Knowledge and reliability: a systematic study of reliabilism

What is knowledge? The purpose of this project to investigate systematically a particular view on knowledge, namely reliabilism. According to that view, knowledge is true belief acquired by means of a reliable process. Reliabilism has many advantages, e.g. it allows that small children can know. But it has also been the target of criticism, the tenability of which is central to the project.

The purpose of this project it to investigate systematically a particular view on the nature of knowledge, namely reliabilism. According to this theory, knowledge is true belief acquired through a reliable process. Reliabilism has many advantages. It is naturalistic in that it reduces knowledge to a phenomenon that can be studied by empirical means. Requiring only minimal reflective ability on the part of the knower, it is applicable also to small children and higher animals. Nevertheless, the theory has recently been the target of serious criticism and doubt. Amoung other things, there is a problem of value: the theory is assumed not to satisfy Plato's principle that knowledge should be more valuable than mere true belief. Also, there is an issue of generality: the theory lacks a method by means of which it could be decided at what level of generality a belief acquisition process should be categorized, something which can affect the latter's reliability. The received view, therefore, is that reliabilism is not only inadequate but also incomplete. The purpose of the project is to evaluate relibilism with respect to these and other objections. Our working hypothesis is that the objections can be neuralized. For that reason, the expected result has great information value within the research area in question. The project, finally, builds new interdisciplinary bridges between theoretical philosophy and cognitive psychology.