Ernest Sosa: Externalism :: essays research papers

Ernest Sosa Externalism     Ernest Sosa likes externalism. He thinks that it is intuitively correct.But he moldiness and does agree that it must be clarified in order to avoid certainproblems. So, his mission in this paper is to first define what he calls"Generic Reliabilism," then to set how it is susceptible to certain objections,then to present a modified version of it, and to show that this new version is,in general, better than its predecessor. Let us tactual sensation at his argument.     First, we get the usual definition of generic reliabilism S isjustified in his sentiment that p at t if the tactile sensation is produced by whatsoever facultythat usually produces true beliefs. Then, we get a couple of Alvin Goldmans nonions of justification with Sosas revisions. A belief is strongly justifiediff it is well formed, and by means of a truth conducive process. A belief isweakly justified iff it is "blameless" (not th e result of an intentionalmistake?) but ill-formed, and the believer is not aware that the belief is ill-formed. A belief is superweakly justified iff the process that produces thebelief is unreliable but the proceeds did not intentionally come to hold thebelief because it was acquired unreliably. And, finally, a belief has strongmeta-justification iff the subject neither believes that nor can determine ifthe belief is ill-formed (hence the "meta-" prefix), and the subject is aware ofthe process by which he got the belief and that the process is reliable.OK, seems commonsensical enough. But, Sosa points out, there are a couple ofscenarios (actually, three, but Sosa concentrates mainly on the two listedbelow) in which these conceptions of justification just do not work. The "new grievous demon" problem takes a couple of forms in the article, but what it amountsto is that if a person S attains beliefs through something other than his usualfaculties (e.g. senses, reas oning, etc.) like evil demons or random neurologicalstimulators, or whatever, then that persons beliefs are not attained through areliable process (we are assuming that demons are, as usual, not benevolentbearers of truth). But, we do not want to say, or at least Sosa doesnt, thatthe deceived believer is completely unjustified in his beliefs so, what levelof justification do we assign to his situation? If, by some amazing coincidence,the random processes or demons generate a consistent and coherent set of beliefs,then we can say that the subject is weakly and meta- justified. But, t hatsituation is not very likely, and thus we need the notion of superweak