Reliabilism
Knowledge as belief produced by reliable cognitive processes.
Reliabilism is the epistemological position that knowledge consists of true belief produced by reliable cognitive processes — those that tend to produce true beliefs across relevantly similar situations. The position was substantially developed by Alvin Goldman in 'A Causal Theory of Knowing' (1967) and his subsequent work including Epistemology and Cognition (1986), with related contributions from Fred Dretske and David Armstrong. Reliabilism is the principal externalist alternative to internalist epistemologies (which hold that justification depends on factors accessible to the believer through reflection) — what makes a belief justified, on reliabilism, is the actual reliability of the process that produced it, regardless of whether the believer can articulate or even recognize that reliability. The framework has substantial appeal: it accommodates animal and infant knowledge (creatures whose belief-forming processes are reliable but who cannot reflect on them), perceptual knowledge (where reliability of perception matters even when we can't articulate why), and tacit expert knowledge. The principal challenge is the generality problem: any specific belief is produced by indefinitely many describable processes, and the reliability of those processes varies — what determines the relevant process? Goldman's later work and contemporary reliabilists have addressed this with substantial sophistication but no fully consensual solution. Reliabilism has substantial influence on naturalized epistemology and on virtue epistemology (where reliable cognitive processes are reframed as cognitive virtues).
Core components
- Reliability of belief-forming process as criterion
- Externalism (reliability need not be accessible to believer)
- Process reliability (truth-conduciveness across relevantly similar situations)
- Distinction from internalist alternatives (foundationalism, coherentism in their internalist variants)
- Accommodation of animal, infant, and tacit knowledge
- Generality problem (which process is the relevant one?)
- Connection to virtue epistemology
- Naturalized epistemology compatibility
Primary use case
Foundational epistemological position in contemporary analytic philosophy; framework for thinking about knowledge in cases where the believer can't articulate justification; foundation for naturalized epistemology and virtue epistemology; resource for thinking about expert knowledge, perceptual knowledge, and animal cognition; influence on epistemology of testimony and social epistemology; basis for some arguments about the reliability of contested knowledge sources.
Common criticisms
- Generality problem: any belief is produced by indefinitely many describable processes (perception, perception under specific lighting, perception by Tuesday afternoon, etc.) with different reliabilities — what determines the relevant process? No consensual solution
- Bonjour's clairvoyance counterexamples: an agent reliably forming true beliefs through processes she has no awareness of seems not to have justified belief
- new evil demon problem: a victim of systematic deception whose beliefs are unreliable through no fault of her own seems to be epistemically blameless, which reliabilism struggles to capture
- the framework underweights the role of evidence and reasoning in epistemic justification
- integration with broader epistemic concepts (understanding, wisdom) has been incomplete
- some argue reliability is necessary but not sufficient for justification.
Lineage
- Siblings
- Foundationalism, Coherentism, Bayesian Epistemology