Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-gvh9x Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-21T08:26:33.122Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

WHAT THE INTERNALIST SHOULD SAY TO THE TORTOISE

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 April 2015

Extract

Carroll's (1895) short piece “What the Tortoise said to Achilles” in many ways anticipates issues that arise in a number of contemporary controversies. One might argue, for example, that initially plausible attempts to deal with the problem of easy knowledge will land one in the unfortunate position of Achilles who followed the Tortoise down a road that leads to vicious infinite regress. Or consider the conditions required for inferential justification. For idealized inferential justification, I have defended (1995, 2004, 2006) the view that to be justified in believing P on the basis of E one needs to be not only justified in believing E, but justified in believing that E makes probable P (where entailment is the upper limit of making probable). And again, critics have argued that such a strong requirement fails to learn the lesson that Achilles should have been taught by the Tortoise. Even more generally, one might well argue that strong access internalists will need to deal with a variation of Carroll's puzzle even for their accounts of non-inferential justification. In this paper I'll examine these controversies with a mind to reaching a conclusion about just exactly how one can accept intellectually demanding conditions on justified belief without encountering vicious regress.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Bergmann, M. 2006. Justification without Awareness. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bonjour, L. 1985. The Structure of Empirical Knowledge. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Carroll, L. 1895. ‘What the Tortoise Said to Achilles.’ Mind, 4: 278–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, S. 2002. ‘Basic Knowledge and the Problem of Easy Knowledge.’ Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 65: 309–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fumerton, R. 1995. Metaepistemology and Skepticism. Boston, MA: Rowman and Littlefield.Google Scholar
Fumerton, R. 2004. ‘Inferential Internalism and the Presuppositions of Skeptical Argument.’ In Schantz, R. (ed), The Externalist Challenge, pp. 157–68. New York: Walter de Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fumerton, R. 2006. ‘Epistemic Internalism, Philosophical Assurance, and the Skeptical Predicament.’ In Crisp, T. M., Davidson, M., and Vander Laan, D. (eds), Knowledge and Reality: Essays in Honor of Alvin Plantinga, pp. 179–92. Amsterdam: Kluwer.Google Scholar
Huemer, M. 2002. ‘Fumerton's Principle of Inferential Justification.’ Journal of Philosophical Research, 27: 329–40.Google Scholar
Keynes, J. 1921. A Treatise on Probability. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Sosa, E. 2009. Reflective Knowledge, Vol. II. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Taylor, S. 2013. The Problem of Easy Justification. Thesis. Iowa City: University of Iowa.Google Scholar
Vogel, J. 2000. ‘Reliabilism Leveled.’ Journal of Philosophy, 97: 602–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar