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Bootstrapping and knowledge of reliability

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Abstract

This is a critical discussion of a paper on the problem of bootstrapping by Jose Zalabardo.

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Notes

  1. See Zalabardo (2005). All page references in the text are to this article. One might well wonder about the status of an analogous principle placing a condition on warrant sources. Zalabardo does not explicitly endorse such a principle, but his account of how WR avoids bootstrapping shows a commitment to such a principle. See the discussion below in the text.

  2. This requires an assumption to the effect that the conclusion of an inductively strong argument can be known on the basis of knowing the premises, together with the assumption that my n premises constitute an inductively strong basis.

  3. Three recent discussions of bootstrapping: Vogel (2000), Cohen (2002), van Cleve (2003). The locus classicus for discussion of such “track record” arguments is Alston’s "Epistemic circularity" (1986).

  4. See pp. 46–47.

  5. See p. 46.

  6. For a discussion of justification without belief, see Goldman (1979). Goldman calls this ex ante justification.

  7. See Goldman’s “What Is Justified Belief?” for a discussion of conditionally reliable, belief-dependent processes which, unlike, e.g., perception, take beliefs as their inputs and issue other beliefs as their outputs. A process is conditionally reliable if given true input beliefs, it tends to produce true output beliefs. A process such as vision is belief-independent since its inputs are not beliefs. Such a process will be unconditionally reliable when it has a sufficiently high truth-ratio.

References

  • Alston, W. P. (1986). Epistemic circularity. Philosophical Studies, 47, 1–28.

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  • Cohen, S. (2002). Basic knowledge and the problem of easy knowledge. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 65, 309–329.

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  • Goldman, A. (1979). What is justified belief? In G. S. Pappas (Ed.), Justification and knowledge (pp. 1–23). Dordrecht: Reidel.

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  • van Cleve, J. (2003). Is knowledge easy—or impossible? Externalism as the only alternative to skepticism. In S. Luper (Ed.), The skeptics: contemporary essays (pp. 45–59). Aldershot, Hampshire: Ashgate.

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  • Vogel, J. (2000). Reliabilism leveled. Journal of Philosophy, 97, 602–623.

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  • Zalabardo, J. L. (2005). Externalism, skepticism, and the problem of easy knowledge. Philosophical Review, 144, 33–61.

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Acknowledgement

We would like to thank Stewart Cohen for many helpful suggestions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of California, Santa Barbara, USA

    Anthony Brueckner

  2. University of Redlands, Redlands, USA

    Christopher T. Buford

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  1. Anthony Brueckner
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  2. Christopher T. Buford
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Correspondence to Anthony Brueckner.

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Brueckner, A., Buford, C.T. Bootstrapping and knowledge of reliability. Philos Stud 145, 407–412 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-008-9240-2

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