Abstract
In this paper I consider a recent argument of Timothy Williamson’s that epistemic internalism and content externalism are indeed incompatible, and since he takes content externalism to be above reproach, so much the worse for epistemic internalism. However, I argue that epistemic internalism, properly understood, remains substantially unaffected no matter which view of content turns out to be correct. What is key to the New Evil Genius thought experiment is that, given everything of which the inhabitants are consciously aware, the two worlds are subjectively indistinguishable for them, which is what matters on internalist accounts of epistemic justification. I argue that even if a standard moral of the New Evil Genius intuition is untenable due to considerations arising from content externalism, the case can be understood as supporting epistemic internalism in a way that is wholly compatible with content externalism. In short, epistemic internalism is committed to sameness of justificatory status between subjectively indistinguishable counterparts, not sameness of content of their justifiers.
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Notes
Bonjour (1985) has offered cases of clairvoyance as a way of trying to show that external factors are insufficient for justification. Epistemologists vary in which argument they hold is the main one in defense of internalism, or against externalism, in general. For example, Alvin Goldman (2001), Alvin Plantinga (1993), and William Alston (1989a); (1989b) suggest that internalism is motivated by considerations stemming from epistemic Deontologism. A view advocated by Feldman and Conee (2001) which they regard as a kind of epistemic internalism, called ‘Mentalism’ (which holds that epistemic justification strongly supervenes upon the mental), is offered as the best explanation of intuitive judgments about the cases they provide. Given these different arguments, perhaps there is no main argument for internalism in general; nevertheless, the New Evil Demon case is standardly taken to show external factors (such as reliability) are not necessary for justification, which is an important and central claim internalists make.
I take it that the ‘old’ and ‘new’ Evil Demon problems involve the same thought experiment, but draw different conclusions from it. The ‘old’ problem is the skeptical one, viz., how do we know that we are not dreaming or are the victims of an evil demon that is radically deceiving us? The ‘new’ problem concerns justification, viz., do our counterpart demon victims differ from us in epistemic justification?.
This will of course depend on the circumstances of the envatting. Neta and Pritchard add the qualifier “recently envatted” as way of trying to skirt the problematic issues of content externalism. That is, if the brains were recently envatted, and their language and the meanings of their terms were fixed in much the same way ours were fixed, then the brains would have our same belief contents on many content externalist views. But does Neta and Pritchard’s qualifier really solve the problem? Demonstratives might be thought to pose a special problem here nevertheless. Suppose that a subject S believes that that object is red. His recently envatted twin S* cannot have that same thought since he is hallucinating. So there is at least one proposition that S is justified in believing that S* is not. Neta and Pritchard’s formulation does not avoid this difficulty. But as I will argue below, such results are compatible with epistemic internalism. Key here will be how “sameness” of justification between twins is understood.
James Chase argues for a similar conclusion, though his strategy is different; specifically, he claims that epistemic internalists are committed to at least some content being narrow. See Chase (2001).
On the face of it, Mentalism has very little in common with epistemic internalism traditionally construed; in fact, by not requiring an awareness condition, one might think of Mentalism as an externalist epistemology. For a defense of the claim that Mentalism is tantamount to epistemic externalism, see Bergmann (2006).
By speaking of the phenomenal in this context, I mean to be drawing attention only to the subjective way things seem to the subject that gives rise to the subjective indistinguishability of experiences between a subject and her twin, which is the crucial relation my case relies upon for the compatibility of epistemic internalism and context externalism. I intend to remain neutral on how exactly the notion of subjective indistinguishability is to be analyzed. Metaphysical and epistemological accounts have been offered in characterizing this relation. For a metaphysical account that proceeds in terms of sameness of phenomenal properties, see Farkas (2008). For an account in terms of the epistemic relation of indiscriminability, i.e., that a perfect hallucination cannot be told apart from a veridical perception, but that need not imply sameness of phenomenal features, see Martin (2004) and (2005). What is crucial for my purposes is that whatever the relation is between a subject and her brain-in-a-vat counterpart that allows for subjective indistinguishability, that fixes the ‘internally the same’ relation that is relevant for the epistemic internalism / content externalism issue I discuss below.
One might not have thought it terribly controversial that a subject can be justified in believing something false. However, since some epistemologists have recently begun denying this (e.g., Sutton (2005) and (2007), Littlejohn (manuscript) “The Myth of the False, Justified Belief”), it is worth noting that the New Evil Genius case and the kind of epistemic internalism it implies have the consequence that subjects can be fully justified in believing falsehoods.
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Acknowledgements
Many thanks to a Melbourne audience at the Australasian Association of Philosophy Annual Conference 2008. Thanks especially to Kati Farkas, Vickie Madison, Paul Snowdon, Lee Walters, and an anonymous referee for helpful written comments on early drafts of this paper.
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Madison, B.J.C. On the Compatibility of Epistemic Internalism and Content Externalism. Acta Anal 24, 173–183 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12136-009-0054-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12136-009-0054-4