PHIL 2100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Alvin Goldman, Reliabilism, Infinite Regress

• School: University of Guelph
• Department: Philosophy
• Course: PHIL 2100
• Professor: Yussif Yakubu

Document Summary

Last week, we went through the first two of descartes"s mediations to examine a new form of skepticism and take a first shot at addressing it. Recall the challenge of academic/cartesian skepticism: to question the very possibility of knowledge. So, again, we"re not looking at specific beliefs per se, but sources of belief; more accurately, belief processes. Recall: the judgment means that he exists. And the judgment that he exists is reliable, so he can trust- at least provisionally- the judgment that he perceives the wax. This means that he can-at least provisionally- trust that the wax is there. And really, that"s the central insight of reliabilism. It all boils down to this: s knows that p if, a: s believes that p, b: p is true, c: s"s belief that p is formed by reliable processes. This leads him to reject traditional theories of justification (such as foundationalism or coherentism).