Linda Zagzebski's Views On Epistemology

1. In Linda Zagzebski’s book on epistemology, she argues that one must care about having true beliefs, especially in topics that we care about. It is important to think critically when acquiring knowledge and one must be able to tell a true belief from a false belief. When addressing true belief, it is imperative to acknowledge skepticism. “Skepticism is often interpreted as a threat to knowledge” insofar as that most of the time, it is almost impossible to fully guarantee whether or not we are successful or fail at getting to the truth. Additionally, “Skepticism is a threat to conscientious belief, and we may quite rightly fear that there is something wrong with permitting looser standards for the conscientiousness of the belief that we
The value problem in epistemology has been researched endlessly throughout time, starting back from Plato. The value problem examines why knowledge is more valuable than mere true belief. The main idea of reliabilism is that knowledge is true belief that has come about by some sort of reliable epistemic process. When examining this problem, it is absolutely imperative to acknowledge that if knowledge cannot be proven to be more valuable than justified true belief because it produces greater value, then there is no reason to further exploring the value problem. An opponent of this proposition of reliabilism would argue that the epistemic value of such processes derives only from the fact that they tend to produce true beliefs. Reliabilism confers that added belief is given to items created by a reliable process. For example, “a reliable espresso maker is good because espresso is good. A reliable water dripping faucet is not good because dripping water is not good” (Zagzebski, p. 110). Therefore, regardless of whether or not a product is deemed to be reliable, items made by so called reliable processes do not necessarily make it
While people have found over time that some methods are more successful than others, these methods do not work in all circumstances. As such, science and other processes of gaining knowledge change over time.Though this argument is “far from suggesting that it is simply a mystery how the natural sciences can have made many true discoveries, this approach suggests a plausible account of how they have gradually managed to refine, amplify, and extend unaided human cognitive powers” (Haack, p. 17-18). For instance, methods that were most effective in research before the age of technology are not necessarily the same methods that are the most effective now. As a result, the way in which research is conducted needs to be adaptable over time. For instance, what used to be a problem may not be relevant anymore. Furthermore, problems exist nowadays that did not exist or were not on the radar in previous