The idea of epistemics

Abstract

This article examines the main ideias of Goldman’s theory of knowledge and justified belief. This theory is shown as an alternative theory to the traditional epistemologies of foundationalism and coherentism. Special attention is paid to the naturalistic essence of Goldman's epistemology which can be seen in its close alliance with cognitive psychology. Namely, it is not possible to resolve questiones of knowledge and justified belief without knowledge of the psyhological processes of cognition, that is, of belief-forming processes. If these processes are not reliable our beliefs will not be cases of knowledge, since a belief which is not adequately formed doesn’t have a connection with the facts which make a certain proposition true.As for justified belief, if a belief has been produced by unreliable processes, we can not say we justifiably believe, since the causes of the belief have a tendency to produce false beliefs much more often then true ones. Hence, cognitive psyhology i® an indispensable discipline, being a discipline which investigates cognitive processes whose reliability is essential in deciding whether our beliefs are cases of knowledge or justified belief.