Can We Reconcile Content Externalism with Justificatory Internalism?

Abstract

In epistemology, many philosophers think that epistemic justification is an internal matter. According to them, a belief is justified by evidence, which is supposed to be internal (whatever it means). Others disagree. What justifies a belief is a reliable belief-forming process, and reliability is an external matter. In semantics, a similar debate has attracted philosophers’ attention. Convinced by Putnam’s thought experiment, many contemporary philosophers think that the content of belief does not supervene on internal states. Those who believe in so-called narrow contents are not surrendering, however. Thus, we have two debates having the same name: the internalism vs. externalism debates in semantics and epistemology. The natural question is, “Aren’t the two debates deeply related?” Of course, they are. Indeed, there is a powerful argument for the incompatibility between justificatory internalism and content externalism. Interestingly, Audi(2010b) suggests a strategy to reconcile the two philosophical views, but Williamson(2007) criticizes. In this paper, I argue that Williamson’s critique is not successful, but there is a better argument for the same conclusion.