Articulating Reasons by Robert B. Brandom

Author:Robert B. Brandom [Brandom, Robert B.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-02-17T05:00:00+00:00

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Insights and Blindspots of Reliabilism

Barn Facade County—so that over the whole country (excepting this one state) facades predominate by a large margin—then considered as a capacity exercised in the country, the very same capacity will count as quite un reliable, and hence as insufficient to underwrite attributions of knowledge. And then again, in the whole world, barns may outnumber facades by a large margin. So considered with respect to that reference class, the capacity would once again count as reliable. And so on. Do we need to know about the relative frequencies of barns and facades in the solar system or the galaxy in order to answer questions about the cognitive status of our subject’s beliefs? And yet, if instead of looking at ever broader reference classes we turn our attention to ever narrower ones, we end up with a reference class consisting simply of the actual exercise of the capacity in looking at a real barn. Within that reference class, the probability of arriving at a true belief is 1, since the unique belief arrived at in that situation is actually true.

So with respect to the narrowest possible reference class, the belief-forming mechanism is maximally reliable.

Which is the correct reference class? Is the perceiver an objectively reliable identifier of barns or not? I submit that the facts as described do not determine an answer. Relative to each reference class there is a clear answer, but nothing in the way the world is privileges one of those reference classes, and hence picks out one of those answers. An argument place remains to be filled in, and the way the world objectively is does not, by itself, fill it in. Put another way, the reliability of the belief-forming mechanism (and hence the status of its true products as states of knowledge) varies depending on how we describe the mechanism and the believer.

Described as apparently perceiving this barn, he is reliable and knows there is a barn in front of him. Described as an apparent barn-perceiver in this county, he is not reliable and does not know there is a barn in front of him. Described as an apparent barn-perceiver in the state, he is again reliable and a knower, while described as an apparent barn-perceiver in the country as a whole Copyright © 2000 The President and Fellows of Harvard College

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