Editing Foundationalism (section)

===Internalism and externalism<!--Linked from 'Alvin_Goldman'-->===
Foundationalism can take [[internalism|internalist]] and [[externalism|externalist]] forms. Internalism requires that a believer's justification for a belief must be accessible to them for it to be justified.<ref>O'Brien 2006, p.87</ref> Foundationalist internalists have held that basic beliefs are justified by [[mental event]]s or states, such as experiences, that do not constitute beliefs. Alternatively, basic beliefs may be justified by some special property of the belief itself, such as its being [[self-evident]] or [[infallible]]. Externalism maintains that it is unnecessary for the means of justification of a belief to be accessible to the believer.<ref>O'Brien 2006, p. 88</ref>

[[Reliabilism]] is an externalist foundationalist theory, initially proposed by [[Alvin Goldman]], which argues that a belief is justified if it is reliably produced, meaning that it will be probably true. Goldman distinguished between two kinds of justification for beliefs: belief-dependent and belief-independent. A belief-dependent process uses prior beliefs to produce new beliefs; a belief-independent process does not, using other stimuli instead. Beliefs produced this way are justified because the processes that cause them are reliable; this might be because we have evolved to reach good conclusions when presented with [[sense-data]], meaning the conclusions we draw from our senses are usually true.<ref name=SEP>{{cite encyclopedia | url=http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/justep-foundational/#4 | title=Foundationalist Theories of Epistemic Justification | encyclopedia=Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy | date=21 February 2000 | access-date=19 August 2018 | author=Fumerton, Richard}}</ref>