Volume V (2022) (2015)
Feldman and Conee’s argument is that “Since the sequence of events leading to his belief is an
instance of many types of process, the answer depends upon which of these many types is the relevant one.” 7 The difficulty comes in trying to decide which process is the “relevant” one.
However, if we allow for multiple processes per belief, there is no trouble with deciding on a single
relevant process, because all processes involved that use evidence as input are accounted for in the
overall justifiedness of the belief. There is no single relevant process, so the question is no longer
an issue.
The second issue also becomes less threatening, although more can be done to address it.
With so many different levels of specificity, it seems there would be an overwhelming number of
different overlapping processes to consider Must every level be taken into account? I would say
yes, to an extent. Differing levels of specificity should be considered, but only as far as they add
relevant changes to the belief- forming process. For example, “vision” is a belief -forming process
(using visual stimuli as evidence to create a belief about what is being seen); “night vision” is
another process; both processes are accounted for because trying to see reliably changes when the
environment is dark. However, “vision” and “daylight vision” would be redundant because it is
assumed that vision is working normally in well-lit conditions.
What about the issue of there being a process that is the exact mental events that occurred
on one specific occasion? I will call this the exact process. Since the exact process would only
occur once, it seems there is no way it can be reliable. I have two responses. First, it should follow
from this observation that this would be a problem with every belief because every belief could be
said to have an exact process. Since it is a problem with every belief, however, it becomes a
problem for no beliefs. Since every belief has an exact process, and every exact process adds the
same amount of justifying power to the belief (that is, assumedly none, since the exact process
cannot be shown to be reliable - the only question is whether it simply adds nothing or actually
detracts from the overall justifiedness), then it becomes the easiest process to account for in every
case. One could even argue this is grounds to outright disregard the exact process.
If my second response to the exact process problem succeeds, then my first one becomes
irrelevant (I included both in case the second does not succeed). In truth, I would say that there is
no “exact process” because if one tried to capture the exact mental events that lead to the belief in
question, they would find many separate processes all working together (which we are already
7 Feldman and Conee, “Evidentialism,” 25.
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