Internalism and Externalism in Epistemology Dimensions

North American Philosophical Publications
Internalism and Externalism in Epistemology

Author(s): Kihyeon Kim
Source: American Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 30, No. 4 (Oct., 1993), pp. 303-316
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American Philosophical Quarterly
Volume
30,
Number
4,
October 1993
INTERNALISM AND EXTERNALISM
IN EPISTEMOLOGY
Kihyeon
Kim
A HE distinction between internalism and
externalism has been one of the most
widely
used distinctions in current
epistemology,
one that has been
applied
both to accounts
of
epistemic justification
and to accounts of
knowledge. Unfortunately,
there are some
confusions over which theories are internal?
ist and which theories are externalist.
The main
goal
of this
paper
is to show that
there are three
components
of
epistemic jus?
tification and that the internalism/external
ism distinction can be made on three
corresponding
dimensions. Once the three di?
mensions are
acknowledged,
we will be able
to see that most confusions over internalism
and externalism arise from
conflating
the three
dimensions. I shall
begin my
discussion
by
con?
sidering
some
examples
of the confusions.
I. SOME EXAMPLES OF THE CONFUSION
The distinction between internalism and
externalism
usually goes
hand in hand with a
contrast between traditional
epistemology
and a new trend in
epistemology.
Roderick
Chisholm
says
that "the usual
approach
to
the traditional
questions
of
theory
of knowl?
edge
is
properly
called "internal" or "inter
nalistic."1 Laurence Bonjour echoes this
claim when he
says:
"When viewed from the
general standpoint
of the western
epistemo
logical tradition,
externalism
represents
a
very
radical
departure."2 Epistemologists
usually agree
to
regard
D. M.
Armstrong,
Alvin
Goldman,
Fred
Dretske,
and Robert
Nozick as the
leading
externalist radicals.3
According
to the
simplest
definition of ex?
ternalism,
as offered
by Armstrong4
and Bon
Jour5,
externalism is the view that what
makes a true belief
knowledge
is some rela
tion
(e.g.,
causal
relation,
nomological
rela?
tion,
or counterfactual
relation)
that holds
between the belief state and the situation
which makes the belief true.6
As we shall
see,
this criterion classifies
most of the above mentioned accounts as ex?
ternalist.7
However,
according
to
it,
Gold?
man's
process
reliabilism would not be an
externalist account. Process reliabilism as?
serts that a
person, S,
is
justified
in
believing
that
p only
if S's
believing
that
p
is
produced
by
a reliable
cognitive process.8
Goldman re?
stricts the extent of
belief-forming processes
to
cognitive
events, i.e.,
events within the or?
ganisms'
nervous
system.
Thus,
epistemic jus?
tification of a belief is defined
by
him without
reference to the fact that makes the belief
true. The
Armstrong-BonJour
definition,
therefore,
classifies
process
reliabilism as an
internalist
analysis
of
epistemic justification.9
Many epistemologists
would be
unhappy
about this
consequence.10
This
unhappiness
seems to stem from one
strong
intuition
about externalism. The intuition is
that,
if the
of a belief is
analyzed
in a
way
that entails a
high objective prob?
ability
of the beliefs
being
true,
then the
analysis
is externalist. From the internalist's
perspective,
a belief's
is a
purely
internal matter in that it is to be
described without reference to
any
connec?
tion with the outside world. This is
clearly
ex?
pressed
in Chisholm's view of internalism:
"According
to this traditional
conception
of
'internal'
epistemic justification,
there is no
logical
connection between
epistemic justifi?
cation and the truth."11 In
process reliabilism,
a
justified
belief is a belief
produced by
a re?
liable
cognitive process,
where the
reliability
303
304 / AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY
of a
cognitive process
is a
propensity
of
pro?
ducing
more true beliefs than false beliefs.
Therefore,
in this
account,
a connection with
the external world in terms of truth
(or
like?
lihood of
being true) plays
a crucial role in
the
analysis
of
epistemic justification.
For this
reason,
many epistemologists
think that
proc?
ess reliabilism is an externalist account of
Unfortunately, defining
externalism in
terms of the truth connection
causes a
prob?
lem elsewhere. Keith Lehrer and Laurence
BonJour both view the truth connection of
beliefs as
being necessary
for
epistemic justi?
fication.
According
to
Lehrer,
If S knows that
p,
then S is
completely justified
in
accepting
that
p
in some
way
that is not
defeated
by any
false statement...Undefeated
justification provides
a truth connection be?
tween the mind and the
world,
between
accep?
tance and
reality.
BonJour
says:
And,
if
our standards
of epistemic justifica?
tion are
appropriately
chosen,
bringing
it
about that our beliefs are
epistemically justi?
fied will also tend to
bring
it
about,
in the
per?
haps
even
longer
run and with the usual
slippage
and
uncertainty
which our finitude
mandates,
that
they
are true. If
epistemic justi?
fication were not conducive to truth in this
way,
if
finding epistemically justified
beliefs
did not
substantially
increase the likelihood of
finding
true
ones,
then
would be irrelevant to our main
cognitive goal
and of dubious worth.
The truth-connection criterion of the exter?
nal
world, therefore,
classify
the accounts
by
Lehrer and BonJour as externalist.
However,
they
are two of the severest critics of exter?
nalism.
Naturally,
their own accounts of
often count as models
of internalism. This is another confusion.
II. THE INTERNAL AND THE EXTERNAL
What should we conclude from the discus?
sion so far? Should we conclude that "inter?
nalism" and "externalism" are so
ambiguous
that it is
hopeless
to
classify
diverse
episte
mological
accounts in terms of them? I be?
lieve that this is a
hasty
conclusion. I will
show that there is a clear
concept
of the in?
ternal in the relevant
epistemological
sense.
"Being
internal" and
"being
external" are
relative
concepts.
For
example,
the earth is
external to
Venus,
but it is internal to the so?
lar
system.
This
suggests
that
any
classifica?
tion of the internal and the external must
define a unit
antecedently,
relative to which
the classification would be made.
The
question
is, then,
what is an
epistemo?
logical
unit that should dictate the definition of
the internal and the external in an
epistemologi
cally
relevant sense. We can
approach
an answer
to this
question by considering
a motivation
behind traditional
epistemology.
Epistemology
is interested in
distinguish?
ing,
in a
principled
manner,
justified
beliefs
from
unjustified beliefs,
and instances of
knowledge
from instances of
non-knowledge.
In
specifying
the conditions of
epistemic jus?
tification and
knowledge,
the
goal
of maxi?
mizing
truth while
minimizing
falsehood
plays
a
predominant
role. A
very rough
guideline
for the
analysis
of
epistemic justifi?
cation and
knowledge
is that a belief is
justi?
fied for a
person
if and
only
if her belief is
desirable from the
viewpoint
of
seeking
the
above
goal.14
That
is,
epistemic
evaluation
governing
the
analyses
of
justified
belief and
knowledge
is
guided by
the
goal
of maximiz?
ing
truth and
minimizing
falsehood.
Setting up
the
goal
of
epistemological
evaluation this
way
reveals the
underlying
di?
chotomy
not
only
of traditional
epistemology,
but also of traditional
philosophy
in
general,
namely,
the world outside a
cognitive agent
versus a human mind that strives to
acquire
a correct
picture
of it. Given this standard
metaphysical
realist
assumption,
the
way
the
world is and the
way
the world is believed to
be
by
a
cognitive agent
can
diverge.
Once our
fallibility
is
recognized,
a truth-seeker has to
determine which of her beliefs are
acceptable
from the
truth-seeking point
of view. That is
how
epistemology,
seen as an
analysis
of
and
knowledge, gets
started. As
Quine
says,
Doubt has oft been said to be the mother of
philosophy.
This has a true
ring
for those of us
who look
upon philosophy primarily
as the
theory
of
knowledge.
For the
theory
of knowl
INTERNALISM AND EXTERNALISM IN EPISTEMOLOGY / 305
edge
has its
origin
in
doubt,
in
scepticism.
Doubt is what
prompts
us to
try
to
develop
a
theory
of
knowledge.
The above
sketchy
outline of the
general
framework of traditional
epistemology sug?
gests
that the human
cognitive system
rather
than the external
world,
which is its
target,
is
the
entity
relative to which the internal has
to be defined in
epistemology.
This
suggests
the
following
definition: X is internal to a
cognitive agent
S from an
epistemic point
of
view if and
only
if x is
something
that
hap?
pens
within the
cognitive system
of S.
Unfortunately,
this definition is both too
vague
and too broad. It is hard to determine
what
exactly
is within a
cognitive system.
Does this include
only
those
happenings
within the
brain,
or does it also include the
proximal
stimuli such as retinal stimulation
and tactile stimulation? More
importantly,
the above definition is too broad because not
all the
things
that
happen
in one's
cognitive
system provide
clues for the
way
the world is.
Notice,
for
example,
that
neuro-physiological
processes
involved in
cognition
are
clearly
within the
cognitive system.
However,
they
are not internal to S from an
epistemic point
of view. As we have
seen,
epistemology
en?
dorses the
dichotomy
between the
way
the
world is and the
way
the world is
perceived,
believed,
or
thought
to be. The
properties
pertaining
to the
neuro-physiological aspect
of
cognition may
be an
ontological
or causal
foundation for the existence of states like be?
liefs,
but in themselves
they
are not a
part
of
the
epistemic perspective
of a
cognitive agent
on the world.
Neurological properties
cannot
be
grasped by
S's
reflection,
and therefore
they
cannot
provide any
internal clues for a
cognitive subject
about the
way
the world is.
It
emerges
from the above discussion that
not
everything
that
happens
within the
cog?
nitive
system
of a
cognitive agent
should
count as internal to her from an
epistemic
point
of view.
Among
the
happenings
within her
cognitive system, only
those that
are
graspable by
her
introspection
should
count as internal. The
following
definition
matches the idea of the internal in traditional
epistemology:
(I)
X is internal to a
cognitive agent
from an
epistemic point
of view if and
only
if X is
introspectible by
her.
The
categories
of the internal and the exter?
nal are intended to be
mutually
exclusive and
jointly
exhaustive.
Thus,
we can derive the
definition of the external
very easily
from
(I):
(E)
X is external to a
cognitive agent
from an
epistemic point
of view if and
only
if X is
not internal to her.
Many epistemologists
embrace
(I).
Here are
some
examples:
Internalism is the view that the
justification
making properties
of
any justified
belief must
be
(epistemically)
internal to the mind of the
subject
who holds that
belief,
that he could
always
know such
properties
of his belief
by
reflection',
that
is,
through
mere
introspection,
memory,
and reason
(intuitive
and
deductive).
The internalist assumes
that,
merely by
reflect?
ing upon
his own conscious
state,
he can for?
mulate a set of
epistemic principles
that will
enable him to find
out,
with
respect
to
any
possible
belief he
has,
whether he is
justified
in
having
that belief.
The
"internal,"
in the relevant
sense,
is that to
which one has
introspective,
thus
internal,
ac?
cess;
it includes
beliefs,
visual and other sen
18
sory impressions,
and
thoughts.
What confers
justification
must be "internal"
to the
subject
in that she has a
specially
direct
cognitive
access to it. It must consist of some?
thing
like a belief or an
experience, something
that the
subject
can
typically spot just by
turn?
ing
her attention to the matter.
So far we have seen that the definition of
the internal in an
epistemologically
relevant
sense can be
given quite clearly
in terms of
introspectibility,
and that this definition is
supported by
the fact that
many epistemolo?
gists accept
this definition. Let us now ask
what sorts of
things
would be internal and
what sorts of
things
would be external ac?
cording
to
(I).
The classification I will
propose
in the rest
of this section is
by
no means conclusive. A
conclusive classification would
require philo?
sophical
and
psychological
research on the
capacity
of human
introspection
and on
the
306 / AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL
QUARTERLY
nature of the
things
to be classified. Obvi?
ously,
this
goes beyond
the
scope
of this
pa?
per.
But this inconclusiveness of the
classification will not affect the main
point
of
this
essay.
Let us consider
why.
The next section will
argue
that an
episte?
mological theory
consists of three different
ingredients,
each of which resides on a differ?
ent dimension.
Depending
on the
introspec
tibility
of the three
ingredients,
the
theory
can be classified either as internalist or as ex?
ternalist on three different dimensions. The
main thesis of this
essay
is
that,
even if
epistemologists agree
on what is internal and
what is
external,
a confusion over the use of
"internalism" and "externalism" will con?
tinue to arise when
they
conflate the three
dimensions on which the internalism/exter
nalism distinction can be made.
Moreover,
most confusions with
regard
to the
use of "in?
ternalism" and "externalism" are due to the
conflation of one or more of these dimen?
sions,
rather than the lack of a
proper
under?
standing
of what is
introspectible
and what
not. This is
why
the inconclusiveness of
my
classification of the internal
things
and the
external
things
will not affect the central the?
sis of this
paper.
Let us now turn to the clas?
sification of the internal.
Many
of our
cognitive
states such as beliefs
and
thoughts,
conative states such as inten?
tions and
desires,
and
sensory
states such as
visual
impressions
and
auditory impressions
are
prototypical examples
of what is internal
to a
cognitive subject.
Some of these
psycho?
logical
states
may
be hard to detect
by
intro?
spection.
Some
may
be even
impossible
to
detect
by introspection.
This is an
empirical
question
that remains to be
answered,
but
whatever the answer to it turns out to
be, psy?
chological
states that can be detected
by
in?
trospection
are internal to a
cognitive agent.
For
simplicity,
I will talk as
though
all
psycho?
logical
states are
introspectible,
and are
therefore internal to a
cognitive agent.20
In
contrast,
proximal
stimuli of a
cognitive
system
such as retinal stimulations do not
seem to be
introspectible,
and are therefore
external to a
cognitive subject.
Facts of the
world are also external to her because
they
in themselves are not
introspectible by
her
even
though they might
be observable. Truth
is also external to her. A belief has a
propo
sitional content.
According
to well-known ac?
counts of
truth,
the truth-value of the content
of a
given
belief
depends
either on its corre?
spondence
with the fact or on its coherence
relation with the contents of other beliefs.
Either
way,
the truth of a belief
goes beyond
the
introspection
of a
cognitive subject.21
It is controversial whether causal relations
among psychological
states can be in?
trospected.
The view that for external events
causal relations are not observable is com?
mon in the Humean tradition.
However,
many philosophers dispute
this.22
Moreover,
even if causal relations
among
external
events are not
observable,
it
may
be that
causal relations
among
internal
psychological
states can still be detected
by
inner observa?
tion,
that
is,
by introspection.
The non-ob
servability^of
causal relations
among
external
events
may
be due to some feature of their
being
external. For these
reasons,
it is
danger?
ous to make a
sweeping
claim that all causal
relations
among psychological
states are not
introspectible.
However,
again
to have a con?
crete
example
for later
discussion,
I will talk
as if all causal relations are not
introspectible.
The rationale for
doing
so is that those who
argue
for the
observability
or
introspectibil
ity
of causal relations
appeal
to
very
rare in?
stances of causal relations. This
suggests
that
most,
if not
all,
causal relation
may
be not
observable or
introspectible.
How about
cognitive processes? They
are
the most recalcitrant cases for the classifica?
tion.
Suppose
that a
reasoning process
is de?
fined as a
sequence
of belief states with
introspectible psychological properties.
Thus,
on this
view,
reasoning processes
are in?
trospectible,
and therefore internal to a
cog?
nitive
subject. However, vision,
which is a
robust
example
of a
cognitive process,
seems
to include retinal stimulation as one
compo?
nent.
Thus,
it includes a
part
that is not in?
trospectible
and which
is, therefore,
external
to a
cognitive subject.
Moreover,
it is unclear
that a
cognitive process
can be defined with?
out reference to the causal relations
among
its
component psychological
states. For these
reasons,
it is hard to
say
whether a
given psy
chological process
is internal or external. It is
even harder to
argue
for the
introspectibility
of
psychological processes
in
general.
So,
I
shall
suspend any
definite
judgment
on the
introspectibility
of
and, therefore,
on whether
psychological
processes
of a
cognitive subject
are internal
to her. Here
again,
I will talk as
though psy?
chological processes
of a
cognitive subject
are internal to her. The rationale for
doing
so
is that most her
psychological
states are in?
ternal to her
and, therefore,
her
psychological
processes
that are
sequences
of her
psycho?
logical
states are
mostly introspectible by
S.
III. THREE DIMENSIONS OF THE
INTERNALISM/ EXTERNALISM
DISTINCTION
So
far,
I have been
talking
about theories
of
and theories of
knowledge indiscriminately.
In this
section,
I
will talk
just
about theories of
epistemic jus?
tification. This does not mean that what I am
going
to
say
from now on
applies only
to
theories of
The frame?
work I will
develop
in this section is
general
enough
to
apply
to theories of
knowledge
as
well.23
A
simple
intuition about
epistemic justifi?
cation is that a
person, S,
is
justified
in believ?
ing
that
p only
if S's belief that
p
is based on
adequate grounds.
This
suggests
that a
theory
of
has to
explain
what
it is for a belief to be based on
adequate
grounds.
The
expression "being
based on
adequate grounds"
makes reference to three
different
epistemic concepts: ground,
ade?
quacy,
and
being
based on.
Therefore,
a the?
ory
of
that tries to
analyze "being
based on
adequate grounds"
must include three different
parts
that an?
swer the
following questions:
(1)
What sort of
things
in
general
can be
grounds
for the
justification
of beliefs
(e.g.,
external
facts,
non-doxastic
psychological
states,
doxastic
psychological
states,
psycho?
logical processes)?
(2)
What is the criterion
(or criteria)
of ade?
quacy
that a
ground (grounds)
has
(have)
to
satisfy
in order to
yield justification
for a
particular
belief?
(3)
What is the
proper basing
relation that
must hold between the belief in
question
and its
adequate grounds?
A
theory
of
can
give
either an internalist or an externalist answer
to each of the three
questions.
Moreover,
an
answer to one
question
is
independent
of its
answers to other
questions.
This
suggests
that
the internalism/externalism distinction with
regard
to a
theory
of
can be made on three different dimensions.
Let us consider these three dimensions in
turn:
First Dimension: The Ground
of
Epistemic Justification
Theories of
differ on
what sorts of
things
can be
grounds
for the
justification
of beliefs. One famous contro?
versy
focuses on whether
only
beliefs can be
grounds
for the
justification
of
beliefs,
or
whether non-doxastic
psychological
states, e.g.,
experience variously
characterized as sense
data,
the
"given,"
etc.,
can be
grounds
as well.
This
dispute
arises because some
epistemolo
gists
claim that
something
can
justify
a belief
only
if it has a
propositional
content. Accord?
ing
to their
view,
since the
experience
itself
does not have such a
propositional
content,
only
a belief about the
experience,
not the
experience
itself,
can be
grounds
for
justifica?
tion of
experiential
beliefs.24
This
controversy
is a domestic
dispute
within the
family
of views that
identify justi?
fying grounds
as
psychological
states,
doxas?
tic or non-doxastic.
They
all assume that the
evidential relation between
justifying psy?
chological
states at
ground
level and the be?
lief in
question
is crucial for the
epistemic
justification
of the belief. This evidential relation
is
always
assumed to be some
type
of content
relation. Let us call
any
doctrine that
incorpo?
rates this basic
assumption
evidentialism.
This contrasts with the view of other
epistemologists
who
argue
that what is cru?
cial for
of a belief is
not its evidential relation to its
grounds,
but
how the belief is
produced (i.e.,
which
cogni?
tive
process
is
responsible
for the
production
of the
belief). According
to
process
reliabi?
lism,
the
of a
cogni
QUARTERLY
tive
agent,
as
opposed
to her
psychological
states,
are the source of
epistemic justifica?
tion.25
Therefore,
on this
account,
the sorts of
things
that can be
grounds
for
justification
are
cognitive processes.26
Let us call the doc?
trine that a
cognitive process?the
one that is
responsible
for the
production
of a belief?
determines the
justification
of the belief
processism.21
The views I have considered so far con?
cerning
the nature of
grounds
of
epistemic
justification
differ in their
details,
but
they
agree
that the
ground
of
tion is
something
internal. As we have seen
in section
2,
doxastic
psychological
states,
non-doxastic
psychological
states,
and
cogni?
tive
processes may
all count as
being
internal
according
to the
introspectibility
criterion.
For these
theories,
the sorts of
things
that are
grounds
for
justification
are
internal,
and so
we
may
call them
ground
internalism.
Ground internalism covers a wide
range
of
theories of
that some
epistemologists regard
as externalist theo?
ries.28 There are two
things
to notice before
we consider some
examples
of
ground
exter?
nalism.
First,
ground
externalism does not
claim that
only
the external can be
grounds
of
justification
of beliefs. It
grants
that
grounds
for inferential
beliefs, i.e.,
beliefs
jus?
tified
by
other
beliefs,
can be
something
in?
ternal
(grounding beliefs).
However,
ground
externalism is
distinguished
from
ground
in?
ternalism in that it allows
that,
for some be?
liefs,
their
justifying grounds
can be
something
external such as an external fact.
Second,
most
ground
externalists
seem to be
interested not in
analyzing epistemic justifi?
cation,
but
only
in
describing
the conditions
under which a true belief
qualifies
as knowl?
edge. They
include D. M.
Armstrong,
the
"early"
Goldman of "A Causal
Theory
of
Knowing,"
Nozick,
Dretske and Peter
Unger.
According
to
Armstrong,
S's belief that
p
is
knowledge only
if there is some
specifica?
tion of S such
that,
if
any person
is so
speci?
fied and he further believes that
p,
then
p
is
the case. What is crucial for
knowledge
in this
account is that the belief is
related,
in terms
of a
nomological relation,
to the fact that
makes the belief true.29,30 The
nomological
relation in
Armstrong's
account is
replaced
by
a causal relation in Goldman's account
and
by
a counterfactual relation in Nozick's31
and Dretske's32 accounts.
Finally, according
to
Unger, "[F]or any
sentence value of
p,
a
man knows that
p
if and
only
if it is not an
accident that the man is
right
about its
being
the case that
p."33
He
says
that in his
analysis
a
complete
absence of the accidental has to
obtain in a certain relation
concerning
the
man and the
fact?4
Here is a table that shows a
distinction be?
tween internalist theories and externalist
theories on the
ground
dimension:
Internalism Externalism
Evidentialism
Armstrong,
Dretske,
Processism
Nozick,
Unger,
Goldman in
"A Causal
Theory
of
Knowing"
Second Dimension: The
Adequacy of
Grounds
The
general
information
concerning
the
sorts of
things
that can be
grounds
is insuffi?
cient to determine whether a
particular
be?
lief is
justified
for a believer.
Any theory
of
must include not
only
an account of the sorts of
things
that can be
grounds
for the
justification
of
beliefs,
but
also an account of which
grounds
are ade?
quate
with
respect
to the
justification
of a
particular
belief.
One
question
that arises is what a
theory
of
takes as the locus of
the criterion
(criteria)
of
justificatory
ade?
quacy
of
grounds
for a
particular
belief. The
second
way
of
distinguishing
internalism
from externalism arises from the different loci
in which the
adequacy
criterion of a
theory
resides.
First, consider,
for
example,
a
theory
that
claims that some
grounds
are
adequate
for
justification
of the belief that
p
because those
grounds
in
fact
make the belief that
p likely
to be true. In this
theory,
the
adequacy
crite
rion is the
objective probability
that the con?
tent of the belief in
question
is true
given
the
contents of its
grounds.
Even
though
the
proper analysis
of
objective probability
is still
in
dispute,
it is clear that
any adequate
ac?
count would treat it as
being independent
of
the
perspective
of a
cognitive agent.
After
all,
it should be
objective.
Therefore,
such a the?
ory
is externalist with
regard
to the
adequacy
criterion. I will call such a
theory,
which de?
fines
adequacy
criterion
independently
of the
mental dimension of a
cognitive agent,
ade?
quacy
externalism.
Next,
consider a
theory
that claims that some
grounds
are
adequate
with
respect
to the
justification
of the belief
that
p,
because the believer thinks
they
make
the belief that
p likely
to be true. In this the?
ory
the locus of the
adequacy
criterion is the
thought
of a
cognitive agent. Therefore,
ac?
cording
to
my
criterion of the
internal,
this
theory
is internal with
respect
to the ade?
quacy
of
grounds
because
thoughts
are
psy?
chological
states that are
supposedly
introspectible.
I will call this
type
of
theory
adequacy
internalism. Now let us see how
this distinction can be
applied
to current
theories of
Goldman's
process
reliabilism claims that
a
cognitive process
is an
adequate ground
for
the
justification
of the belief
produced by
it
only
when the
process
is reliable.
So,
accord?
ing
to
the
ground
of
jus?
tification is a
cognitive process
and the
adequacy
criterion is the
reliability
of the
process.
The
reliability
of a
cognitive process
is defined in terms of its
propensity
of
pro?
ducing
more true beliefs than false ones. Ob?
viously,
this
propensity
is not
introspectible
by
a
cognitive agent.35
Therefore,
Goldman's
process
reliabilism is an
adequacy
externalist
theory.36
This
explains why many epistemolo
gists
think of
process
reliabilism as external?
ist. It also
explains why
Chisholm associates
externalism with the invocation of truth in
the
analysis
of
and
why
that leads him to think of
process
reli?
abilism as
being
externalist.37
Lehrer's and BonJour's coherence theories
are also
adequacy
externalist.
They
assert
that a belief is
justified
for a
cognitive agent
only
if it is
likely
to be true.38
Therefore,
their
theories are
adequacy
externalist for the
same reason that Goldman's
process
reliabi?
lism is an
adequacy
externalist account. Fur?
thermore,
according
to
coherentism,
the
criterion of the
adequacy
of the
grounds
for
the
justification
of a belief is the coherence
relation between the belief and the
ground?
ing
beliefs,
which
comprise
all the rest of the
cognitive agent's
beliefs. Even
though
the no?
tion of a coherence relation is
unclear,
it is
supposed
to be a
logical
and
explanatory
re?
lation. If it
is,
the traditional coherence the?
ory
of
justification
is an
adequacy
externalist
theory. According
to
BonJour,
one of the
most
prominent
coherentists,
the minimal
condition for coherence is
logical consistency.39
The
logical consistency
of a set of beliefs is de?
termined
by
whether it is
possible
that all the
beliefs are
true,
regardless
of what a
cognitive
agent
thinks of the relations
among
them.
Some evidentialist accounts claim that a
piece
of evidence is
adequate
for the
justifi?
cation of a belief
only
if it makes the belief
objectively probable.
These accounts include
the theories
by
Swain and Alston.40 On this
view, grounds
for the
justification
of a belief
are some other
psychological
states and these
grounds
are
adequate
for the
justification
of
the belief
only
if
they
stand in the
objective
probabilifying
relation to the belief.
Some foundationalist theories assert that
some
grounds
are
adequate
for the
justifica?
tion of the belief that
p because,
if those
grounds
had not
existed,
then the belief that
p
would not have been held. The theories
by
Nozick and Dretske I introduced earlier are
the
examples
of this
type
of theories. These
foundationalist accounts are also
adequacy
externalist theories. For the
truth-conducivity
relation
expressed by
the counterfactual is
defined
independently
of the
introspection
of
a
cognitive agent and, moreover,
is not in?
trospectible.
It is not hard to see that other
ground
externalist theories such as the ones
by
Armstrong
and
"early"
Goldman are also ade?
quacy
externalist theories. In
them,
a
nomologi?
cal
implication
or a
proper
causal relation
between a belief and an external fact are crite?
ria of
adequacy
and
they
are not
introspectible.
On the other
hand,
a foundationalist the?
ory
that claims that some
grounds
are
ade?
quate
with
respect
to the
justification
of the
belief that
p
because the believer thinks that
those
grounds
make the belief that
p likely
to
be true would be an
adequacy
internalist the?
ory.
For the criterion of
adequacy depends
on
the
thought,
therefore,
on
something
that is
supposedly introspectible by
the believer.
Richard
Foley's theory
is an
example
of foun?
dationalist
adequacy
internalism.
According
to
him,
S is
justified
in
believing
that
p just
in
case it is uncontroversial to assume that
p.
This
"requires
S to believe that
p
and re?
quires
him to believe it with more confidence
than he believes
propositions
that can be
used to
argue against
it. In
addition, p
must
be such that
S,
on
reflection,
would believe
that in most relevant
possible
situations in
which he believes
p
his belief would be true"
[my emphasis].41
Other
examples
of
adequacy
internalist
theories,
that refuse to define the
adequacy
criterion for
in
terms of truth-connection with the external
world as
expressed by objective probability,
in?
clude the theories of Chisholm and Pollock:
The internalist assumes
that,
merely by
reflect?
ing upon
his own conscious state,
he can for?
mulate a set of
that will
enable him to find
out,
with
respect
to
any
possible
belief he
has,
whether he is
justified
in
having
that belief. The
that he formulates are
principles
that one
may
come
upon
and
apply merely by sitting
in one's
armchair,
so to
speak,
without
calling
for
any
assistance. In a
word,
one needs
only
consider
one's own state of mind.
...the internalist maintains that
epistemic
norms must be formulated in terms of rela?
tions between beliefs or between beliefs and
nondoxastic internal states
(e.g., perceptual
states),
and he denies that these norms are
subject
to evaluations in terms of external con?
siderations.
The
following
table shows a distinction be?
tween internalist theories and externalist
theories
on the
adequacy
dimension:
Adequacy Chisholm,
Ground
Externalists,
Foley,
Process
Reliabilism,
Pollock
Lehrer, BonJour,
Swain,
Alston
Third Dimension: The
Basing
Relation
A
cognitive agent's having adequate
grounds
for the belief that
p
is still not suffi?
cient to make her
justified
in
believing
that
p.
The belief that
p
must be
properly
based on
its
adequate grounds.
This relational
compo?
nent constitutes the third factor of
epistemic
justification.
Since it was
pointed
out
by
Roderick
Firth,
most
epistemologists
have ac?
cepted
it as a
necessary
condition of
epistemic
justification.441
will discuss this factor in terms
of an
example given by
Pollock:
A man
might
have
adequate
evidence for be?
lieving
that his wife is unfaithful to
him,
[but]
he
might systematically ignore
that evidence.
However,
when his
mother,
whom he knows to
be
totally
unreliable in such matters and bi?
ased
against
his
wife,
tells him that his wife is
unfaithful to
him,
he believes it on that basis.
The belief is
defective,
because it is not
properly
based on
adequate grounds
for it.
However,
the husband's belief could have
been
epistemically
worse if he had not had
any
evidence at all for the belief. For this rea?
son,
Firth and
Foley say
that the belief of the
man in the
example
is
oropositionally,
but not
doxastically, justified. By propositional jus?
tification,
they
mean the
presence
of ade?
quate evidence,
and
by
doxastic
justification,
they
mean the
presence
of
adequate
evidence
and a
proper basing
relation between the be?
lief in
question
and the
adequate
evidence.
However,
to make such a distinction be?
tween two different senses of
epistemic justi?
fication is
misleading.
For,
according
to our
common intuition
concerning
the use of the
term
"epistemic justification,"
it is more
natural to
say
that the husband's belief in the
example
is
plainly unjustified.
We have a
strong
intuition
that,
even if he has
adequate
grounds
for the belief that
p,
if he believes that
p
on some odd
basis,
then he is not
justified
in
believing
that
p.
For this reason,
Pollock's
distinction between
justifiable
belief and
jus?
tified belief
captures
the intended distinction
more
naturally
than the one between
propo?
sitional
justification
and doxastic
justifica?
tion. And a
theory
of
is interested in the
analysis
of
justifiedness
of a belief rather than in the
analysis
of
justifiability
of a belief. This is
why
I intro?
duce the
proper basing
relation between a
belief and its
adequate grounds
as a factor
(necessary condition)
of its
epistemic justifi?
cation.
Theories of
can be
divided into two
groups, depending
on how
they
account for the
basing
relation. The first
group
claims that what is
problematic
about
the husband's belief in Pollock's
example
is
the lack of a causal relation between the be?
lief and its
adequate grounds;
therefore,
the
required basing
relation is a causal one. The
second
group alleges
that what is
problematic
about the husband's belief is not the absence
of the
right
sort of a causal relation.
Instead,
the
problem
lies in the fact that the husband
fails to assess the
support
of the belief in
question
in
light
of its
adequate grounds.
Therefore,
on this
view,
the
required basing
relation is a
(higher-level)
belief about the
support
relation between the belief in
ques?
tion and its
adequate grounds.
According
to the first
group
of
theories,
the
required basing
relation is a causal relation
between the belief in
question
and its ade?
quate grounds.
If a causal relation is not in?
trospectible
as I
suggested
in section
2,
these
theories have an externalist
analysis
of the
basing
relation. On the other
hand,
according
to the second
group
of
theories,
the
required
basing
relation is a
cognitive agent's higher
level belief about the
support
relation be?
tween the belief in
question
on the
lower-level and its
adequate grounds.
A be?
lief is an
introspectible psychological
state.
For this
reason,
these two
groups
of theories
can be classified
respectively
as internalist
and as externalist theories on the same
ground
on which the distinction between in?
ternalism and externalism was made in the
previous
cases. I will call
any theory
that con?
strues a
higher-level
belief as the
analysis
of
the
required basing
relation connection in?
ternalism,
and
any theory
that construes a
causal relation as the
analysis
of the
required
basing
relation connection externalism.
Connection internalism includes the theo?
ries
by Lehrer,
Foley
and
(perhaps)
Bon
Jour.47
Foley provides
the clearest
example
of
a connection internalist account of
epistemic
justification.
He
recognizes
the
necessity
of a
proper basing
relation for
tion. This
recognition, together
with his an?
other view that
causality
is irrelevant to
leads him to
posit
a
higher-level
belief about the
support
relation
between a
given
belief and the latter's ade?
quate grounds
as an
analysis
of the
required
basing
relation.48
According
to
Lehrer,
what
distinguishes
human
knowledge
from other sorts of knowl?
edge
is
that,
when S knows that
p,
S has a
recognition
that the belief that
p
is correct.49
Lehrer
incorporates
this
necessary
condition
of
knowledge
as a
necessary
condition for
epistemic justification. According
to
him,
for
me to be
justified
in
believing
that
p
on the
basis of
grounds,
G,
I must believe
that,
in the
given
situation,
it is
likely
to be true that
p
given
G. This is a
higher-level
belief about the
support
relation between the belief that
p
and its
adequate grounds.
Moreover,
Lehrer
denies the
necessity
of the above sort of
causal relation for the
justification
of be?
liefs.50 Lehrer can be
regarded,
then,
as inter?
nalist with
respect
to the
basing
relation. That
is,
given
the
necessity
of the
basing
relation
for
the denial of the
relevance of causation to
tion leaves Lehrer with no choice but to be a
connection internalist. This is
so, whatever
the motivation behind the introduction of the
higher-level
belief about the
support
relation
might
be.
BonJour's commitments to connection in?
ternalism or externalism are not so clear. He
claims that
for a belief to be
justified
for a
particular per?
son it is
necessary
not
only
that there be true
premises
or reason somehow available in the
situation that could in
principle provide
a basis
for
justification,
but also that the believer in
question
know or at least
justifiably
believe
some such set of
premises
or reasons and thus
be himself in a
position
to offer the corre?
sponding justification.
This is
enough
to
interpret
him as a connec?
tion internalist.
However,
he neither ad?
dresses the connection factor of
epistemic
justification,
nor denies the
necessity
of
being
caused
by adequate grounds
for the
justifica
52
tion of beliefs. For this
reason,
we cannot
tell whether BonJour is also a connection ex?
ternalist or not.
Connection externalism includes all the
theories
by
Ground Externalists and the
theories
by
Firth, Goldman,
Feldman and
Conee,
and Alston.53 In Ground Externalist
theories,
a belief is connected to an external
fact in terms of a
nomological
relation,
a
counterfactual
relation,
or a causal relation.
These relations are not
introspectible
as we
have seen
already.
Any processist
account,
including
Gold?
man's
has a built-in exter?
nalist
analysis
of the
basing
relation. On that
view,
justified
belief is a belief that is
pro?
duced
by
an
adequate cognitive process and,
therefore,
the connection between the belief
and its
adequate grounds
is a
production
re?
lation. Production is a causal
process. Hence,
any processist
account is a connection exter?
nalist account.
Alston,
and Feldman and Conee offer ex?
amples
of connection internalist accounts
from evidentialism.
According
to
them,
the
required basing
relation that must hold be?
tween evidential
psychological
states?
grounds
of
epistemic justification?and
the
belief in
question
is a causal relation. Alston
says,
"The
ground
of a belief is what it is
based on.... And
presumably
these are rela?
tions of causal
dependence"54 [my emphasis].
Feldman's and Conee's
view,
interpreted
in
the
way
relevant to our current
discussion,
is
that S is
justified
in
believing
that
p only
if
the
adequate
evidence is S's basis for believ?
ing
that
p
in the sense that S uses the evi?
dence to
form
the belief that
p.55
However,
when an evidentialist account is
a connection-externalist
account,
it can also
count as a
processist
account.
According
to
an evidentialist account that is connection
externalist,
a belief is
justified just
in case the
belief is caused
by adequate
evidence for the
belief.
"Being
caused
by adequate
evidence"
is
equivalent
to
"being produced (or
sus?
tained) by
a
cognitive
process
that takes the
adequate
evidence as an
input."
This is
why
evidentialist accounts that are connection-ex?
ternalist are
processists
as well.
One
important
lesson we can learn from
the above discussion is that evidentialism and
processism
are not
mutually
exclusive. An ac?
count that is evidentialist in its
analysis
of
grounds
of
can be?
come
processist,
when it
adopts
an externalist
analysis
of the
basing
relation.
Summarizing my
discussion of the internal
ism/externalism distinction on the connec?
tion
dimension,
all the Ground Externalist
theories are connection externalist and all
the
processist
account are connection exter?
nalist as well. Evidentialist accounts can be
either connection internalist or externalist.
However,
when
they
become connection ex?
ternalist,
they
can also count as
processist.
The
following
table shows the distinction be?
tween connection internalist theories and
connection externalist theories across all
three dimensions of the internalism/externalism
distinction:
Ground
Adequacy
Evidentialism,
Processism,
including
all
AI theories
and all CI
theories
Chisholm,
Foley,
Pollock
Armstrong,
Dretske,
Nozick, Unger
Goldman in "A
Causal
Theory
of
Knowing"
All GE
theories,
Process
Reliabilism,
Lehrer,
BonJour, Swain,
Alston
Connection Evidentialism
Proper
(Foley,
Lehrer,
BonJour)
All GE
theories,
Processism
proper,
Evidentialist
Processism
(Alston, Swain,
Feldman and
Conee)
This table
suggests
that the classification of
internalism and externalism
can be a matter
of
degree.
If a
theory
is externalist across all
three
dimensions,
it is the most externalist. A
theory
that is externalist
on two dimensions
will be more externalist than the one that is
externalist
only
on one dimension.
According
to
this
criterion,
theories
by Armstrong,
Dret
ske, Nozick,
and Goldman
are the most ex?
ternalist theories. This
explains why
their
theories are
usually regarded
as
paradigms
of
externalist theories. Goldman's
process
reli?
abilism is externalist to a
high degree
because
it is externalist on two dimensions.
On the other
hand,
Foley's theory
is on the
other extreme. His
theory
is internalist
throughout
all three dimensions. This out?
come seems to
go very
well with
Foley's
own
claim that his
theory
is
purely subjective
in
the sense that
everything
about
epistemic
justification
is determined
by
what is
given
to the
perspective
of a
cognitive agent.56
Lehrer's and BonJour's theories are less in?
ternalist than
Foley's,
but
they
are
highly
in?
ternalist because
they
are internalist on two
dimensions.
One
advantage
of
understanding
the three
dimensions of the internalism/externalism
distinction as
expressed
in the above table is
to
help clarify
some confusions that have af?
flicted current
epistemology.
Let us
go
back
to the
examples
of the definitions of internal?
ism and externalism which we considered at
the
beginning
of this
paper.
We have seen
that
Armstrong
and BonJour defined exter?
nalism as the view that
analyzes
the condi?
tions of
knowledge
or
in terms of a relation between a belief state
and the fact that makes the belief true. This
definition seemed to have a
problem
because
which
many epistemolo
gists
think of as an externalist
theory,
turns out
to be internalist
according
to this definition.
Now we can see that the above
problem
is
only apparent.
It stems from the conflation of
two dimensions of
namely
the
ground
dimension and the ade?
quacy
dimension.
Armstrong
and BonJour
provide
a definition of externalism that fo?
cuses on whether a relation to an external
fact
plays
a crucial role in a
theory's analy?
sis of
knowledge
or
With the same
focus,
Goldman himself was
inclined to see his
process
reliabilism as in?
ternalist.57 On the other
hand,
those who are
unhappy
about
classifying process
reliabilism
as internalist focus on the
adequacy
dimen?
sion. Seen from that
dimension,
epistemic
theories that invoke a truth-connection as a
necessary
condition for
tion or
knowledge
are externalist. This makes
process
reliabilism externalist. Chisholm's
definition of externalism in terms of truth con?
nection is a clear
example
of this attitude.58
An
analogous
dilemma arises when the
adequacy
dimension is conflated with the di?
mension of
basing
relation. If the truth con?
nection,
which is the outcome of
applying
the
introspectibility
to the
adequacy dimension,
is taken as the universal criterion of external?
ism,
Lehrer's and BonJour's theories of
are classified as exter?
nalist.
However,
their theories are
usually
mentioned as
typical examples
of internalism
in current
epistemology.
Here
again,
the di?
lemma is
merely apparent.
One of the most
controversial issues in current
epistemology
is whether a
recognition
of the
support
rela?
tion between a belief and its
adequate
grounds
is
necessary
for the
justification
of
the belief. This issue is often addressed as the
debate between internalism and externalism.
Clearly,
this distinction concerns the connec?
tion factor of
Seen
from this
perspective,
Lehrer's and BonJour's
theories are
internalist. Whether
they
are in?
ternalist or
externalist on the
adequacy
di?
mension is another
question.
IV. SUMMARY
I
argued
that
introspectibility
is the
proper
epistemological
criterion of the internal. I
also
argued
that theories of
epistemic justifi?
cation or
knowledge
can
diverge
on three dif?
ferent dimensions. This
depends
on how one
analyzes
the three different
components
of
or
knowledge, namely,
the
grounds
for a
belief,
the
adequacy
of the
grounds
for the
belief,
and the
basing
relation
between the belief and its
grounds.
I
argued,
on this
basis,
that internalism and externalism
can be
distinguished
in accordance with each
component
on three different dimensions.59
University of
Oklahoma
Received
February
4,1993
QUARTERLY
NOTES
1. Roderick
Chisholm,
"The
Indispensability
of Internal
Justification,"
Synthese,
vol. 64
(1988), pp.
285-96
(see p. 285).
2. Laurence
BonJour,
"The Internalist
Conception
of
Epistemic
Justification,"
in Peter A. French et al.
eds.,
Midwest Studies in
Philosophy
vol. 5: Studies in
Epistemology (Minneapolis: University
of Minne?
sota
Press,
1980), p.
56.
3. D. M.
Armstrong, Belief, Truth,
and
Knowledge (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press,
1973);
Alvin
Goldman,
"A Causal
Theory
of
Knowing,"
The Journal
of Philosophy,
vol. 64
(1967), pp. 355-72;
Fred
Dretske,
"Conclusive
Reasons,"
Australasian Journal
of Philosophy,
vol.49
(1971), pp. 1-22,
reprinted
in
Marshall Swain and
George Pappas
eds.,
Essays
on
Knowledge
and
Justification (Ithaca,
NJ: Cornell
University
Press,
1978)
and
Knowledge
and the Flow
of Information (Cambridge:
MIT
Press,
1981);
Robert
Nozick,
Philosophical Explanations (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard
University
Press,
1981), chapter
3.
4. D. M.
Armstrong, op. cit., p.
157.
5. L.
BonJour,op.
cit., p.
55.
6. The well-known minimal condition for
knowledge
is that a
person, S,
knows that
p only
if S believes that
p
and it is true that
p.
Given
this,
modern
epistemology
has focused on other conditions that must be
satisfied for a true belief to
qualify
as an instance of
knowledge. Epistemic justification
has been the most
popular
candidate for this third condition of
knowledge,
but a number of
epistemologists
have
attempted
to
analyze knowledge
without
invoking epistemic justification.
In this
paper,
I will discuss diverse
episte?
mological
theories without
worrying very
much about whether or not
they
are theories of
epistemic
justification.
7. See section 3.
8. Alvin
Goldman,
"What is Justified
Belief?,"
in
Justification
and
Knowledge,
ed.
George Pappas
(Dordrecht:
Reidel,
1979).
9.
Actually,
this is what Goldman wants.
See, ibid., p.
182.
10.
See,
for
example,
L.
BonJour, op. cit., p. 57,
especially
fn. 7.
U.R.Chisholm,op. cit.,p.286.
12. Keith
Lehrer,
Theory of Knowledge (Boulder:
Westview
Press,
1990), pp.
138-43.
13. L.
BonJour, op. cit., p.
8.
14. I am not
making
the controversial claim that a belief is
justified only
if it has an
objectively high
probability
of
being
true.
(See
Stewart
cohen,
"Justification and
Truth,"
Philosophical
Studies,
vol. 46
(1984), pp.
279-96 and John
Pollock,
"Reliability
and Justified
Belief,"
Canadian Journal
of Philosophy,
vol. 14
(1984), pp. 103-14).
What I
say
is
compatible
with the
subjectivist
claim that S is
justified
in the belief
that
p
if and
only
if S does her best in
seeking
truth with
respect
to
believing
that
p, regardless
of the actual
probability
of
p's being
true.
15. W. V. O.
Quine,
"The Nature of Natural
Knowledge,"
in Mind and
Language
ed.,
Samuel
Guttenplan
(Oxford:
Clarendon Press,
1975), p.
67.
16. Ernest
Sosa,
"The Coherence of Virtue and the Virtue of
Coherence,"
Synthese,
vol. 64
(1985), pp. 3-28,
reprinted
in
Knowledge
in
Perspective (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press,
1991), p.
193.
17. R.
Chisholm, op.
cit., p.
285.
18. Robert
Audi,
"Causalist
Internalism,"
American
Philosophical Quarterly,\o\.26 (1989),pp.309-20,p.
309.
19. William
Alston,
Epistemic Justification (Ithaca:
Cornell
University
Press,
1989), pp.
4-5.
20. For an
example
of a view that takes
psychological
states as
internal,
see the
quotations
from Audi and
Alston on
p.
9 of this
essay.
21. For the claim that
detecting
coherence
among
beliefs
goes beyond
human
cognitive capacity,
see
Hilary
Kornblith,
"The
Unattainability
of Internalist
Coherentism,"
in John Bender
ed.,
The Current State
of
the
Coherence
Theory:
Critical
Essays
on the
Epistemic
Theories
of
Keith Lehrer and Laurence
BonJour,
with
Replies (Dordrecht:
Kluwer Academic
Publishers,
1989), p.
209 and
Christopher
Cherniak,
Minimal
Rationality (Cambridge:
MIT
Press,
1986), chapter
3.
22. See D. M.
Armstrong,^
Materialist
Theory of
the Mind
(London: Routledge
and
Kegan
Paul,
1968),
pp.
97-99. See also Evan
Fales,
Causation and Universals
(London: Routledge, 1990), pp.
42-46.
23. When
necessary,
I will
point
out some features that
pertain uniquely
to current theories of
knowledge.
24.
See,
Wilfrid
Sellars,
"Empiricism
and the
Philosophy
of
Mind,"
reprinted
in his
Science, Perception,
and
Reality (New
York: Humanities
Press,
1963),
and Laurence
BonJour,
The Structure
of Empirical
Knowledge (Cambridge:
Harvard
University
Press,
1985), chapter
4.
However,
John Pollock denies the
above claim. This denial is the basis for his foundationalist account of
See,
J.
Pollock,
Contemporary
Theories
of Knowledge (PLACE,
NJ: Rowman and
Littlefield,
1986).
25. Here is Alvin Goldman's initial formulation of his account of
epistemic justification: "(5)
If S's
believing
that
p
at t results from a reliable
belief-forming process (or
set of
processes),
then S's
believing
that
p
at t is
justified." [A.
Goldman,
"What Is Justified
Belief?," p. 182.]
26.1 am
using
the term
"ground"
more
broadly
than the
term,
"evidence."
According
to
my usage
of the
term,
not
only
evidential
psychological
states,
but also
cognitive processes responsible
for the
production
of a
belief,
can be
grounds
for the
justification
of the belief.
27.
Strictly speaking,
evidentialism and
processism
are not
mutually
exclusive. For
example,
a view that
justified
beliefs are
produced by
a
cognitive process
that takes the evidential
psychological
states as
inputs
seems to be evidentialist and
processist
at the same time.
However,
most of the traditional evidentialist
theories
deny
the relevance of the
genesis
of a belief to its
justification
and think of
of a belief
solely
as a function of
psychological
states of the believer at the time of
holding
the belief. This
shows
that,
even if evidentialism and
processism
are
logically compatible,
most of the traditional eviden?
tialist theories have been
anti-processist.
However,
as we will see in the discussion of the third factor of
there is a reason to
push
evidentialism toward
processism.
28. Process reliabilism is the most distinct
example
of a
ground
internalist account that most
epistemolo
gist
think of as externalist.
29. "A's non-inferential belief that
p
is a case of non-inferential
knowledge
if,
and
only
if:
0) P
(n)
(3H)[Ha
& there is a law-like connection in nature
(x)
if
Hx,
then
(if Bxp,
then
p)]."
D. M.
Armstrong,op.
cit., p.
168.
30.
However,
in some
places Armstrong
makes some remarks that
suggest
that his externalist
analysis
can
be used as an
analysis
of
For
example,
he
says
with
regard
to the
implication
of his
externalist
analysis,
"The
subject's
belief is not based on
reasons,
but it
might
be said to be reasonable
(justifiable),
because it is a
sign,
a
completely
reliable
sign,
that the situation believed to exist does in fact
exist"
[D.
M.
Armstrong, op. cit., p. 183].
And he
says,
"even where we do not have
knowledge,
we
may
still
have rational
belief.
If BaJc is a reliable
pointer
to the
high probability
of c's
being
J,
then the belief that c
is J
may
be called rational
(whether
or not the believer knows it is
rational)" [ibid., p. 189].
31. Nozick talks about methods that are used for the formation of beliefs.
Maybe,
he is
claiming
that a
belief is
justified
for S if and
only
if it is
produced by
a
cognitive
method and the method is used in the
way
that the above counterfactual relation holds. If
so,
he would be a
processist.
And if the method in his
terminology
means a
cognitive process,
he would be a
ground
internalist. For more detailed
presentation
of his
theory,
see R.
Nozick, op. cit.,
Ch. 3.
32. This is not
exactly
correct for Dretske. In
Dretske,
the counterfactual relation
necessary
for
knowledge
must hold not between a belief in
question
and the fact that makes the belief
true,
but between a
ground
for the belief and the fact that makes the belief true. See:
Dretske,
"Conclusive
Reasons,"
The Aus?
tralasian Journal
of Philosophy,
vol. 49
(1971), pp.
1-22.
33. Peter
Unger,
"An
Analysis
of Factual
Knowledge,"
The Journal
of Philosophy,
vol. 65
(1968), pp.
157-170
(see p. 161).
34.
Ibid., p.
159.
35.
Propensity
is one of the well-known accounts of
objective probability, together
with relative
frequency
and nomic
probability.
36. There can be
processist
accounts that are
adequacy internalist, viz.,
a
theory
that claims that S's
believing
that
p
is
justified only
if it is
produced by
a
cognitive process
that S thinks is reliable.
37. See
p.
303 of this
essay.
38. See
pp.
304 of this
essay.
39.
BonJour,
The Structure
of Empirical Knowledge, p.
95.
40. W.
Alston,
"An Internalist
Externalism,"
Synthese,\o\.
74
(1988), pp. 265-83,
reprinted
in
Epistemic
Justification (Ithaca:
Cornell
University
Press,
1989)
and M.
Swain,
Justification
and
Knowledge (Ithaca:
Cornell
University
Press, 1981).
41. R.
Foley,
The
Theory of Epistemic Rationality (Cambridge:
Harvard
University
Press,
1987), p.
68.
Also see the more detailed definition of
epistemic justification given by Foley, op. cit., p.
65. For an
attempt
to refute
adequacy
externalism with
respect
to
see Stewart
Cohen,
"Justification
and
Truth,"
Philosophical
Studies,
vol. 46
(1984), pp.
279-96.
42. Roderick
Chisholm,
"The
Indispensability
of Internal
Justification," pp.
285-86.
43. John
Pollock,
Contemporary
Theories
of Knowledge (PLACE,
NJ: Rowman and
Littlefield,
1986), p.
126.
According
to
Pollock,
the
justification
of a belief is determined
by
a
cognitive process responsible
for
its
production.
But,
Pollock denies
any attempt
to define a criterion of
adequacy
for
cognitive processes
in
terms of externalist considerations such as
truth-conducivity. [Pollock, Contemporary
Theories
of
Knowledge (Totowa,
NJ: Rowman and
Littlefield,
1986), pp. 123-49.]
However,
it is not clear what
criterion he endorses to make a distinction between
cognitive processes
that
yield justified
beliefs and
those that do not. For this reason,
I
only
assume that he is an
adequacy-internalist.
44. Roderick
Firth,
"Are
Epistemic Concepts
Reducible to Ethical
Ones?,"
in A. Goldman and
Jaegwon
Kim
eds.,
Values and Morals
(Dordrecht:
Reidel,
1978), pp. 215-229;
A.
Goldman,
Epistemology
and
Cognition (Cambridge,
M A: Harvard
University
Press,
1986),
ch.
5; Pollock, op. cit., p. 81,
and "A Plethora
of
Epistemological
Theories,"
in
George Pappas
ed.,
Justification
and
Knowledge (Dordrecht: Reidel,
1979), pp. 93-113;
R.
Foley, op. cit., pp. 175-86;
Hilary
Kornblith,
"Beyond
Foundationalism and the
Coherence
Theory,"
The Journal
of Philosophy,
vol.77
(1980), pp. 597-611,
and Marshall
Swain,
"Justifi?
cation and the Basis of
Belief,"
in G.
Pappas,
ed.,
op. cit., pp.
25-49.
45. J.
Pollock,op. cit.,p.81.
46. R.
Foley, op. cit., pp.
175-86.
47. Keith
Lehrer, Theory of Knowledge;
R.
Foley, op. cit.;
L.
BonJour,
The Structure
of Empirical
Knowledge.
48. Richard
Foley, op. cit.,
especially chapter
4.
49. K.
Lehrer,
Theory of Knowledge, especially p.
4 and
p.
64.
50. K.
Lehrer, op. cit., pp.
168-72 and "How Reasons Give Us
Knowledge,
or the Case of the
Gypsy
Lawyer,"
The Journal
of Philosophy,
vol.68
(1971),pp.311-13.
51. L.
BonJour,
The Structure
of Empirical Knowledge, pp.
42-43. The same
point
is
expressed very
clearly
in
p.
31 as well.
52. The
point
of the series of
counterexamples
he
provides
for the refutation of reliabilist accounts of
is to
deny
the
sufficiency
of the reliabilist account.
53.
Firth, op.
cit.
; Goldman,
"A Causal
Theory
of
Knowing"
and "What is Justified
Belief?";
Richard Feldman
and Earl
Conee, "Evidentialism,"
in
Philosophical Studies,
vol. 48
(1985), pp. 334-345; Alston, op.
cit.
54. W.
Alston,
"An Internalist
Externalism,"
in
Epistemic Justification, pp.
211-IS.
55. Richard Feldman and Earl
Conee, op. cit., p.
340. See also
Swain,
Reasons and
Knowledge (Ithaca:
Cornell
University
Press,
1981), chapter
2.
56.
Foley, op. cit.,
chapter
1.
57. We have seen on
pp.
8-9 that Sosa and Alston also
provide
the definition of externalism with a focus on
ground
dimension.
58. See section I above.
59.1 thank Monte
Cook,
Ray Elugardo,
Alvin
Goldman,
Chris
Swoyer,
and Russ Shafer-Landau for their
helpful
comments.

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