Abstract: Here is a common ‘intuition’ that you’ll often find expressed regarding the epistemological externalism/internalism distinction. It is the thought that epistemological internalism, whatever its other faults, at least leaves the possession of knowledge a transparent matter; whereas epistemological externalism, whatever its other merits, at least makes the possession of knowledge opaque. It is the status of this view of the externalism/internalism contrast that I wish to evaluate in this paper. In particular, I argue that on the most credible interpretation of this ‘transparency’ thesis it is in fact inconsistent with even a minimal version of epistemological internalism. I conclude that knowledge is opaque on any plausible construal of knowledge, and consider some implications that this result has for the contemporary epistemological debate. I It is now part of the conventional wisdom in epistemology to argue that epistemological externalism, whatever its other virtues, has the huge drawback of leaving the possession of knowledge an opaque affair. In contrast, it is often cited as the main virtue of the internalist position, despite its other vices, to claim that it at least leaves the possession of knowledge a transparent affair.1 It is this comfortable conception of the externalism/internalism debate in epistemology that I wish to challenge here. Before attempting to spell-out what this esoteric notion of 'transparency' is that so eludes an externalist treatment, I shall begin by describing, in the least contentious terms as possible, what the externalism/internalism distinction at least minimally consists in. Despite being an integral part of the contemporary epistemological debate, the exact nature of the epistemic externalism/internalism distinction has always eluded a sharp characterisation. Nevertheless, a consensus of sorts has emerged regarding how, in essence, this contrast should be formulated, and this minimal description should suffice for our purposes here. One finds a neat (and recent) expression of this view what I shall henceforth call the 'Standard View' in the following quotation from John Greco where he characterises the contrast insofar as it applies to justification: Internalism is the position that the conditions for justification must be appropriately internal to the knower's perspective. Roughly, something is internal to S's perspective so long as S is aware of it or could be aware of it merely by reflecting. Externalism is simply the denial of internalism, holding that the conditions for justification need not be within the knower's perspective. [Greco 2000, p. 181] This conception of the internalist position is also echoed by James Pryor in a recent survey article of contemporary epistemology, where he characterises the core internalist thesis as follows:
Publication Year: 2001
Publication Date: 2001-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
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Cited By Count: 4
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