The Difference Between Externalists And Externalism

In trying to understand the criterion for justification of knowledge, philosophers have split into two broad antithetical categories: internalists and externalists. Although both agree that one can justify a given belief, internalists argue that justifications exclusively comes from within a person, whereas externalists contend that external factors play a pivotal role in one justifying a belief. Naturally, there is no correct view; instead, proponents on both sides make logical and substantiated claims for their respective opinions. For instance, it seems plausible to side with the internalists, who posit that the underlying process by which we justify our beliefs comes from self-reflection. However, it’s also conceivable, as externalists

Furthermore, I will attempt to show that although neither position is unequivocally correct, any potential objections to the externalist view are less problematic, and more-easily refutable, than the systematic shortcomings of the internalist view.

Alvin Goldman, a prominent externalist, argues that his proprietary take on externalism, which is a branch of reliabilism that he refers to as historical reliabilism, is the most accurate method for determining justified beliefs. First, though, it’s worth briefly explicating the general reliabilist viewpoint. Simply put, reliabilists argue that “justificatory status of a belief regarding the reliability of the process that caused it. The reliability

First, he asserts that a tremendous amount of beliefs about oneself are stored in memory rather than occurring in the present moment. Following, he contends that “strong internalism threatens a drastic diminution in the stock of beliefs ordinarily deemed justified, and hence in the stock of knowledge, assuming that justification is necessary for knowledge” (Goldman 278). Similarly, he attacks weak internalism, arguing that “past acquisition is irrelevant by the lights of internalism (including weak internalism), because only [one’s] current mental states are justifiers relevant to [their] current belief. All past events are ‘external’ and therefore irrelevant according to internalism” (Goldman 280). To dissect that, Goldman is saying that both forms of internalism are riddled with pitfalls in fundamental understanding, because they negate the common-sense fact that past experiences were, at the moment, subjected to the same chain of justification. For further understanding, if we revisit the example of me knowing my brother’s birthday, according to both strong and weak internalists, unless I had, in a given moment, immediate and definitive reassurance in my belief that I knew the exact date of his birthday, I wouldn’t be able to have a true justified belief about his birthday. Simply put, that doesn’t make sense, and Goldman does a sufficient job of explaining