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ALVIN I. GOLDMAN, Epistemology and Cognition, Harvard Univer- sity Press, 1986

Reliabilism in epistemology takes the notion of a reliable belief producing process to be a core concept in an elucidation of knowledge and epistemic justification. In a series of widely respected articles, Goldman gave us an early version of this theory.’ Epistemology and Cognition (hereafter “EC”) lifts the theory to a quite new stage of development. EC adds to reliabilist epistemology an appreciation of epistemic values additional to truth acquisition (e.g., power, speed, rationality and originality) and, more importantly, presents epistemo- logical theory as a theory to be permeated by the discoveries of cognitive science. We are given a quite transformed epistemology in this important book.

EC is divided into two parts and the scope of each is very broad. In Purr I , Goldman addresses particular challenges to reliabilism that have been madc and makes significant revisions in the main claims of reliabilism. In addition, he rightly treats epistemology as sensitive to decisions in other areas of philosophy. As a consequence, he takes stands in many very major areas of philosophy; he discusses, for example, realist construals of truth and recent scepticism about the content of mental states. At the same time, EC is accessible to readers other than professional philosophers: Goldman includes in his discussion fundamental problems and basic distinctions (e.g., Chapter I begins with “Beliefs, Assertions and Propositions”). As a result, non- specialists, including reasonably sophisticated undergraduates, should be able to learn a great deal, while even dissenting colleagues will find the book stimulating.

There are drawbacks to the inclusiveness of Goldman’s approach. Not all the issues can be satisfactorily treated, as Goldman clearly knows. For example, he tells us on p. 51 that his treatment of the important generality problem gives us only “a promising lead”; on p. 55, the discussion of relevant alternatives ends with his noting that he does not have a detailed theory of relevance; and on p. 163 he tells us his treatment of theories of belief content which “imperil” his epistemic project is only “a cursory look”. The swiftness with which some issues get treated does sometimes make it difficult to know how to begin to

’ See (i) “Discrimination and Perceptual Knowledge”, The Journal of Philosophy 73 (1976). pp. 771-91; reprinted in Essays on Knowledge and Justification, ed. G . S. Pappas and M. Swain (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1978); (ii) “What is Justified Belief?” pp. 1-23 in Justification and Knowledge, ed. B. S . Pappas (Dordrecht: D . Reidel, 1979) and (iii) “The Internalist Conception of Justification”, pp. 27-52, Midwest Studies in Philosophy, Vol. 5: Studies in Epistemology, ed. by P. French et al. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1980).

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assess a claim being made. For instance, an important ingredient in Goldman’s explication of reliability is the notion of a normal world, but as for what normal worlds are, we are told only that “these are the worlds consistent with our general beliefs about the actual world” (p. 107) without being told who’s included in the “our” or why we should suppose that there are worlds consistent with all our general beliefs (as opposed to some consistent subset).’ But at the same time, the scope and the sensitivity to needs of non-specialist readers make Epistemology and Cognition an extremely useful book.

In Part Two Goldman gives us extensive discussions of research current in cognitive science, which he sees as very important to epistemology. One of the ways in which it is important is, as I explain below, that, according to Goldman, the basic principles of epistemology contain a place to be filled by discoveries in cognitive science. Goldman also sees research in cognitive science as presenting considerations potentially capable of deciding philosophical issues, once both the science and the philosophy are properly regimented by a right epistemology. Among the questions to be either decided or illuminated are (i) the adequacy of foundationalism versus coherentism (e.g., 194- 195), (ii) one aspect of the analytichynthetic controversy (pp. 299-304) and (iii) the applicability of a Bayesian model of belief revision (Chapters 14 through 16). No epistemologist should remain ignorant of these discussions and philosophers working in other areas should find Part II of EC, where most of the discussion of cognitive science occurs, at least fascinating.

Though EC is an impressive achievement, there are some imporatnt issues which Goldman leaves unaddressed. Before I raise them, I will give some indication of the central features of the new reliabilism. The most important revisions in Goldman’s reliabilism occur in Chapters four through six. Justified beliefs are “proper doxastic attitudes” (p. 59) and, at the most abstract level, justification is conformity with rules. The principle giving the framework of the system is:

(P3) S’s believing p at t is justified if and only if (a) S’s believing p at t is permitted by a right system of J-rules, and (b) this permission is not undermined by S’s cognitive state at t.

J-rules are justification rules, those rules non-undermined conformity with which secures justification. A belief is permitted by a J-rule when, to put it roughly, the belief is properly a product of a process or method endorsed by a J-rule. There are two major questions: What is the

Paul K. Moser discusses problems with Goldman’s conception of normal worlds in “Reliabilism and Relevant Worlds”, Philosophia 18 (1988).

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relevant rightness? What gives us the content of such rules? Judging criteria of rightness by a combination of intuitions, general considera- tions of plausibility and considerations of “reflective equilibrium” (p. 81) Goldman argues for consequentialism in epistemology, and, more specifically, argues that the right rules are those which promote verific consequences (i .e., believing truths and not believing false- hoods). There are also demands on the formulations of the rules and, on Goldman’s picture, these demands give an important place to cognitive psychology for two related reasons: (1) cognitive science is taken to be a major resource in our investigating the empirical question of how the verific consequences are to be secured and (2) cognitive science will illuminate and employ an important distinction between processes and methods. “Justification centrally rests on the use of suitable psycho- logical processes . . . [which are] basic elementary processes, not acquired techniques that are mentally encoded and applied” (p. 92). The acquired techniques are methods; “various sorts of algorithms, heuristics, or learnable methodologies” (p. 93) while processes include standard perceptual processes, acquiring beliefs and retaining them in memory, and certain patterns of deductive and inductive reasoning (p. 104). Processes are central because the use of a method yields justification only if the method was acquired by the use of justification producing processes.

With the introduction of the notions of method and process we are in a position to raise some important questions about Goldman’s account. Goldman wants to give us an externalist, objectivist’s account of justification and such accounts want typically to avoid references to a believer’s epistemic assessments of the processes used. And, for example, Goldman’s bringing in children who lack a concept of validity (on p. 86) appears to utilize just such an externalist, objectivist constraint on the content of J-rules. But can such an externalist give us an account of what it is to reason deductively or inductively? Goldman proceeds with the very widely held assumption that our understanding of terms such as “deductive reasoning” and “inductively inferring” does not commit us to any one epistemic theory. But it is really far from clear that the assumption is correct. Goldman himself gives us reasons for thinking that what an inference is cannot be explained in terms of beliefs causing beliefs, even if we supplement the notion of causing with syntactic and semantic constraints (p. 85). And it is arguable that what more is needed to expressible only within an internalist, subjectivist account; that is, it may be the case that a believer’s epistemic appraisals are an essential aspect of in fe r~ ing .~

A second, related problem: Are the epistemically important factors Robert Audi argues for such an inclusion in “Belief, Reason, and Inference”,

Philosophical Topics 1 (1986), pp. 27-65. I argue, from a somewhat different perspective, for this conclusion in my forthcoming “Why Reasons Are Not Causes”.

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always correctly describable in terms of permitted belief producing methods and processes? Might not a belief, P, be epistemically important to the justification of another belief, Q, without being causally related at all? An example: the following claims at least appear consistent: (a) at some time t Rebecca has an extremely large number of justified beliefs about the details of her ordinary life in any upcoming week (e.g. post offices will be opened on Thursday afternoons, banks are closed on Sundays, when it gets dark it is time for dinner, etc.) and (b) she cites correctly as some of her justifying reasons her beliefs about her geographical local and yet (c) on traveling abroad she suspends the beliefs mentioned in (b) while retaining many of the beliefs in (a). While the persistance of her (a)-beliefs - a kind of phenomenon many people have experienced, surely - does not entail that some of the (a)-beliefs are causally independent of the (b)-beliefs, it should raise a question about whether causality is playing an essential role in the justification of (a)-beliefs by (b)-beliefs. Further, we should note that epistemic reasons have a feature which is a peculiar feature for causes to have. One’s reasons are time sharing; that is, if P is one’s reason for believing Q at t, then one must believe P at t. This fact suggests that the epistemic interest in reasons is at least not simply an interest in causally related beliefs, for beliefs do not have to be time sharing in order to be causally related. Goldman appears to accept the very common assumption that what is epistemically relevant is causally related. This assumption is what is behind an apparent agreement in the literature that reliabilists and more traditionalist epistemologists can at least lay claim to the same territory. But the assumption is q~es t ionable .~

These considerations can be used to raise a question about the unity of the factual basis for epistemic evaluations. Goldman, like most other epistemologists, holds that, at least at the foundations of the theory, there is a single criterion or a closely related family of criteria of justification (though there is a great deal of room in Goldman’s theory for extended families of criteria and somewhat altenative views within the reliabilist paradigm). It is at least in part an assumption about such unity that drives the generalizing in Goldman’s (and others’) arguments. But might we not decide that inferring, for example, should be given an internalist treatment without wanting to be committed about perception? And for this reason one might question, among other things, some of the arguments behind the view I attributed to Goldman above, that cognitive science can decide (to some extent) the adequacy of coherentism and foundationalism. For example, one of his criticisms (p. 198), that (one form of) coherentism appears untenable because it

I question and reject this assumption in “Why Reasons Are Not Causes”. Robert Audi argues for the thesis in “The Causal Structure of Indirect Justification”, 80 (1983), pp. 398-415.

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omits factors cognitive science shows to be causally related to the reliability of sume processes, seems to suppose a conception of unity for which we are not really given arguments.

Partly because of the influence of his earlier work, Goldman is now not alone in seeing many of the issues in epistemology as not decidable without considerable, critical attention being paid to cognitive science. But the achievements of this book remain highly original and significant. This is an important book.5

Anne Jaap Jacobson Rutgers University New Brunswick. NJ 08903 USA

I thank James Lance Cooke, Martin Cunningham and Sean Nichols for a useful discussion of Epistemology and Cognition.