antireliabilist

Antireliabilism is a position in epistemology that rejects reliability of cognitive processes as a necessary or sufficient condition for justification or knowledge. An antireliabilist is someone who argues that justification comes from factors other than the reliable production of beliefs, such as accessible reasons, evidence, coherence with an agent’s overall belief system, or intellectual virtue.

Overview: Reliabilism holds that a belief is justified or counts as knowledge if it is produced by a reliable process in the appropriate environment. Antireliabilists challenge this link, arguing that reliability alone does not guarantee justification and that individuals can be justified by reasons even when their cognitive processes are fallible or imperfect.

Variants: The term covers a range of non-reliabilist approaches, including internalism and other theories that emphasize factors accessible to the subject rather than external process reliability. Within the antireliabilist family, coherence theories, foundationalist accounts, and virtue epistemology stress the role of rational support, overall coherence among beliefs, or the intellectual character of the believer in securing justification. Some antireliabilist accounts also distinguish knowledge from mere true belief by introducing conditions such as safety, sensitivity, or other normativity-based requirements.

Examples and figures: Laurence BonJour is often cited as a well-known internalist critic of reliabilism. Other proponents of non-reliabilist approaches include various coherentists, foundationalists, and virtue epistemologists who argue that justification and knowledge depend on reasons, evidence, or intellectual virtues rather than on the reliability of cognitive processes alone.

Relationship to current debate: Antireliabilism remains part of ongoing discussions about what counts as justification, warrant, and knowledge, typically contrasted with reliabilist theories and their externalist commitments.