WIPS - David Rose, Washington University in St. Louis

Title: Reliability at the Core

The view that knowledge requires reliability (i.e., that knowledge be produced by processes, faculties, etc., that yield mostly true beliefs) is widely held by philosophers.  Recent empirical evidence, however, may provide reason to doubt that reliability is necessary for knowledge.  One of the main findings is that when participants are presented with a case where a protagonist correctly identifies a barn despite the presence of barn façades—i.e., a Fake Barn case—they overwhelmingly attribute knowledge to the protagonist.  As John Turri notes, these findings may serve as “the final exhibit in a conclusive case for abandoning reliabilism in epistemology”. 

Though the experimental evidence suggesting that reliability may not be necessary for knowledge is striking, my aim is to provide empirical evidence suggesting that reliability may indeed be necessary for knowledge.  More specifically, I will argue that—though not sufficient for knowledge— reliability is part of a cross-culturally robust, universal aspect of core folk epistemology that may treat reliability as necessary for knowledge.  I’ll present empirical results from nearly 6,000 people, speaking 16 different languages and from 23 sites around the world to support this.  If I’m right, knowledge reliabilism should not be discarded.  Indeed—and perhaps more importantly—if I’m right then I will have uncovered a cross-culturally robust, universal aspect of core folk epistemology to be added alongside an emerging body of evidence that has uncovered other cross-culturally robust universal aspects of folk epistemology.