EPISTEMOLOGY – lec 3 Flashcards
Foundationalism
is the view that (a) there are basic beliefs that do not depend for their
justification on any other beliefs, and (b) a belief is justified iff it is a basic belief or inherits its justification from other beliefs by justification-transmitting means. (Note that a
foundationalist thinks that basic beliefs are justified, but do not depend for their justification on other beliefs.)
Coherentism
is the view that a belief is justified iff it stands in appropriate relations of
mutual support (‘coherence’ relations) to the subject’s other beliefs
internalist
view of justification: this is the view that factors that justify a subject’s belief must be internal to the subject’s conscious life
externalist
externalist views, according to which a factor that justifies a subject’s belief need make no difference to the subject’s conscious
life.
The most prominent externalist views are forms of reliabilism about justification
reliabilism about justification
the view that a belief is justified iff it is formed by a method that is a reliable generator of true beliefs. Reliabilism about justification combines with the JTB view to give reliabilism about knowledge – the view that S knows that p iff S has a true belief that p formed by a reliable method
An argument by reductio ad absurdum
is an argument that seeks to establish a conclusion by supposing the opposite and deriving a contradiction. This kind of argument assumes the legitimacy of the classical laws for negation:
Classical negation introduction: if assumption of ‘p’ generates a contradiction, move to ‘not p’.
Classical negation elimination: from ‘not not p’ move to ‘p’.
The traditional argument for foundationalism
1 Every justified belief depends for its justification on other beliefs. (Assumption)
2 If justification for the belief that p depends on the belief that q, justification for the belief that q cannot also depend on the belief that p. (Claim that justification must be non- circular)
3 If justification for the belief that p depends on the belief that q, the belief that p is justified only if the belief that q is justified. (Claim about how a belief can play a role in justifying another belief)
4 If the belief that p is a justified belief that depends for its justification on the belief that
q, the belief that q is also justified in a way that does not depend on the belief that p.
(From 2 and 3)
5 If the belief that p is a justified belief that depends for its justification on the belief that
q, the belief that q is itself justified on the basis of the further belief that r. (From 1 and 4)
6 The line of reasoning that forced us to introduce the further belief that r to explain how justification for the belief that p depends on the belief that q will force us to introduce another belief (the belief that s) to explain how justification for the belief that q depends
on the belief that r, and so on without end.
7 Any subject who has a justified belief also has an infinite number of other beliefs from which the first belief inherits its justification. [From 6]
8 Subjects with finite conscious lives (like us) can have at least some justified beliefs.
9
7 and 8 are inconsistent. (Why? A finite conscious life can accommodate only a finite
number of beliefs. But to contribute to justifying the initial belief, each belief in the chain must be conscious. So given 7, no subject with a finite conscious life can have justified beliefs, which contradicts 8.)
10 The assumption at 1 has generated an absurdity, so can be rejected
The central traditional problem for foundationalism: Saying which beliefs are basic, and explaining where they get their justification
If foundationalism is right, we have basic beliefs which meet the following three
conditions:
a) they are justified
b) they are not justified based on any other beliefs
c) they are rich enough to provide the source of justification for all other justified beliefs.
Traditionally the (a) + (b) combination has been taken to be in tension with (c). This is because (a) + (b) seem to drive us towards an account of basic beliefs as ‘self justifying’ – that is, as beliefs such that just finding yourself having one provides you with a reason
for having it – but the range of beliefs that have this status seems to be too small to meet
(c)
The coherentist alternative
A coherentist about justification rejects 2 in the regress argument for foundationalism.
According to a coherentist, relations of justificatory support between beliefs are always relations of mutual support: where the belief that q contributes to justifying the belief that p, this is because p and q both belong to a network of beliefs such that a subject who
holds all the beliefs in the network has more relations of mutual support between beliefs
(a higher degree of coherence) than a subject who holds only some of them. If the belief that q contributes to justifying the belief that p in this way, the relation also holds in the
other direction
Coherentism and Gettier cases
One strong objection to coherentism about justification is that it generates a particularly
harsh version of the Gettier objection to the JTB analysis of knowledge.
One response to such cases is to conclude that knowledge is not justified true belief. (This
was Gettier’s own proposal.)
An alternative view is that the JTB account captures the basic elements of our concepts of knowledge, justification, belief and (maybe) truth, so that where a view of justification leaves open the possibility of cases of (allegedly) justified true belief that are not
knowledge, this shows that the view of justification must be rejected.
From this point of view, we now have a test for accounts of justification that it is going to be very hard for coherentism to pass, because (on the face of things) there are many cases where a body of beliefs has a high level of coherence but their having this level of coherence traces to factors which leave it a mere matter of chance whether the beliefs are true.
One response to this objection to coherentism about justification would be to move to
coherentism about truth as well.
