Abstract

This chapter focuses on a central element in all versions: the shift from an “internalist” to an “externalist” approach to understanding knowledge and justification. According to Goldman's version, knowledge is true belief acquired and sustained by some reliable cognitive process. As Goldman notes, the guidance‐deontological (GD) approach was the dominant approach prior to the Reliabilist Revolution. This chapter argues for two lemmas. The first is that Goldman has not adequately diagnosed the sources of the untenable internalism that is his principal target: additional commitments must be brought to light. The second is that dispensing with these commitments opens the way to an approach to knowledge and justification that is “internalist” by a standard that Goldman himself recognizes, yet free of the drawbacks he brings to attention. The chapter concludes that internalist justification needs refinement, not rejection. This means, in turn, that the GD conception of justification also survives.