Date of Award
Spring 5-17-2020
Document Type
Honors Thesis
Department
Philosophy
First Advisor
Susan Feldman
Language
English
Abstract
This thesis concerns the conditions of ascribing knowledge. It draws insight from Goldman’s reliabilism, McDowell and Brandom’s critique on reliabilism, Nozick’s tracking account, contextualism, and a novel approved-list reliabilism approach to provide a reliabilist theory depicting how we perform knowledge attribution in our communities. The thesis views knowledge essentially as a product of belief-forming methods that are deemed reliable. It highlights the indispensability of both external and internal factors in assessing a subject’s knowledge status and how reliability is constantly evaluated by the members of a community. It defends this version of reliabilism against general objections to reliabilism such as the Clairvoyance Problem and the Generality Problem. Finally, it explores how our intuition of knowledge would vary when we encounter new belief-securing technologies.
Recommended Citation
Su, Xiaoyu, "Ascribing Knowledge: An Approved Reliable Methods Account" (2020). Dickinson College Honors Theses. Paper 383.
https://scholar.dickinson.edu/student_honors/383