Reliabilism is a set of epistemological theories that, over the years, provided coverage of such concepts as justification and knowledge. The most standard type of reliabilism is the so-called process reliabilism. This kind of reliabilism is defined by Becker who states that “the simplest form of process reliabilism regarding knowledge of some proposition p implies that agent S knows that p if and only if S believes that p, p is true, and S’s belief that p is formed by a reliable process” (1).
A discovery that Edmund Gettier made in 1963 provided significant insight into the nature of justification and knowledge. Gettier demonstrated that justified true belief – as postulated by reliabilists – is insufficient to form knowledge. Although Gettier’s counterexamples are somewhat an exception, reliabilism addresses them by postulating that if true belief is caused appropriately, it must be regarded as knowledge. However, if the facts that turned belief to be true are causally related to the belief, it is not sufficient to produce knowledge. These facts and the belief must be connected via means of reliability. This is how reliability addresses the causal theory of knowledge.
One of the most problematic sides of reliabilism is the fact that it often results in resorting to externalism. This means that a person may possess particular knowledge or belief, but they may not know the related evidence or anything else that may make their belief justified. Therefore, basic principles of reliabilism are not able to counter-argue a possibility that belief or knowledge is achievable despite the lack of causes that are necessary to acquire it. This problem remains debated up until this moment and is one of the topics of interest of modern philosophy.
Work Cited
Becker, Kelly. “Reliabilism.”Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Web.