Nov 12: Foundationalism
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To do for next class - 1) Read chp. 5, pp. 114-125; 2) Try question 3 of the exercises. |
To do for next class - 1) Read chp. 6, pp. 125-140 and chp. 7; 2) Try question 5 of the exercises (State and defend your position). |
Introduction
In its simplest, foundationalism can be understood as being comprised of the following to claims:
These two claims are essential to any version of foundationalism. However, foundationalist's do not agree on what counts as a foundational beliefs and how they are related to non-foundational beliefs. To get a head of ourselves a bit, foundationalists disagree with coherentists on the structure of belief systems and they disagree internally on the content of that structure. Note then that foundationalism is not an analysis of epistemic justification as we discussed last week. Analysis of epistemic justification was an attempt to specify what the evaluative property of being epistemically justified supervenes on (i.e. which non-evaluative properties).
However, we can given analysis that implies foundationalism as Steup notes: someone is justified in believing a proposition if and only if either her belief has a property of justification or bears a relation to one or more or other beliefs that has that property. If we identifying that justification property has one which is both necessary and sufficient for being a basic belief, we have a foundationalist analysis of epistemic justification. So, an example of such property would be that of being indubitable. So indubitable beliefs would be basic beliefs, and we can define the relation needed to satisfy the above definition as being one of logical entailment. An example of indubitable beliefs is my belief that I exist (it is a belief that the subject of the beliefs can not possibly doubt to be true). So, this analysis gives us everything we need which is? (Non-evaluative property which defines the evaluative concept of justification; a property which identifies basic beliefs; and a relation). Is there anything wrong with our definition? (Justified beliefs that are not indubitable or entailed by indubitable beliefs; belief that dropping my pen will allow it to fall).
Introducing basic beliefs
Steup identifies three characteristics of non-basic beliefs. What are they? (Non-inferential, must be justified, non-doxastic justification). Why must they be non-inferential? If they were inferential they would be, by our definition of foundationalism, non-basic. Again, some philosophers wished to apply the notion of inference to perception as well as something like logical deduction or induction, so Steup's example (of seeing the soaked man and inferring its raining) would not satisfy them (recall our example of the tent, leaves, and rain). However, it is not clear on such theories what would count as a basic belief (light stimulation? Retinal output?).
The basic beliefs must also be justified, again by definition of foundationalism. For, if a basic belief was not justified, it would not be able to act in the role of justifier for non-basic beliefs. Of course, there's nothing about A. beliefs being non-inferential which guarantees its justification. Can you give an example? Note also at this point that justification is a transmitted property through deduction. This principle plays an important role in foundationalism, as it does in analyses of the concept of epistemic justification. However, few have denied its reasonableness.
The justification of a basic belief must be non-doxastic (recall that doxastic means of or pertaining to beliefs). In other words, then, basic beliefs must be justified on the basis of something which is not a belief. Common examples are perception, memory, or introspection. Clearly then, non-basic beliefs will be doxastically justified. Also, there is important distinction here between the perception of an object's properties and a belief that it has those properties. Even though perceptual experiences may cause beliefs, they are not the same thing. It is possible then that my pen can look red to me even though I do not believe that it looks red. The same is true of introspection (e.g. being in pain vs. believing you are in pain). Notice then that this last property of basic beliefs implies both the first and second properties. That is, being non-doxastically justified implies being justified and being non-inferential (assuming beliefs are all that can be inferred from).
Finding basic beliefs
Foundationalists obviously posit the existence of basic beliefs. What reasons do they have for thinking such beliefs exist? Aristotle presented one of the first arguments. He said that whenever you know something it is either inferential or non-inferential. If it's inferential the must know the premises (by inference or not). Neither there is an infinite set of premises, or this inference chain must stop somewhere. This is obviously very closely related to his argument for a the existence of the unmoved mover which we encountered in metaphysics section. Both are forms of regress arguments. These kinds of arguments argue for the thesis by showing its denial leads to infinite regress (or vice versa). So in foundationalism, a basic belief acts as a regress terminator. It does so because it is non-doxastically justified.
Notice however, that all that has really been shown is that: if there are justified beliefs, then there must be basic beliefs. In the case of the skeptics about justification, they did he is this conditional to modus tollens their way to showing there are no such things as justified beliefs. In other words, they would deny that there are such things as basic beliefs since, they claim, no beliefs can be justified by something which is not a belief. This, no doubt, would lead us to reconsider exactly what we mean by justification. In any case, they would argue that because beliefs can't be justified by non-beliefs and an infinite regress cannot provide justification, there is no such thing as the justified beliefs. So foundationalist and skeptics would argue over whether or not our beliefs are by and large justified.
In contrast, coherentist would argue that the regress does not have to continue ad infinitum (perhaps by analogy with Sorites-type paradoxes). Thus, they would agree with the skeptics that there is no such thing as non-doxastic justification and thus deny that there are basic beliefs. They also agree with foundationalists that our beliefs are in general justified. How, then, do they explain justification? They might claim that it is circular (sufficiently rich and large in some sense). The foundationalists would reject this is simply another form of infinite regress. As well, coherentist's challenge the linear conception of justification which foundationalism presupposes. In contrast they present a holistic conception. That is, the conception on which a belief is justified because of its relation to all other beliefs, and together they form a coherent whole. There are also interesting combinations of foundationalism and coherentism as expressed by Quine, Thagard, and Haack. These systems are coherentist in that the beliefs justification depends on its relation to many other beliefs with foundationalist in that some beliefs are much less likely to be changed or become unjustified than others (though not are in the it, so by our definitions these are technically coherentist theories).
Another assumption of the regress problem was mentioned earlier. It is that justification cannot come from an infinite regress of beliefs. Steup defense this in two manners. The recall what they were? (People are finite and cannot form an infinite number of beliefs; it is logically impossible). In defense of the first claim, Steup sides with Robert Audi who notes that we must distinguish be between being able to in principle form a belief and to actually hold a belief. This kind of realization relies on the fact that people are finite in many ways, i.e. memory capacity, time on Earth, etc. Steup argues for the second thesis by first restating the definition (uninteresting) and providing an analogy (of borrowing money) which again restate the definition. It seems then to follow almost analytically: if they belief's justification depends on a preceding belief's being justified and every belief before it has a preceding belief then no belief in the chain is ever justified.
Potential problems for foundationalism
Most philosophers agree that for a belief to be basic it must have "epistemic privilege". This privilege will be some feature which most beliefs lacked but basic beliefs are justified because of. Such features have been thought to include possibly self justification, certainty, indubitablity, or infallibility. As Keith Lehrer has pointed out, self justification is an invalid feature of basic beliefs. It other words the relation of justification is not reflexive. Note that this is true given of our assumption of the transmission of justification. Why? (If justified, already justified; if not not). However, as Steup points out, foundationalists need not accept Lehrer's claim that all basic beliefs must be self justified. In particular, foundationalists would claim that there are such thing as non-doxastic sources of justification which are not reflexive (and not beliefs).
The other suggested features for epistemic privilege are similarly not necessary for a belief to be basic. This is true given our understanding of basic beliefs, in particular, that they can be justified to perceptual experience. For, perceptual experience gives us neither indubitability, certainty, or infallibility -as in the case of seeing a red object.
So, foundationalists must defend their assertion that perceptual experience gives justification to a belief. In other words we must determine if, for example, "there is a red object before me" can be justified by the experience of the appeared to redly. To begin, it is clear that being appeared to redly is not sufficient for being justified. Why? (We might be unreliable at determining redness; or, more convincingly, dodecagonally). Now, foundationalists must identify an additional condition which must be satisfied in the order for us to be justified in believing "there is a red object before me".
The first condition has been suggested by the above counter example. Do you recall what it was? (Appealing to reliability). The condition is that the detector is reliable in discerning red things. The remember how to defeat such conditions? By appealing to an evil demon world. In particular, suppose an evil demon (or scientist) controls all of your perceptual experiences. In this case, seeming to see red in the real world and seeming to see red in the demon world will be subjectively identical. Nevertheless, you are reliable that see red only the real world. Therefore, we can be justified in believing "this is a red object" without being reliable in discerning red things.
However, for foundationalists reliability is compelling. Typically (disregarding demon worlds) lack of reliability means a lack of justification. So Steup gives us a different condition: that I have good evidence for believing myself to be reliable. This then is an internalist (i.e. presumptive) reliability (as opposed to the externalist reliability of the previous example). Steup gives us the examples of knowing what kiwi looks like and not being able to tell crows from ravens. Steup seems to think that the presumptive reliability is a wonderful thing since it acknowledges the intuitive plausibility of reliability and avoids the externalist problems. Do you agree? It seems to me there is a deep problem with presumptive reliability. It is this: your justification relies on the belief that you are reliable (or not) at discerning something. Why would this be a problem? (We're trying to understand non-doxastic justification in the concept of belief has snuck back in).
Three kinds of foundationalism
Classical foundationalism asserts that a he belief can not be justified unless it's justifier gives the subject a guarantee of truth. This, of course, is an assertion of the fallibility criteria we discussed before. In addition, all non-basic beliefs would have followed deductively from basic beliefs. The infallible basic beliefs are what Descartes was after in his Meditations. What is objectionable about classical foundationalism? First, the number of infallible beliefs might be extremely small. In particular only appearance beliefs (not physical object beliefs; what's the difference?) are candidates, and view of those seem to be certain. More importantly, even if we think we cannot be mistaken about how we are appeared to, there is no deductive relation between appearance beliefs and physical object beliefs. Thus all of our beliefs about physical objects are unjustified. This has led most philosophers to reject classical foundationalism.
So, more contemporary foundationalists have allowed for non-deductive transmission of justification to solve the problems of classical foundationalism. However, it only solves the second of the above problems. In the case of the first problem, foundationalists run up against a wall. In particular, only appearance beliefs and not basic beliefs enjoy epistemic privilege. Normally, however, we don't form any appearance beliefs. This has a consequence that most of our everyday physical object beliefs are not justified which seems to be a skeptical position.
As a way out of this difficulty, philosophers have proposed minimal foundationalism. In this case, basic beliefs do not have any special epistemic status. Rather, the belief is foundational if it received its justification from an experience. It is not foundational otherwise. This seems to be the position Steup has been arguing for through most of the chapter. The great assumption here is that perceptual experiences can provide non-doxastic justification. However, there is a tradition in philosophy starting with Quine, Sellars, and Wittgenstein arguing that is simply not the case. Sellars has called this the "myth of the given".
In conclusion, Steup argues that coherence is the stronger position since it denies that there are such things as basic beliefs whereas foundationalist do not deny that coherence is an important ingredient in justification. However, many coherentists have a slightly weaker position which allows for degrees of "basicness" of beliefs while never admitting absolutely basic beliefs. They, then, see foundationalists as having the stronger position since foundationalists claim that there must be undefeatable beliefs.
Coherentism
Coherentism derives from the insight that we can never escape our beliefs while forming or changing other beliefs. In other words, we cannot identify the foundation upon which all of our other beliefs rest. There is no belief which cannot be revised. The metaphor of Neurath's boat is a famous one. It compares us to ship builders stuck at sea who must prepare a broken boat, our belief system, while never leaving it. As Steup notes, this leaves coherentists with a project of making sense of circular justification.
What is circular justification? (1 justifies 2 justifies 3 justifies 1) What reasons can you give for rejecting circular justification? The problem is, of course that given the transit city of justification, a belief justifies itself. As we have seen, self justification does not make sense. No matter the size of our circle, this will be the result. What hope, then, do coherentist have?
It is important that we distinguish here between linear and holistic justification. What is linear justification? The assumption that justification is passed from earlier to later beliefs by connections of inference. What is holistic justification? Justification is passed in an overall context of a coherent system of inferentially related beliefs. The regress problem doesn't arise here since if a belief is not part of a system there is nothing to regress. If it is, there is nothing to regress either since only the entire system can confer justification.
Elements of coherence
What conditions must a system satisfy to enjoy coherence? (Entailment, logical consistency, explanatory relations). What is entailment? (The consequent must be true if the antecedent is true). What is the problem with entailment? (We can construct an enormous doxastic system from any two beliefs which has entailment relations even though it might be unjustifiable). Steup concludes that entailment does not contribute to coherence. Has he proved this? (No, he has shown that it is not sufficient for coherence).
What is consistency? (All members of a belief system are true). If we can construct a belief system which is not consistent but is justified then consistency is not necessary for coherence, or justification. Steup presents a sorites paradox as an example of this kind system. Is there a problem with this? Are such paradoxes prima facie justified as he assumes? Even if they are, so what? It is clear that he is using another notion of justification independent of coherence which a coherentist would not. How else could he claim that even though Frege was wrong and held an inconsistent set of beliefs they were all justified?
What about explanatory relations? What is explanatory coherence? (A property of a belief which comes about when it is either explained by or explaining another belief). Again, Steup attacks the necessity of explanation relations. He asks if a justified belief must bear explanatory relations to other beliefs. He claims that we can believe sentences like "I am nervous" without believing what it explains or what explains it. Do you agree? If you do, what is the consequence? (Explanatory coherence is not necessary for justification). Nevertheless, explanatory coherence could be claimed to increase a belief's justification. However, we must be able to distinguish good from bad explanations. This is a daunting task.
Each of these criticisms shows how these individual criteria are not necessary and sufficient for coherence. However, taken together they might be the tools coherentist were looking for. In other words, the coherentist could prefer a pluralistic to a monistic theory of coherence - which Steup does not address. In fact, this is the explicit approach of philosophers like Quine, Thagard, and Haack.
Keith Lehrer's coherentist theory of justification
To begin, Lehrer identifies a subset of beliefs which he calls acceptances. In a sense, these are ideal beliefs, those which are interested in truth and avoiding error. For Lehrer these are functional states, that is they are states which cause a person to act as if an acceptance was true. What is it to be a functionalist about something? It means that the content of a state is determined by its input output relations. Steup questions this claim with an example of apples. He claims that the input output relation under specifies the contents of the state. The example he provides this terrible. In fact to be a huge variety of different input output relations which would determine the exact content of the state. Thus one would be able to tell the difference between "beautiful green apples" and "beautiful large apples" or "Granny Smith apples". Steup is right in claiming that functionalism ignores the inner character that determines content, but functionalists are precisely questioning whether there is an inner character which determines content. Steup's attempt to show that not all acceptances are beliefs would fail given a different (better) account of functionalism.
To continue in any case, Lehrer defines what he calls the acceptance system (essentially the same as a belief system, with the preceding differences noted). He feels that a belief is justified if it coherence with a system. The gives to conditions: one, acceptance of a belief means that the belief beats out all competitors. 2, the acceptance of the belief must be based on a trustworthy source.
Steup provides us with the example of the hallucinated cat. That is, we have two competing propositions one of which will be excepted and the other rejected depending on the other acceptances in our system. In addition to this competition, we must assess our perceptual trustworthiness. In other words, we must ascend a level and determined if we trust our perceptual information. In other words, he has put a limitation on what some foundationalist assumed were sources of justified belief. These two claims form the basis of Lehrer's theory.
We will discuss Lehrer's theory in more detail next week as well as other coherentist theories. And we will also consider a more detail the debate between foundationalists and coherentists.
To do for next class
1) Read chp. 6, pp. 125-140 and chp. 7; 2) Try question 5 of the exercises (State and defend your position).