Abstract
According to epistemic internalism, the only facts that determine the justificational status of a belief are facts about the subject’s own mental states, like beliefs and experiences. Externalists instead hold that certain external facts, such as facts about the world or the reliability of a belief-producing mechanism, affect a belief’s justificational status. Some internalists argue that considerations about evil demon victims and brains in vats provide excellent reason to reject externalism: because these subjects are placed in epistemically unfavorable settings, externalism seems unable to account for the strong intuition that these subjects’ beliefs are nonetheless justified. I think these considerations do not at all help the internalist cause. I argue that by appealing to the anti-individualistic nature of perception, it can be shown that skeptical scenarios provide no reason to prefer internalism to externalism.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
The version of internalism that is the focus of this paper is what Conee and Feldman (2001) call Mentalism. This is to be contrasted with Accessibilism, according to which the features that justify a belief are accessible to the subject. There are indeed important questions about the connection between accessibility and justification, but these cannot be addressed here.
The new evil demon problem was introduced in Lehrer and Cohen (1983).
Goldman (1979)
As a qualification, it is unclear, and unlikely, that this argument could be applied to certain a priori beliefs (such as mathematical beliefs) we have as well as beliefs about one’s own mental states. The argument specifically targets beliefs which are sourced in perception. It should therefore be read as focusing on our common, ordinary beliefs about the empirical world.
Note that we are investigating whether E1 and E2 have the same representational content. As we will see, perceptual anti-individualism places restrictions on when two token experiences can be representationally type-identical. However, it is a separate question to ask whether or not E1 and E2 are phenomenally or qualitatively identical. One can be anti-individualist about perceptual representational content, yet still hold that qualia are intrinsic, non-relational properties of the subject (though Cf. Dretske (1995, 1996) for an interesting argument for qualia anti-individualism). None of the present discussion hinges on whether or not Brainean and Actuan share the same qualia, so I will here assume individualism about phenomenal experience.
Presumably, B1 and B2 would also differ under this permanent-envatment version of the thought experiment (Cf. Putnam (2002) and Burge (2007a)), but this not our main concern here (though it will become relevant in Section IV.2). The more pressing issue is whether SGP is satisfied, so our attention should be on Brainean and Actuan’s grounds (i.e. their experiences).
Many of these considerations are highlighted in Burge (2003).
Cf. Goldman (1979).
Putnam (2000), p. 394.
Cf. Evans (1982) Chaps 5 and 6.
This does not imply that such demonstrative thoughts are necessarily true. The belief can inaccurately represent which properties the object possesses, but the subject cannot misidentify which object it is that she judges has that property. Demonstrative thoughts are immune to error through misidentification.
Further difficulties arise once we attempt to determine what is expressed by Brainean’s putative first-person concept in B1* (Cf. Evans (1982) Chap. 7.7). I will not address these problems here.
See Burge (2005, p. 50–53) for an objection to Evans’ proposed object-dependency for demonstrative thoughts.
Goldman (1979).
I would like to thank Tony Brueckner, Kevin Falvey, Michael Rescorla, and an anonymous referee at this journal for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper.
References
Burge, T. (1986). Individualism and psychology. The Philosophical Review, 95(1), 3–45.
Burge, T. (2003). Perceptual entitlement. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 67(3), 503–548.
Burge, T. (2005). Disjunctivism and perceptual psychology. Philosophical Topics, 33(1), 1–78.
Burge, T. (2007a). Other bodies. In T. Burge (Ed.), Foundations of mind. Oxford University Press.
Burge, T. (2007b). Cartesian error and the objectivity of perception. In T. Burge (Ed.), Foundations of mind. Oxford University Press.
Cohen, S. (1984). Justification and truth. Philosophical Studies, 46, 279–295.
Comesaña, J. (2002). The diagonal and the demon. Philosophical Studies, 100, 249–266.
Conee, E. & Feldman, R. (2001). Internalism defended. In H. Kornblith (Ed.), Epistemology: Internalism and externalism. Blackwell Publishers.
Dretske, F. (1995). Naturalizing the mind. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Dretske, F. (1996). Phenomenal externalism or if meanings ain’t in the head, Where are Qualia? Philosophical Issues, 7, Perception, 143–158.
Dretske, F. (2000). Entitlement: Epistemic rights without epistemic duties? Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 60(3), 591–606.
Evans, G. (1982). The varieties of reference. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Goldman, A. (1979). What is Justified Belief? In G. Pappas (Ed.), Justification and knowledge. Dordrecht: Reidel.
Goldman, A. (1986). Epistemology and cognition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Lehrer, K., & Cohen, S. (1983). Justification, truth, and coherence. Synthese, 55, 191–207.
Majors, B., & Sawyer, S. (2005). The epistemological argument for content externalism. Philosophical Studies, 19, 257–280.
Majors, B. & Sawyer, S. (2007). Entitlement, opacity, and connection. In S. Goldberg (Ed.), Internalism and externalism in semantics and epistemology. Oxford University Press.
Peacocke, C. (2004). The realm of reason. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Plantinga, A. (1993). Warrant and proper function. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Pryor, J. (2001). Recent highlights of epistemology. The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 52, 95–124.
Putnam, H. (1981). Reason, truth, and history. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Putnam, H. (2000). Brains in a vat. In S. Bernecker, F. Dretske (Eds.), Knowledge: Readings in Contemporary epistemology. Oxford University Press.
Putnam, H. (2002). The meaning of ‘Meaning’. In D. Chalmers (Ed.) Philosophy of mind: Classical and contemporary readings. Oxford University Press.
Sosa, E. (1985). Knowledge and intellectual virtue. Monist, 68, 224–245.
Sosa, E. (1991). Reliabilism and intellectual virtue. In Knowledge in perspective: Selected essays in epistemology. Cambridge University Press.
Wedgwood, R. (1999). The a priori rules of rationality. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 59(1), 113–131.
Wedgwood, R. (2002). Internalism explained. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 65(2), 349–369.
Wright, C. (1992). On Putnam’s proof that we are not Brains-in-a-Vat. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 92, 67–94.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Altschul, J. Reliabilism and Brains in Vats. Acta Anal 26, 257–272 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12136-010-0088-7
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12136-010-0088-7