RELIABILISM- PROBLEMS AND A POSSIBILITY OF IMPROVEMENT

Abstract

This paper addresses a possibility for providing an epistemic theory which would offer justified and justifiable criteria for the knowledge. A. Goldman says that the justificational status of a belief is a function of the reliability of the processes that cause it. But if it is true that what determines the justification of a belief is a process type (not token) and there are many types of different cognitive processes which have varying degrees of reliability, then it is not clear how to determine which type is the relevant type. If we take the relevant type to be relatively narrow, then we face one set of unhappy consequences, if we take it to be broad, we face the unhappy consequences. Goldman's account of weak and strong justification is not a way out from the problem. Therefore we proposed an improvement of Goldman's theory: A S's belief p at time t, is justified if and only if an i is a token of the type process which is classified as reliable by the best cognitive science.