What’s wrong with internalism?

Abstract

Extant internalists are either accessibilists or mentalists. Accessibilists standardly claim that whenever p is justified, one is in a position to know this fact by reflection alone or else this fact has grounds that are accessible in this way. The argument for this claim assumes that one ought to believe p only if p is justified; that therefore, grounds for justification must be luminous; and that only facts accessible by reflection fit the bill. It founders already because too few conditions are luminous. A non-standard version of accessibilism avoids this problem by conceiving of the grounds for justification as facts about what one is in a position to know by reflection alone. The argument marshalled in its favour fails to show why they cannot be facts about what one is in a position to know by other means. Mentalists claim that whenever p is justified this fact is grounded in facts about one’s mental states. One argument contends that only mentalism can account for certain structural features of justification. It founders because the present account explains these features equally well. Another argument contends that only mentalism heeds our intuitions about sceptical cases. It founders because mental states can help to confer justification only if they are arrived at in certain ways—a fact not itself determined by such states. Accessibilism and mentalism lack sufficient support and incur costs internalists do better without. The present account delivers all the goods that internalists should wish for, without making justification an internal condition.