Conference Description

A reliable process is typically described as a belief-forming process that produces either mostly true beliefs or a high ratio of true to false beliefs. But how can we know when a process is reliable – e.g. how can we know when enough true beliefs have been formed – and how can we know when a putatively reliable process has come to an end? These questions are particularly pressing as we navigate the processes of forming beliefs about the world in response to, say, politically and/or socially sensitive events such as the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. In this symposium, we consider recent work on reliability in science and philosophy to try to ascertain when a process can and cannot count as reliable and if the notion of reliability is of use at all.