Abstract
Reliabilist theories of knowledge face the “generality problem”; any token of a belief-forming processes instantiates types of different levels of generality, which can vary in reliability. I argue that we exploit this situation in epistemic evaluation; we appraise beliefs in different ways by adverting to reliability at different levels of generality. We can detect at least two distinct uses of reliability, which underlie different sorts of appraisals of beliefs and believers.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
Comesaña 2006 observes that since process tokens are entities that could exist in different possible worlds, in principle we can require merely that a belief be produced by a process token that yields true beliefs in at least most of the possible worlds in which it might occur. Comesaña notes, however, that the generality problem can then be reformulated as the problem of determining the range of environments and outputs over which the process token must yield mostly true beliefs. We might also note that this proposal’s explanatory power is very limited. It would be good to have an account of what properties of the token process are preserved across different possible worlds (with respect to evaluating reliability), but that, of course, is equivalent to asking for the relevant process type.
See Kappel 2006: 10-23 for a critique of various theories of what determines relevant types and ranges. Kappel concludes that no facts determine relevant types and ranges, a position of which space won’t permit a proper discussion.
See Lepock 2006.
There are differences between Sosa’s way of individuating belief-forming processes and the process reliabilists’, but they don’t matter for this section—see §4(b) below.
Except for beliefs used in inferential processes leading to the item of knowledge or beliefs inferred from the item of knowledge.
Patrick Rysiew brought this to my attention.
Axtell argues that a parallel distinction between evaluations of acts and evaluations of actors may help in defending virtue ethics against the objection that robust character traits are too rare to serve a foundational role.
References
Alston, W. P. (1995). How to think about reliability. Philosophical Topics, 23(1), 1–29.
Alston, W. P. (2005). Beyond “justification”: Dimensions of epistemic evaluation. Ithaca, NY: Cornell.
Aristotle. (1941). De caelo. In R. McKeon (Ed.), The basic works of Aristotle. New York: Random House.
Axtell, G. (2010). Agency ascriptions in ethics and epistemology: or, Navigation intersections, narrow and broad. Metaphilosophy, forthcoming.
Bach, K. (1985). A rationale for reliabilism. Monist, 68, 248–263.
Baehr, J. S. (2006a). Character in epistemology. Philosophical Studies, 128, 479–514.
Baehr, J. S. (2006b). Character, reliability, and virtue epistemology. Philosophical Quarterly, 56, 193–212.
Becker, K. (2008). Epistemic luck and the generality problem. Philosophical Studies, 139, 353–366.
Beebe, J. R. (2004). The generality problem, statistical relevance and the tri-level hypothesis. Noûs, 38(1), 177–195.
BonJour, L. (1980). Externalist theories of empirical knowledge. Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 5, 53–73.
BonJour, L., & Sosa, E. (2003). Epistemic justification: Internalism vs. externalism, foundations vs. virtues. Oxford: Blackwell.
Comesaña, J. (2006). A well-founded solution to the generality problem. Philosophical Studies, 129(1), 27–47.
Conee, E., & Feldman, R. (1998). The generality problem for reliabilism. Philosophical Studies, 89(1), 1–29.
Goldman, A. (1986). Epistemology and cognition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard.
Greco, J. (2000). Putting skeptics in their place. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge.
Greco, J. (2003). Knowledge as credit for true belief. In M. DePaul & L. Zagzebski (Eds.), Intellectual virtue: Perspectives from ethics and epistemology (pp. 112–134). Oxford: Oxford.
Greco, J. (2007). The nature of ability and the purpose of knowledge. Philosophical Issues, 17(1), 57–69.
Heller, M. (1995). The simple solution to the problem of generality. Noûs, 29(4), 501–515.
Hookway, C. (2003). How to be a virtue epistemologist. In M. DePaul & L. Zagzebski (Eds.), Intellectual virtue: Perspectives from ethics and epistemology (pp. 183–202). Oxford: Oxford.
Kappel, K. (2006). A diagnosis and resolution to the generality problem. Philosophical Studies, 127, 525–560.
Lepock, C. (2006). Adaptability and perspective. Philosophical Studies, 129(2), 377–391.
Lepock, C. (20xx). Unifying the intellectual virtues. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, forthcoming.
Sosa, E. (1980). The raft and the pyramid: Coherence versus foundations in the theory of knowledge. Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 5, 3–25.
Sosa, E. (1991). Knowledge in perspective. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge.
Sosa, E. (2004). Replies. In J. Greco (Ed.), Ernest Sosa and his critics (pp. 275–325). Malden, MA: Blackwell.
Sosa, E. (2007). A virtue epistemology: Apt belief and reflective knowledge (Vol. I). Oxford, UK: Oxford.
Wright, S. (2009). The proper structure of the intellectual virtues. Southern Journal of Philosophy, 47(1), 91–112.
Zagzebski, L. (1996). Virtues of the mind. Cambridge: Cambridge.
Acknowledgements
I am indebted to perceptive comments and suggestions from Adam Morton, Guy Axtell, and Heather Battaly. An early draft was presented to the Western Canadian Philosophical Association, where Patrick Rysiew gave a very helpful commentary. This research was supported by fellowships from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Lepock, C. How to Make the Generality Problem Work for You. Acta Anal 24, 275–286 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12136-009-0060-6
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12136-009-0060-6