Question

Explain how the new evil demon problem shows that a person can form beliefs using reliable belief-forming processes but still fail to have justified knowledge.

Answer 1

Reliabilism

As an approach to epistemology, reliabilism focuses on the truth conductiveness in a belief-forming process. A knowledge is considered as a true belief and a certain one only when it is acquired by a reliable process. The same applies for any truth, evidences or justifications that must be obtained based on reliabilism. According to the reliability theory of knowledge, a person 'A' knows a proposition 'x', only if A believes in x, and x is true and that belief if caused by a reliable cognitive process.

The old evil demon problem

The old evil demon problem was raised by Rene Descartes, who imagined that an evil demon of utmost power deceived him using all his energies. He also stated that this demon presented an external world to him which was a complete illusion. So, this old demon problem is defined as a skeptical problem that occurs when a person acknowledges that it is possible to experience perceptions and memories that could be induced a demon. In this case, it is hard to identify what justifications we can provide that we know the external world by our sensory experiences because there is no introspection available.

The new evil demon problem

The new evil demon problem can be explained as follows:

Consider a person 'B', who is represented exactly in the same way as a person 'A', with the same beliefs, experiences, and he remembers, recalls, reasons, and have mental status, intuitions that are exactly the same as person A. But the person B is deceived by a demon, whereas person A is not. By bracketing the skeptical worries, it is assumed that the beliefs of Person B regarding his external world consists of knowledge, whereas the beliefs of person B regarding his external world does not constitute knowledge because he has been deceived. It is also considered that the belief of person A is caused by a process that is reliable and had led him to the truth, whereas the belief of person B is caused by a process that is not reliable. Therefore, the belief of person A is justified, whereas the belief of person B is not justified.

But, Goldman stated that though it is an intuitively powerful argument, it can go wrong because,

* The person B's beliefs are no less justified when compared to the person A's beliefs.

* The processes that caused person B's beliefs are wholly unreliable

* Even if the processes that caused a belief is unreliable, it is possible that their beliefs could be justified.

These conclusions of Goldman were opposing to the reliability theories which stated that reliability is very important for providing justification. So, a person must be in a position that offers grounds for belief for justification, or else, he will fail to have justified knowledge even if his beliefs were formed by reliable process.