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Similarities Between Nozick And Reliabilism

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Similarities Between Nozick And Reliabilism
Robert Nozick and Reliabilism Robert Nozick is an American political philosopher, who is well-known as father of libertarianism. Reliabilism is one of the approaches to epistemology that explains the belief forming process with true conduciveness. According to Professor Bernecker, Nozick defines reliabilism as “what qualifies a true belief as knowledge is its reliable linkage to the facts that make the belief true.” However, Nozick adds that a belief must be both true and reliably true, which means it also have to track the facts. Basic aspect of reliabilism is, “S knows that p if and only if when p is true, S believes that p, and S’s belief is reliably true.” The statement itself is extremely simple—our belief is relied by the truth. The …show more content…
The variation condition handles both helpful and dangerous Gettier cases. It proposes that if any circumstance is not true, then an individual would not believe that to be true. The counterexample of helpful Gettier case is when Smith and Jones applied for the same job. Smith says that Jones is the man who will get the job and he has 10 coins in his pocket, and this is reliably true. Thus, people can think that the man who will get the job has 10 coins in his pocket. However, Smith is justified to believe that the man who has 10 coins in his pocket will get the job, and this is Jones. However, Smith might also have 10 coins in his pocket in this case. Thus, he does not know if he will get the job or not since he violates the variation condition. Helpful Gettier cases happens when an individual is in the lucky situation; if the lucky situation was absent, then the subject would not have a justified true belief. Furthermore, the example of dangerous Getteir case can be the example of the Fake Barn case. This case states that if p were not the case, then the believer would not believe that p is true. Henry, the driver, only believes what he sees now without thinking other possibility of circumstances. Thus, even though Henry is looking at the Fake Barn, he still believes that it is a real barn since …show more content…
Simply, the belief must be non-accidentally true. Nozick solved the Gettier problem by stating that the case must be in a reliable relationship to the facts that make the belief true in order to make a belief to qualify as justified. Nozick’s expression of the reliable relationship can be explained by the two counterfactuals. While the variation condition states that if p were not true, then S would not believe that p, adherence condition states that if p were, contrary to fact, true, then S would believe that p. These two counterfactuals confirm to know that p, the belief, is not accidentally true. Moreover, while the variation condition demands sensitivity to the falsity of p, the adherence condition demands sensitivity to the truth of p. This simply means that the beliefs and facts vary together; S believes that p because p is true. However, Nozick thinks that the adherence condition is so demanding that it rules out some obvious cases of knowledge. Of course, the adherence condition can be look strong, but it is necessary in order to get counterintuitive results. According to Nozick’s idea, a belief that satisfies these conditions is one that follows the facts that make it true. In addition, the variation condition and adherence condition do not need to consist in possible worlds, but the truth of the statement is compatible with a

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