Goldman on Evidence and Reliability

In this chapter, the author regards reliabilism as one of the major achievements of twentieth century philosophy and Alvin Goldman as one of the chief architects of this important theory. It focuses on three related issues in Goldman's epistemology. Goldman has recently been making friendly overtures toward evidentialist epistemologies, and although the author agrees that reliabilism needs some kind of evidentialist element. More specifically, the author think he concedes too much to the evidentialist. In particular, he concedes: that a great many beliefs cannot be justified without evidence, in particular, that some beliefs require nondoxastic evidence; that evidential fit can be understood in non‐process‐reliabilist terms, and that the aforementioned or some similar understanding of evidential fit makes sense of propositional, or ex ante, justification. Goldman has never lost sight of the epistemic significance of ways of coming to believe, and he is well aware of the differences between process reliabilism and indicator reliabilism.