Strategic Reliabilism: A Naturalistic Approach to Epistemology

Philosophy Compass 3 (5):1049-1065 (2008)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Strategic Reliabilism is a framework that yields relative epistemic evaluations of belief-producing cognitive processes. It is a theory of cognitive excellence, or more colloquially, a theory of reasoning excellence (where 'reasoning' is understood very broadly as any sort of cognitive process for coming to judgments or beliefs). First introduced in our book, Epistemology and the Psychology of Human Judgment (henceforth EPHJ), the basic idea behind SR is that epistemically excellent reasoning is efficient reasoning that leads in a robustly reliable fashion to significant, true beliefs. It differs from most contemporary epistemological theories in two ways. First, it is not a theory of justification or knowledge – a theory of epistemically worthy belief. Strategic Reliabilism is a theory of epistemically worthy ways of forming beliefs. And second, Strategic Reliabilism does not attempt to account for an epistemological property that is assumed to be faithfully reflected in the epistemic judgments and intuitions of philosophers. If SR makes recommendations that accord with our reflective epistemic judgments and intuitions, great. If not, then so much the worse for our reflective epistemic judgments and intuitions.

Similar books and articles

Analytics

Added to PP
2009-01-28

Downloads
509 (#32,633)

6 months
156 (#16,575)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author Profiles

J. D. Trout
Loyola University, Chicago
Michael Bishop
Florida State University

References found in this work

The structure of empirical knowledge.Laurence BonJour - 1985 - Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
What is Justified Belief?Alvin I. Goldman - 1979 - In George Pappas (ed.), Justification and Knowledge. Boston: D. Reidel. pp. 1-25.
In Defense of Pure Reason.Laurence BonJour - 1998 - Cambridge University Press.

View all 32 references / Add more references