Engel on internalism & externalism in epistemology

Mylan Engel, Jr. has proposed a straightforward and attractive explanation of the internalism-externalism controversy (IEC) in contemporary epistemology. Engel's explanation posits that there are two distinct kinds of epistemic justification, and the IEC has arisen because epistemologists have inadvertently overlooked the fact that they are not all concerned with the same subject matter (internalists are concerned with one kind of epistemic justification while externalists are concerned with another kind). In this paper, I will explain two difficulties with Engel's proposed explanation. The first difficulty concerns the claim that there are two kinds of epistemic justification. The second difficulty concerns whether Engel's proposed explanation is adequate to explain internalist concerns. © 1998 Kluwer Academic Publishers.