Process Reliabilism Laurence Bonjour

¶ … Reliablism & Bonjour's Objections

The central belief of process reliabilism is the belief in the reliability of the causal process. Its central tenant is what is observed regularly or reliably as a chain of events in a process can be relied up. However, the philosopher Louis Bonjour objects firstly that such a presumption will always be tenuous because one does not know if the senses in question that observe the causal connections are reliable. Thus, one cannot verify the senses accurately or reliably, because although one may see, one does not have to know how the eye works to apprehend in vision. The process occurs before the apprehension of the reliability of the apparatus of the eye, nose, ear, etc.

Probabilistic inferences are even more problematic when they do not depend upon immediate sensory data, such as clairvoyance. Although it may sound, the author acknowledges, absurd to make a comparison between what is internally and subjectively justified, like clairvoyant data, and what one sees with the eyes, neither process is inherently reliable because both fail the same test -- they cannot be verified because the possessor of both internal and external senses cannot verify how they work, while they are working. Thus, simply because Norman believes or has a sense that his hunches regarding the potential location of the President of the United States are right, according to process reliabilism, they are correct. However, although it goes contrary to the theory of process reliabilism, our non-sensory common sense indicates to the balanced mind, this coincidence does not mean that he is not crazy -- even if the senses prove him right, in this one instance, this does not mean that Norman is clairvoyant.