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(2010) Synthese 177 (1).
The no-miracles argument, reliabilism, and a methodological version of the generality problem
Mark Newman
pp. 111-138
The No-Miracles Argument (NMA) is often used to support scientific realism. We can formulate this argument as an inference to the best explanation (IBE), but doing so leads to the worry that it is viciously circular. Realists have responded to this accusation of circularity by appealing to reliabilism, an externalist epistemology. In this paper I argue that this retreat fails. Reliabilism suffers from a potentially devastating difficulty known as the Generality Problem and attempts to solve this problem require adopting both epistemic and metaphysical assumptions regarding local scientific theories. Although the externalist can happily adopt the former, if he adopts the latter then the Generality Problem arises again, but now at the level of scientific methodology. Answering this new version of the Generality Problem is impossible for the scientific realist without making the important further assumption that there exists the possibility of a unique rule of IBE. Doing this however would make the NMA viciously premise circular.
Publication details
DOI: 10.1007/s11229-009-9642-5
Full citation:
Newman, M. (2010). The no-miracles argument, reliabilism, and a methodological version of the generality problem. Synthese 177 (1), pp. 111-138.
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