Process Reliabilism holds that a belief B is justified if and only if it is the result of a reliable belief-forming process. Since the late twentieth century, it has been well known that Process Reliabilism faces the Generality Problem (Conee & Feldman, Philosophical Studies, 89, 1998). That is, Process Reliabilism faces the problem of identifying the process type that determines whether a belief B is justified. In this paper I show that the Generality Problem is also a problem for two other inf…
Read moreProcess Reliabilism holds that a belief B is justified if and only if it is the result of a reliable belief-forming process. Since the late twentieth century, it has been well known that Process Reliabilism faces the Generality Problem (Conee & Feldman, Philosophical Studies, 89, 1998). That is, Process Reliabilism faces the problem of identifying the process type that determines whether a belief B is justified. In this paper I show that the Generality Problem is also a problem for two other influential views in epistemology: the Sensitivity Theory presented by Nozick (Philosophical Explanations, 1981) and different versions of the Safety Theory defended by Pritchard (Epistemic Luck, 2005; Journal of Philosophy, 2016). In addition to this, I show that, if these theories do not solve the Generality Problem, they cannot establish whether a belief is sensitive or safe. But, if they cannot establish whether a belief is sensitive or safe, they cannot explain why knowledge cases are knowledge cases and why non-knowledge cases are not knowledge cases.
