain, M., (1974). "Epistemic Defeasibility", American Philosophical Quarterly, Vol.II, No.I Read More