🤓Intro to Epistemology Unit 5 – Justification Theories: Internal vs External

Key Concepts and Definitions

• Epistemology studies the nature, sources, and limits of knowledge
• Justification in epistemology refers to the reasons or evidence that support a belief
• Internal justification holds that the factors that justify a belief are accessible to the subject through reflection alone
• External justification contends that factors outside the subject's awareness can justify a belief
• Internalism is the view that all factors relevant to justification are internal to the subject's mind
• Externalism maintains that factors external to the subject's mind can be relevant to justification
  • Includes factors such as the reliability of the belief-forming process (reliabilism) or the proper functioning of the subject's cognitive faculties (proper functionalism)
• Evidentialism is an internalist theory that holds that a belief is justified if and only if it fits the available evidence

Historical Background

• The debate between internalism and externalism in epistemology emerged in the late 20th century
• Internalism has roots in Descartes' foundationalism and the idea of epistemic responsibility
  • Descartes argued that knowledge requires certainty and that this certainty can only be achieved through clear and distinct ideas accessible to the subject
• Externalism gained prominence with the development of reliabilist theories in the 1970s and 1980s
  • Philosophers such as Alvin Goldman and Fred Dretske argued that a belief's justification depends on the reliability of the process that produced it
• The Gettier problem (1963) challenged the traditional justified true belief account of knowledge and sparked further debate about the nature of justification
• Contemporary epistemologists continue to refine and defend various internalist and externalist theories

Internal Justification Theory

• Internalism holds that justification is solely determined by factors within the subject's cognitive grasp
• Accessibility is a key feature of internalist theories
  • The subject must be able to access the justifying factors through reflection or introspection
• Coherentism is an internalist theory that holds that a belief is justified if it coheres with the subject's overall belief system
  • Emphasizes the importance of logical consistency and mutual support among beliefs
• Internalists argue that justification is a normative notion tied to epistemic responsibility
  • A belief is justified if the subject has done their epistemic duty in forming and maintaining it
• Critics argue that internalism is too demanding and fails to account for the role of external factors in justification

External Justification Theory

• Externalism holds that factors outside the subject's cognitive grasp can be relevant to justification
• Reliabilism is a prominent externalist theory that focuses on the reliability of the belief-forming process
  • A belief is justified if it is produced by a process that tends to yield true beliefs
  • Examples of reliable processes include perception, memory, and logical inference
• Proper functionalism is another externalist theory that emphasizes the proper functioning of the subject's cognitive faculties
  • A belief is justified if it is produced by properly functioning cognitive faculties in an appropriate environment
• Externalists argue that their theories better account for the role of objective factors in justification
  • Factors such as the reliability of the belief-forming process or the proper functioning of cognitive faculties are not always accessible to the subject
• Critics argue that externalism fails to capture the normative dimension of justification and the importance of epistemic responsibility

Comparing Internal and External Approaches

• Internalism and externalism offer competing accounts of epistemic justification
• Internalism emphasizes the subject's cognitive access to justifying factors and ties justification to epistemic responsibility
• Externalism focuses on objective factors such as reliability and proper functioning, which may not be accessible to the subject
• Internalism is often motivated by the idea that justification should be within the subject's control and tied to their epistemic duties
• Externalism is often motivated by the need to account for the role of objective factors in justification and the limitations of the subject's cognitive access
• Some epistemologists propose hybrid theories that incorporate both internalist and externalist elements
  • For example, a theory might require both reliable belief-forming processes (externalism) and the subject's awareness of this reliability (internalism)
• The debate between internalism and externalism has implications for other epistemological issues, such as the nature of knowledge and skepticism

Major Debates and Criticisms

• The generality problem challenges reliabilism to specify the relevant type of belief-forming process when assessing reliability
  • Without a principled way to individuate belief-forming processes, reliabilism risks being ad hoc or circular
• The new evil demon problem challenges externalism by imagining a scenario where a subject's beliefs are formed by unreliable processes but are still intuitively justified
  • Externalists must explain why the subject's beliefs are not justified in this scenario
• The clairvoyance problem challenges externalism by imagining a subject with a reliable clairvoyant faculty that produces true beliefs without any evidence or cognitive access
  • Externalists must explain why the clairvoyant's beliefs are justified despite the lack of evidence or cognitive access
• The meta-justification problem challenges internalism to explain how the subject can have cognitive access to the justifying factors without regress
  • If the subject's access to the justifying factors requires further justification, this threatens to lead to an infinite regress
• The problem of forgotten evidence challenges internalism to account for cases where a subject has formed a justified belief but later forgotten the evidence
  • Internalists must explain whether and how the belief remains justified without the subject's current cognitive access to the evidence

Real-World Applications

• The internalism-externalism debate has implications for assessing the justification of beliefs in various domains, such as science, religion, and politics
  • An internalist approach would emphasize the subject's reasons and evidence for their beliefs, while an externalist approach would focus on the reliability of the processes that produced the beliefs
• In the legal context, the debate is relevant to assessing the justification of witness testimony and expert evidence
  • An internalist approach would focus on the subject's credibility and cognitive access to the relevant information, while an externalist approach would focus on the reliability of the testimony or evidence itself
• The debate also has implications for education and the development of critical thinking skills
  • An internalist approach would emphasize the importance of teaching students to reflect on their own beliefs and reasons, while an externalist approach would focus on developing reliable belief-forming processes and habits
• In the realm of artificial intelligence and machine learning, the debate is relevant to assessing the justification of the outputs of AI systems
  • An internalist approach would focus on the interpretability and explainability of the AI's decision-making process, while an externalist approach would focus on the reliability and accuracy of the outputs themselves

Further Reading and Resources

• "Internalism and Externalism in Epistemology" by Laurence BonJour and Ernest Sosa (2003) offers a comprehensive overview of the debate and features contributions from leading internalists and externalists
• "Epistemology: A Contemporary Introduction to the Theory of Knowledge" by Robert Audi (2010) provides an accessible introduction to epistemology, including a chapter on the internalism-externalism debate
• "Justification and Knowledge: New Studies in Epistemology" edited by George S. Pappas (2012) collects recent work on the nature of justification and its relation to knowledge, with a focus on the internalism-externalism debate
• "The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy" has several relevant entries, including "Internalist vs. Externalist Conceptions of Epistemic Justification" by George Pappas and "Reliabilist Epistemology" by Alvin Goldman
• "The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy" also has relevant entries, such as "Epistemic Justification" by Richard Fumerton and "Internalism and Externalism in Epistemology" by John Greco