Volume V (2022) (2015)
reliabilism can stand up better to their arguments.
II. Responding to Feldman and Conee
Feldman and Conee argue against the reliabilist view, saying that it only serves as an
account of well-foundedness (WF), which is only a part of their evidentialist view. Furthermore, they find reliability to be weaker than their notion of WF. 2
Feldman and Connee’s WF is an addition to their evidentialism that states that, in addition
to having the evidence, one must also base their belief on that evidence. They argue the comparison
to reliabilism is fairly clear - both are concerned with properly using the evidence one has in forming a belief. 3 Feldman and Conee note the difference as such: “According to WF, this occurs when the belief is based on fitting evidence. According to reliabilism, a belief is properly grounded if it results from a belief- forming process that reliably leads to true beliefs.” 4 Feldman and Conee
go on to say that reliabilism contains many unclarities. They give two specific accounts.
First, Feldman and Conee claim that “An unclarity about belief -forming processes arises
because every belief is caused by a sequence of particular events which is an instance of many types of causal processes.” 5 There is an issue with defining a “process” that comes from how
specific one should be. Feldman and Conee give the example of a man named Jones who looks
outside his window to see a bright, shining, disk-shaped object. Jones comes to believe that it is a
flying saucer, although it is actually a light-up frisbee that Jones had given his daughter (and he
remembers doing so). Feldman and Conee point out that there are many different levels of
processes involved; “The sequence of events leading to Jones's belief also falls into many relatively
specific categories such as night-vision-of-a-nearby-object and vision-in-Jones's-precise-
environmental-circumstances. … Finally, there is the maximally specific process that occurs only
when physiological events occur that are exactly like those that led to Jones's belief that he saw a flying saucer.” 6 The range goes from as broad as “vision” to as specific as the exact series of
mental events that occurred in that one instance. Which of these is the relevant one, and how
specific do we have to be?
The first question is easier to answer, given my adjusted account of reliabilism. Part of
2 Richard Feldman and Earl Conee, “Evidentialism,” Philosophical Studies 48, no. 1 (1985): 25. 3 Feldman and Conee, 24.
4 Feldman and Conee, “Evidentialism,” 25. 5 Feldman and Conee, “Evidentialism,” 25. 6 Feldman and Conee, “Evidentialism,” 26.
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