Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-q99xh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-28T00:31:41.306Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A NEW STATISTICAL SOLUTION TO THE GENERALITY PROBLEM

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 April 2017

Samuel Kampa Open the ORCID record for Samuel Kampa [Opens in a new window]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The Generality Problem is widely recognized to be a serious problem for reliabilist theories of justification. James R. Beebe's Statistical Solution is one of only a handful of attempted solutions that has garnered serious attention in the literature. In their recent response to Beebe, Julien Dutant and Erik J. Olsson successfully refute Beebe's Statistical Solution. This paper presents a New Statistical Solution that countenances Dutant and Olsson's objections, dodges the serious problems that trouble rival solutions, and retains the theoretical virtues that made Beebe's solution so attractive in the first place. There indeed exists a principled, rigorous, conceptually sparse, and plausible solution to the Generality Problem: it is the New Statistical Solution.

Type
Articles
Information
Episteme , Volume 15 , Issue 2 , June 2018 , pp. 228 - 244
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

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

Alston, W. 1995. ‘How to Think About Reliability.’ Philosophical Topics, 23: 1–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baumann, P. 2009. ‘Reliabilism – Modal, Probabilistic or Contextualist.’ Grazer Philosophische Studien, 79: 77–89.Google Scholar
Becker, K. 2007. Epistemology Modalized. New York, NY: Routledge.Google Scholar
Becker, K. 2008. ‘Epistemic Luck and the Generality Problem.’ Philosophical Studies, 139: 353–66.Google Scholar
Beebe, J. R. 2004. ‘The Generality Problem, Statistical Relevance and the Tri-Level Hypothesis.’ Noûs, 38: 177–95.Google Scholar
Bishop, M. 2010. ‘Why the Generality Problem is Everybody's Problem.’ Philosophical Studies, 151: 285–98.Google Scholar
Clark, A. 2008. ‘Phenomenal Properties: Some Models from Psychology and Philosophy.’ Philosophical Issues, 18: 406–25.Google Scholar
Comesaña, J. 2006. ‘A Well-Founded Solution to the Generality Problem.’ Philosophical Studies, 129: 27–47.Google Scholar
Conee, E. 2013. ‘The Specificity of the Generality Problem.’ Philosophical Studies, 163: 751–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Conee, E. and Feldman, R. 1998. ‘The Generality Problem for Reliabilism.’ Philosophical Studies, 89: 1–29.Google Scholar
Dawson, M. R. W. 1998. Understanding Cognitive Science. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Dawson, M. R. W. 2013. Mind, Body, World: Foundations of Cognitive Science. Edmonton: Athabasca University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dutant, J. and Olsson, E. J. 2013. ‘Is There a Statistical Solution to the Generality Problem?’ Erkenntnis, 78: 1347–65.Google Scholar
Feldman, R. 1985. ‘Reliability and Justification.’ The Monist, 68: 159–74.Google Scholar
Goldman, A. 1979. ‘What is Justified Belief?’ In Reliabilism and Contemporary Epistemology, pp. 29–49. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Goldman, A. 1986. Epistemology and Cognition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Kelly, S. D. 2001. ‘The Non-Conceptual Content of Perceptual Experience: Situation Dependence and Fineness of Grain.’ Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 62: 601–8.Google Scholar
Marr, D. 1982. Vision. San Francisco, CA: W.J. Freeman.Google Scholar
Matheson, J. D. 2015. ‘Is There a Well-Founded Solution to the Generality Problem?’ Philosophical Studies, 172: 459–68.Google Scholar
McEvoy, M. 2005. ‘Belief-Independent Processes and the Generality Problem for Reliabilism.’ Dialectica, 59: 19–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Neale, S. 1998. ‘Grain and Content.’ Philosophical Issues, 9: 353–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Olsson, E. J. 2016. ‘A Naturalistic Approach to the Generality Problem.’ In McLaughlin, B. and Kornblith, H. (eds), Goldman and His Critics, pp. 178–99. Malden, MA: Blackwell.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Prinz, J. 2007. ‘The Intermediate Level Theory of Consciousness.’ In Schneider, S. and Velmans, M. (eds), Blackwell Companion to Consciousness, pp. 247–60. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Prinz, J. 2012. The Conscious Brain. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Salmon, W. C. 1984. ‘Statistical Explanation.’ In Salmon, W. C., Jeffrey, R. and Greeno, J. (eds), Statistical Explanation and Statistical Relevance, pp. 29–88. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press.Google Scholar
Schmitt, F. F. 1992. Knowledge and Belief. New York, NY: Routledge.Google Scholar
Siegel, S. 2016. ‘The Contents of Perception.’ In Zalta, E. N. (ed.), Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, <http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/perception-contents/>.Google Scholar
Tye, M. 1995. ‘Non-Conceptual Content, Richness, and Fineness of Grain.’ In Gendler, T. and Hawthorne, J. (eds) Perceptual Experience, pp. 504–26. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Wunderlich, M. E. 2003. ‘Vector Reliability: A New Approach to Epistemic Justification.’ Synthese, 136.2: 237–62.Google Scholar