Final answer:
Accepting an IBE argument for the existence of other minds based purely on expert trust, without understanding it, may compromise the personal justification of your belief. It doesn't involve circular reasoning but may still lack justification according to internalist epistemology unless one can recall or reflect upon the justifying reasons.
Step-by-step explanation:
If you use the Inference to the Best Explanation (IBE) to justify your belief in the existence of other minds, trusting the experts who formulated the argument without understanding how the conclusion was reached can be problematic. This approach does not necessarily equate to circular reasoning, but it could compromise the personal justification of your belief. Circular reasoning involves assuming the truth of the conclusion in order to prove the conclusion, which is not the same as accepting an argument based on expert authority.
However, in philosophy, it is critical to reason through arguments and consider alternative views to avoid confirmation bias. Just relying on expert authority without understanding the argument may render your belief unjustified, according to internalist epistemology, which states that a subject must have cognitive access to the reasons behind their belief. To be justified, you must be able to recall or reflect upon those reasons. In contrast, externalists might argue that as long as the belief originated from a reliable source, it could still be considered justified.
Moreover, epistemology has evolved since Plato's concept of justified true belief, and it is essential to assess the logic, premises, and whether you have good reason to trust a claim, such as expert testimony. This is because justification often relies on a chain of justified beliefs. Foundationalists argue that there must be some endpoint to this chain, whereas coherentists might see beliefs as mutually supportive in a network.