Internalism Defended Author(S): Richard Feldman and Earl Conee Source: American Philosophical Quarterly, Vol
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Internalism Defended Author(s): Richard Feldman and Earl Conee Source: American Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 38, No. 1 (Jan., 2001), pp. 1-18 Published by: University of Illinois Press on behalf of North American Philosophical Publications Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20010019 Accessed: 08/01/2009 17:48 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=illinois. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1995 to build trusted digital archives for scholarship. We work with the scholarly community to preserve their work and the materials they rely upon, and to build a common research platform that promotes the discovery and use of these resources. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. University of Illinois Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to American Philosophical Quarterly. http://www.jstor.org American Philosophical Quarterly Volume 38, Number 1, January 2001 INTERNALISM DEFENDED Richard Feldman and Earl Conee Anternalism in epistemology has been get? the terms are routinely applied to theories ting bad press lately. Externalism is that predate their use. Thus, many propo? ascendant, partly because insurmountable nents of theories of justification have not problems for internalism are supposed to classified their views as internalist or have been identified.1 We oppose this trend. externalist. The recent literature is, there? In our view the purported problems pose fore, the best source of information about no serious threat, and a convincing argu? the nature of the distinction. Here are a few ment for internalism is untouched by the examples of how internalism has been recent criticism. identified. Laurence BonJour writes: Our main here is to refute goal objections most The generally accepted account... is to internalism. We what begin by offering that a theory of justification is internalist if we think is the best to understand the way and only if it requires that all of the factors distinction between exter? internalism and needed for a belief to be epistemically justi? nalism. We then present a new argument fied for a given person be cognitively for internalism. This frees internalism from accessible to that person, internal to his cog? nitive what we regard as suspect deontological perspective.2 underpinnings. Finally, we reply to what Robert Audi writes: we take to be the most significant objec? Some examples suggest that justification is tions to internalism. grounded entirely in what is internal to the mind, in a sense that it is acces? I.What is Internalism? implying sible to introspection or reflection by the we Internalism and externalism are views subject?a view might call internalism about about which states, events, and conditions justification.3 can contribute to epistemic justification? Alvin Plantinga writes: the sort of that, in sufficient justification The basic thrust of internalism in epistemol is a condition for strength, necessary ogy, therefore, is that the properties that Use of the terms "internalist" knowledge. confer warrant upon a belief are properties and "externalist" to classify theories of to which the believer has some special sort justification is a recent development, and of epistemic access.4 1 2 / AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICALQUARTERLY John Pollock writes that: the special kind of access on which many internalist theories can reach Internalism in epistemology is the view that rely only mental items, and all mental items, only internal states of the cognizer can be rel? perhaps or at least all that be counted as evant in determining which of the cognizer's might play? a beliefs are justified.5 ing role in justification. We think that simplicity and clarity are Finally, Ernest Sosa characterizes one ver? best served by understanding internalism sion of internalism this way: as mentalism. "Internalism" is a recent Justification requires only really proper technical term. It has been introduced to thought on the part of the subject: if a be? refer to a variety of theories in epistemol liever has obtained and sustains his belief ogy that share some vaguely defined salient through wholly appropriate thought, then the feature. Any definition of the term is to believer is justified in so believing?where some extent Mentalism codi? the appropriateness of the thought is a mat? stipulative. fies one standard in which the word ter purely internal to the mind of the subject, way has been used. and not dependent on what lies beyond.6 Somewhat more internalism as We find two distinct but related precisely, closely we characterize it is committed to the fol? characterizations of internalism in passages two theses. The first asserts the such as these. One characterization uses a lowing strong of notion of access. What we shall call supervenience epistemic justifi? cation on the mental: "accessibilism" holds that the epistemic S. The status of a justification of a person's belief is deter? justificatory person's doxastic attitudes strongly supervenes on mined by things to which the person has the person's occurrent and dispositional some special sort of access. BonJour calls mental states, events, and conditions. this access a "suitable awareness."7 Audi thesis out a says that the access is through "introspec? The second spells principal tion or reflection." Others say that the implication of S: access must be "direct."8 The quotations M. If any two possible individuals are exactly a from Pollock and Sosa suggest somewhat alike mentally, then they are exactly alike same are different account. They suggest that justificationally, e.g., the beliefs internalism is the view that a person's be? justified for them to the same extent.10 liefs are things that are justified only by (M) implies that mental duplicates in differ? internal to the mental life. We person's ent possible worlds have the same attitudes shall call this version of internalism "men justified for them. This cross world compari? talism."9 A mentalist may assert that theory son follows from the strong supervenience is determined oc justification entirely by condition in (S).11 Externalists characteristi? current mental factors, or by dispositional cally hold that differences in justification can ones as well. As as the that are long things result from contingent non-mental differ? said to contribute to are in the justification ences, such as differing causal connections mind, the view as a ver? person's qualifies or reliability. Theories that appeal to such sion of mentalism. factors clearly deny (S) and (M). Thus, our We think it that have likely philosophers way of spelling out the internalism/exter not mentalism from accessibilism separated nalism distinction properly classifies because have assumed that the they tacitly characteristically externalist views. extensions of the two do not differ in any One advantage of our way of understand? way. have assumed that significant They ing the distinction between internalism and INTERNALISMDEFENDED / 3 one externalism in epistemology is that it Thus, modest asset of mentalism is closely parallels the counterpart distinction that it renders readily intelligible the nomi? to in the philosophy of mind.12 In the philoso? nal connection of epistemic internalism phy of mind case, the main idea is to mind internalism. A much stronger consid? that it turns distinguish the view that the contents of eration in favor of mentalism is as we attitudes depend entirely on things within out to be entirely defensible, shall a person's own cognitive apparatus from try to show. the view that there are factors external to IL A Defense of Internalism the person that help to determine attitudinal content. Mind internalism is naturally ren? Our argument for internalism focuses on dered as a supervenience thesis. Roughly, the pairs of examples that we take to be repre? thesis is that a person's mental content su? sentative. Either in one member of the pair pervenes on the person's "purely internal" someone has a justified belief in a propo? states, events, and conditions. The relevant sition while someone else's belief in that as supervenience base cannot be specified proposition is not justified, or one person's "the mental," as we have done for epistemic belief is better justified than the other's. internalism, since a mental states, person's We contend that these contrasts are best events, and conditions are trivially suffi? explained by supposing that internal dif? cient for the person's attitudes with their ferences make the epistemic difference. specific contents. But the root idea is the Here are the examples. same. The mind internalist is trying to ex? Example 1) Bob and Ray are sitting in clude such plainly external factors as the an air-conditioned hotel lobby reading environmental causal origins and the so? yesterday's newspaper. Each has read that cial milieu of the person's attitudes. it will be very warm today and, on that Likewise, the epistemic internalist is prin? basis, each believes that it is very warm cipally opposed to the existence of any today. Then Bob goes outside and feels the justification-determining role for heat.