Epistemology MidpointA question epistemologists ask is what kinds of factors justify beliefs. That is, could there be a set of justified core beliefs that rationally define all your other beliefs? Or maybe there are no core beliefs, but rather an infinite amount of beliefs that explain the ones that came before. Are these beliefs based on evidence or perhaps something more? Epistemology attempts to answer these questions. Beliefs develop from the many propositions we are exposed to every day. You consider these beliefs to be true. When you are faced with a proposed declaration, different alternatives are presented to you. These alternatives can make you believe the proposed claims or convince you not to believe them. When this happens, you construct a justified belief. These beliefs do not have to be true of others, are not absolute (they can range from absolute conviction, suspension of judgment, or rejection of a proposition), and can be changed at any time. What justifies justified beliefs? According to evidentialists, it is the possession of evidence for a belief. One theory, the infinite regress argument, proposes that other beliefs or reasons constitute such evidence. Infinite regress is an argument that philosophers use to explain justifications and knowledge in a convincing manner. Suppose you consider the justified belief P, you might begin to wonder where the justification for P originally comes from. If P is not a fundamental justified belief, but rather a non-basic justified belief (meaning that these beliefs do not need the support of other beliefs to be considered true), it would...... middle of paper... ...ss is "invented" to achieve the desired results. How is one supposed to know which process to use to evaluate the reliability and justification of a belief if there are an infinite amount of different processes to choose from? This is a major problem for reliability experts and there is no solution to this problem. Reliabilism seems like a logical reasoning for why your beliefs might be justified, but without a proper and clear general theory, how is one supposed to know what process to implement? What if you have beliefs that fit well with each other and make you believe that your beliefs are justified, then they are in fact justified? This is clearly not the case for Brain, who believes he is experimenting, when in reality he is just a brain in a vat. This theory appears to have fundamental flaws, which need to be corrected before it can be fully accepted...