Internalism defined

We may define internalism in epistemology as follows.

(I) The facts about an individual's epistemic status (of one sort or another) supervene on facts that are “internal” to the individual.

We get different versions of epistemic internalism depending on how the notion of “internal to the indvidual” is understood. One important version of epistemic internalism is Privileged Access Internalism.⁶

(I-PA) The facts about an individual's epistemic status (of one sort or another) super­vene on facts to which the individual has privileged access.

A different way to understand the notion of “internal to the knower” is due to Conee and Feldman. Here is what Conee and Feldman say with regards to their “mentalism” about justi­fication.

internalism is the view that a person's beliefs are justified only by things that are internal to the person's mental life.We shall call this version of internalism ‘mentalism.' A mentalist theory may assert that justification is determined entirely by occurrent mental factors, or by dispositional ones as well. As long as the things that are said to contribute to justification are in the person's mind, the view qualifies as a version of mentalism.⁷

Accordingly, we may define “Mental State Internalism” as follows:

(I-MS) The facts about an individual's epistemic status (of one sort or another) supervene on facts about the individual's mental life.

We saw that evidentialism entails epistemic individualism, and in fact further restricts the fac­tors that determine epistemic status to the individual’s evidence. Clearly enough, internalism also entails individualism, and does so by further restricting what resources of the individual contribute to positive epistemic status. In fact, internalism can be viewed as a kind of epistemic individualism on steroids—the only epistemic resources available to the individual (the only materials that can contribute to her epistemic status) are now those to which she has privileged access.

Here is another way to look at it. Epistemic individualism was defined in terms of independ­ence from other persons. In effect, internalism is defined in terms of independence from the world in general. As with individualism and other persons, the world can contribute, but only insofar as such contributions are evaluated and validated by the individual. In this sense, only pseudo­dependence on the world is allowed.

23.4.1 Internalism and scepticism

It is widely acknowledged that internalism at least threatens to be a skeptical view. Specifically, internalists incur the burden of showing how such restricted epistemic resources can account for adequate epistemic standing vis-a-vis beliefs about the external world, other minds, the past, laws of nature, etc. Sometimes the problem is characterized in terms of evidential support: How can the meager evidence that the internalist allows herself support beliefs about external objects, the past, etc. Other times the problem is characterized in terms of circularity: How can the internalist satisfy herself that her perception is reliable, without using her perception to do so? More generally, how can the internalist satisfy herself that she has any reliable grasp on external world facts, using only the resources she has allowed herself, and without falling into circularity, which validation can’t tolerate?⁸

To the extent that the internalism fails to answer these worries, the non-skeptical internalist will be characterized by illusions of self-sufficiency. Suppose the internalist gives up on answer­ing these worries and embraces skepticism. Then she will have given up the illusion of self­sufficiency, but she will still be embracing the ideal.

23.4.2 An analogy to the practical realm

In The Fragility of Goodness, Martha Nussbaum characterizes Greek thought as preoccupied with the vulnerability of human excellence and happiness to the contingencies of good fortune. According to Nussbaum, this preoccupation motivated a retreat in value to what can be guaran­teed by one’s own agency.

the aspiration to rational self-sufficiency in Greek ethical thought: the aspiration to make the goodness of a good human life safe from luck through the controlling power of reason... What happens to a person by luck will be just what does not happen through his or her own agency, what just happens to him, as opposed to what he does or makes. In general, to eliminate luck from human life will be to put that life, or the most important things in it, under the control of the agent (or of those elements in him with which he identifies himself), removing the element of reliance upon the external and undependable⁹

In this regard, for example, Nussbaum cites Plato's defense in the Phaedo and Republic “of a life of self-sufficient contemplation, in which unstable activities and their objects have no intrinsic value.”¹⁰

A similar dynamic is played out in the Kantian retreat to a realm of pure agency. Consider the following oft-cited passage from Kant's Groundwork.

A good will is not good because of what it effects or accomplishes, because of its fit­ness for attaining some proposed end: it is good through its willing alone, that is, good in itself... Even if, by some special disfavor of destiny... this will is entirely lacking in power to carry out its intentions; if by its utmost effort it still accomplishes nothing, and only good will is left. then it would still shine like a jewel for its own sake as something which has its full value in itself.¹¹

This conception of the agent is both endorsed and lamented by modern-day Kantians such as Thomas Nagel. In a now-famous discussion, Nagel notes the various ways in which a human life is subject to luck, and concludes that, in this light, the sphere “genuine agency” seems to disappear.

If one cannot be responsible for consequences of one's acts due to factors beyond one's control, or for antecedents of one's acts that are properties of temperament not subject to one's will, or for the circumstances that pose one's moral choices, then how can one be responsible even for the stripped-down acts of the will itself, if they are the product of antecedent circumstances outside of the will's control? The area of genuine agency, and therefore of legitimate moral judgment, seems to shrink under this scrutiny to an extensionless point.¹²

Importantly, Nagel is willing to give up the illusion of pure agency but not the ideal. Rather than rejecting a notion of agency that makes moral responsibility and moral value impossible, he accepts the skeptical conclusion.

I believe that in a sense the problem has no solution. as the external determinants of what someone has done are gradually exposed, in their effect on consequences, char­acter, and choice itself, it becomes gradually clear that actions are events and people things. Eventually nothing remains which can be ascribed to the responsible self, and we are left with nothing but a portion of the larger sequence of events, which can be deplored or celebrated, but not blamed or praised.¹³

In effect, internalism does for intellectual evaluation what Plato and Kant do for practical evalu­ation—it retreats to a sphere, or tries to retreat to a sphere, where the agent and her success are beholden to nothing and no one. The result is that only a thin kind of agency holds value, and only a thin kind of agent gets evaluated.

23.5