Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-22dnz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T10:13:17.323Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

A RELIABILISM BUILT ON COGNITIVE CONVERGENCE: AN EMPIRICALLY GROUNDED SOLUTION TO THE GENERALITY PROBLEM

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2013

Abstract

Process-reliabilist analyses of justification and knowledge face the generality problem. Recent discussion of this problem turns on certain untested empirical assumptions that this paper investigates. Three experiments are reported: two are free-naming studies that support the existence of a basic level in the previously unexplored domain of names for belief-forming processes; the third demonstrates that reliability judgments for the basic-level belief-forming process types are very strongly correlated with the corresponding justification and knowledge judgments. I argue that these results lend support to process-reliabilism; I then go on to explore several different ways to make use of them in solutions to the generality problem.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

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

Adler, J. and Levin, M. 2002. “Is the Generality Problem too General?Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 65(1):8797.Google Scholar
Anglin, J. M. 1977. Word, Object, and Conceptual Development New York: W.W. Norton.Google Scholar
Berlin, B., Breedlove, D. E., and Raven, P. H. 1973. “General Principles of Classification and Nomenclature in Folk Biology”. American Anthropologist, 75(1):214–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, R. 1958. “How Shall a Thing be Called?Psychological Review, 65:1421.Google Scholar
Conee, E. and Feldman, R. 1998. “The Generality Problem for Reliabilism”. Philosophical Studies, 89:129.Google Scholar
Cruse, D. A. 1977. “The Pragmatics of Lexical Specificity”. Journal of Linguistics, 153–64.Google Scholar
Downing, P. 1980. “Factors Influencing Lexical Choice in Narrative”. In Chafe, W. L., ed, The Pear Stories: Cognitive, Cultural, and Linguistic Aspects of Narrative Production. Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing Corporation.Google Scholar
Feldman, R. 1985. “Reliability and Justification”. The Monist, 68(2):159–75.Google Scholar
Feldman, R. and Conee, E. 2002. “Typing Problems”. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 65(1):98105.Google Scholar
Goldman, A. I. 1976. “Discrimination and Perceptual Knowledge”. Journal of Philosophy, 73:771–91.Google Scholar
Goldman, A. I.. 1979. “What is Justified Belief?” In Pappas, G. S., ed, Justification and Knowledge, volume 17 of Philosophical Studies Series in Philosophy, 123. Dordrecht, Holland: Reidel.Google Scholar
Goldman, A. I.. 1992. “Epistemic Folkways and Scientific Epistemology”. In Goldman, A. I., ed, Liaisons: Philosophy Meets the Cognitive and Social Sciences, 155–75. MIT Press/Bradford Books.Google Scholar
Heller, M. 1995. “The Simple Solution to the Problem of Generality”. Noûs, 29(4):501–15.Google Scholar
John, O. P., Hampson, S. E., and Goldberg, L. R. 1991. “The Basic Level of Personality-trait Hieararchies: Studies of Trait Use and Accessibility in Different Contexts”. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 60:348–61.Google Scholar
Jönsson, M. L. forthcoming. “Linguistic Convergence in Verbs for Belief Forming Processes”. Philosophical Psychology.Google Scholar
Jönsson, M. L. (submitted). “The Goodness of Good Categories”. Manuscript submitted for publication.Google Scholar
Lewis, D. 1986. “Causal Explanation”. In Lewis, D., ed, Philosophical Papers Volume II, 214–40. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Morris, M. W. and Murphy, G. L. 1990. “Converging Operations on a Basic Level in Event Taxonomies”. Memory and Cognition, 18(4):407–18.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Murphy, G. L. 2002. The Big Book of Concepts. London: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Olsson, E. J. (forthcoming). “A Naturalistic Approach to the Generality Problem”. In Kornblith, H. and McLaughlin, B., eds, Goldman and His Critics. Blackwell.Google Scholar
Pickering, M. and Garrod, S. 2004. “Towards a Mechanistic Psychology of Dialogue”. Behavioural and Brain Sciences, 27:169226.Google Scholar
Rosch, E. 1978. “Principles of Categorization”. In Rosch, E. and Lloyd, B. B., eds, Cognition and Categorization. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Rosch, E., Mervis, C. B., Gray, W. D., Johnson, M. D., and Boyes-Braem, P. 1976. “Basic Objects in Natural Categories”. Cognitive Psychology, 8:382439.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rysiew, P. 2011. “Epistemic Contextualism”. In Zalta, E. N., ed, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Winter 2011 edition.Google Scholar
Tanaka, J. W. and Taylor, M. E. 1991. “Object Categories and Expertise: Is the Basic Level in the Eye of the Beholder”. Cognitive Psychology, 15:121–49.Google Scholar
Tversky, B. and Hemenway, K. 1983. “Categories of Environmental Scenes”. Cognitive Psychology, 15:121–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vallacher, R. R. and Wegner, D. M. 2011. “Action Identification Theory”. In Van Lange, P. A. M., Kruglanski, A. W., and Higgins, E. T., eds, Handbook of Theories of Social Psychology, volume 1, pages 327–49. SAGE Publications Ltd.Google Scholar
Wisniewski, E. J. and Murphy, G. L. 1989. “Superordinate and Basic Category Names in Discourse: A Textual Analysis”. Discourse Processes, 12:245–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar