Reliable by which description?
A belief-forming process can be typed narrowly or broadly, changing the evidence about whether it is reliable.
Contemporary philosophy · 1938–2024
Goldman
Goldman shifts epistemic attention from what a believer can inspect internally to whether the process producing a belief reliably connects it with truth.
Alvin Goldman was an American philosopher and a leading figure in post-war epistemology. He developed causal and reliabilist accounts of knowledge and justification, then extended epistemic evaluation to testimony, institutions, media, expertise and collective practices.
KnowledgeAgency
The question he enters
The question Goldman enters
Could a belief be justified because of how reliably it was formed even when the believer cannot explain that process?
The central move
Evaluate the route to belief
Goldman's process reliabilism asks whether a belief-forming method tends to produce true beliefs in relevant conditions. This externalist shift allows perception and memory to yield justification without demanding reflective access to every reason, and it opens social institutions to evaluation by their truth-conduciveness.
Key ideas
Terms that carry the argument.
- Process reliabilism
- A belief is justified when it results from a process that reliably produces true rather than false beliefs.
- Causal theory of knowing
- Knowledge requires an appropriate causal connection between the fact known and the believer's true belief.
- Epistemic externalism
- Justification may depend on truth-conducive features of a process that are not accessible from the believer's own perspective.
- Social epistemology
- The evaluation and design of interpersonal and institutional practices according to their effects on knowledge and error.
Where the view strains
Objections and limits.
Truth-conduciveness is not the only value
Institutions may produce true beliefs while distributing credibility, access or risk unjustly.
Sources and routes
Read the work. Follow the argument.
Primary texts
Where to meet the position.
- JSTORA Causal Theory of KnowingWebAn early externalist proposal linking knowledge to an appropriate causal chain.The Journal of Philosophy 64 (12), 22 June 1967, pp. 357–372; stable JSTOR record 2024268. · Stable journal record with institutional or personal access options and any preview JSTOR makes available. Checked Aug 2026.
- SpringerLinkWhat Is Justified Belief?WebThe paper that formulates process reliabilism as an account of epistemic justification.Chapter 1, pages 1–23, in George S. Pappas, editor, Justification and Knowledge, originally published 1979. · Official publisher abstract and chapter access; download may require an institution or purchase. Checked Aug 2026.
- Google BooksEpistemology and CognitionWebThe major development of process reliabilism and naturalistic epistemology.Harvard University Press, 1986, 437 pages; edition-specific Google Books bibliographic record. · Controlled Google Books record with bibliographic information, library and seller routes, and only the preview permitted for the user's region. Checked Aug 2026.
- Oxford AcademicKnowledge in a Social WorldWebA veritistic framework for evaluating testimony, institutions and public knowledge practices.Oxford University Press, published 14 January 1999; print ISBN 9780198238201, online ISBN 9780191597527, DOI 10.1093/0198238207.001.0001. · Official book record with abstract, contents and institutional access routes. Checked Aug 2026.
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