One issue with reliabilist epistemologies -- those which focus on a persons *cognitive faculties* being reliable in seeking truth as opposed to focusing on the methods of justification -- is that they are ultimately, in my opinion, extraneous. The fact of the matter is that ALL epistemologies are forced to make some basic presuppositions to get off the ground at all in the first place -- presuppositions which are impossible to justify because attempting to justify them itself entails them. For instance, the pertinent presupposition here is that ALL epistemologies, every last one of them, must presuppose that our cognitive faculties are geared towards or at least capable of discerning truth from falsity. So if all epistemologies already hold this unjustifiable presupposition (a foundationalist might call it a properly basic one), why would anyone form an epistemology which focuses on whether or not its true? In order to ANSWER whether or not its true, wouldnt you still need some sort of meta-epistemology? Wouldnt that defeat the whole point -- because, why would you need reliabilism if youve already got an epistemology behind it in the first place?
Posted on: Sat, 08 Mar 2014 06:32:20 +0000
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