Abstract
In this paper I argue that there is no viable alternative to construing our knowledge and justified belief as resting on a foundation restricted to truths about our internal states. Against Williamson and others I defend the claim that the internal life of a cognizer really does constitute a special sort of cognitive home that is importantly different from the rest of what we think we know and justifiably believe.
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Notes
As Jennifer Wilson (2006) has pointed out, one should be a bit more careful here. Since a reliabilist might want to allow noninferentially justified belief that one has a belief, where the input of the “introspective process” is the belief itself, we should allow that a noninferentially justified belief can have as its input a belief state. What distinguishes this process from those that yield inferentially justified belief, however, is that the epistemic status of the input belief is irrelevant to the justification of the output belief.
In fact, most snakes probably aren’t dangerous. The evolutionary value of having the spontaneous belief is probably just that the expected utility of believing that they are is high (given the very unpleasant results of cozying up to one that is deadly).
On this see Baron Reed’s (2006).
Chisholm’s classic article (1942) presents the problem as one raised by Gilbert Ryle in a discussion with A. J. Ayer. Paul Ushenko (1946, p. 103) claims that the example of the speckled hen was first given by H.H. Price, but that he (Ushenko) raised a variation of the same problem in (1937, p. 90). Ushenko also claims that he discussed the problem with Ayer. I thank Steven Bayne for pointing out to me Ushenko’s contribution to the debate (in his history of analytic philosophy electronic mailing). Sosa raised the problem in Sosa 2003 and Sosa and Bonjour 2003.
References
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Fumerton, R. Luminous enough for a cognitive home. Philos Stud 142, 67–76 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-008-9301-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-008-9301-6