Should Reliabilists Be Worried About Demon Worlds?

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 86 (1):1-40 (2012)
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Abstract

The New Evil Demon Problem is supposed to show that straightforward versions of reliabilism are false: reliability is not necessary for justification after all. I argue that it does no such thing. The reliabilist can count a number of beliefs as justified even in demon worlds, others as unjustified but having positive epistemic status nonetheless. The remaining beliefs---primarily perceptual beliefs---are not, on further reflection, intuitively justified after all. The reliabilist is right to count these beliefs as unjustified in demon worlds, and it is a challenge for the internalist to be able to do so as well.

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Jack Lyons
University of Glasgow

Citations of this work

A Plea for Epistemic Excuses.Clayton Littlejohn - forthcoming - In Julien Dutant Fabian Dorsch (ed.), The New Evil Demon Problem. Oxford University Press.
Theorizing about the epistemic.Stewart Cohen - 2016 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 59 (7-8):839-857.
Epistemic Courage.Jonathan Ichikawa - 2024 - Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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References found in this work

Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man.Thomas Reid - 1785 - University Park, Pa.: Cambridge University Press. Edited by Derek R. Brookes & Knud Haakonssen.
Skepticism and the Veil of Perception.Michael Huemer - 2001 - Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.

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