the nature of justification Flashcards
foundationalism
Typically, when one has a justified belief there are some other beliefs that one has that one can
appeal to in order to justify one’s first belief
the nature of justification
For example: I believe that my computer is in my office.
In support of this belief I could list various other things (which I believe) that support this: I recall it being there when I left, I recall locking the door, break-ins to offices are very rare, etc….
are all justified beliefs, justified through other beliefs?
basic belief
Let us call a basic belief one that is
justified but whose justification does not depend on any other beliefs
are there any basic beliefs
Let’s begin by considering whether there might be any prima facie plausible candidates for basic
beliefs
Logical truths: If it’s raining, then it’s raining
Mathematical truths: 7 + 1 = 8
Beliefs about one’s own mental state
Beliefs about one’s own beliefs, desires etc.: I believe that it’s raining.
Beliefs about other experiential states: I believe I’m hungry, cold, tired etc
Nonetheless, in many cases it would seem that we can have justified beliefs of these sorts without
there being any inference from other beliefs
foundationalism
- we have some basic beliefs
- All other beliefs are justified in virtue of their connection to these basic beliefs
what would happen if we rejected foundationalism
If we reject Foundationalism then we must accept one of three implausible options
We can formulate this as a valid argument, which we’ll call the Regress Argument
The Regress Argument
(1) Some beliefs have non-basic justification.
(2) Any belief with non-basic justification, is supported by some chain of justification.
(3) Any justificational chain must either (i) terminate in a belief that isn’t justified, (ii) be infinitely long,
(iii) be circular, (iv) terminate in a justified basic belief
(4) Options (i)-(iii) are impossible
(C) Therefore, every non-basic belief is supported by a chain of
justification that ends with basic beliefs
(1) Some beliefs have non-basic justification
We noted that some of our beliefs would seem to be such that our justification for them doesn’t seem
to depend on other beliefs—some beliefs about logic, math, and our mental states.
But most of our beliefs would not seem to be like these. Most would seem to be ones that we arrived
at because we believe other things
It seems very plausible, then, that some (indeed, most) of our justified beliefs have non-basic justification
(2) Any belief with non-basic justification, is supported by some chain of justification
Typically, when asked why you believe something B1, you will list some other beliefs that you have:
B2, B3, B4
These beliefs are said to be the justification for your belief B1
These beliefs may themselves have other beliefs that justify them, etc
The picture that emerges is a tree-structure, with B1 at the root
This principle is saying that this branching dependency structure can be traced out from any non-basic justification
This also seems prima facie plausible
(3) Any justificational chain must either (i) terminate in a belief that isn’t justified, (ii) be infinitely long,
(iii) be circular, (iv) terminate in a justified basic belief
These would, indeed, seem to be the only possible options given this picture of justification
To see this suppose that the chain doesn’t go on forever, and has no loops. Then it terminates and
that terminus must must either be justified on its own, or not justified at all
(4) Options (i)-(iii) are impossible
It is impossible that a justificational chain (i) terminate in a belief that isn’t justified
The plausible thought here is that the only way that one belief B2 can confer justification on a belief B1 is if B2 is itself justified.
(Note that this is just a necessary condition. It is clearly not a sufficient condition, otherwise one justified belief would make any other one justified.)
This seems to be right, and so it seems that we shouldn’t allow that one could have a chain of
justification that terminated in an unjustified belief
It is impossible that a justificational chain (ii) be infinitely long
One reason is that you might think that we just can’t have an infinite number of beliefs
But if this is so, and if our justification depended on having all of these infinitely many beliefs, then we
couldn’t have any justified beliefs
First consider the claim that we can’t have an infinite number of beliefs - this seems to be true
But it isn’t obvious that finite creatures couldn’t still have an infinite number of beliefs
It is impossible that a justificational chain (iii) be circular
This would seem more plausible than the case of an infinitary chain
For it seems quite plausible that no claim can confer justification on itself—here we want to distinguish a claim being basic, from us justifying the claim by appeal to itself
But if no claim can justify itself, it would seem that no claim can have a justificatory chain that eventually circles back to itself
so, it then follows that if we
have any justified beliefs we must have some basic beliefs—beliefs that are justified just on their own,
and not by appeal to any other beliefs
what relation between our basic beliefs and our other beliefs
confers justification
Classical Foundationalism (CF)
S is justified in believing p only if either (i) S is infallible about p, or
(ii) S deduces p from other propositions about which they are infallible
Our basic beliefs must be ones about which we simply couldn’t be wrong
Only those things that follow logically from such beliefs are justified
Problem: It makes the number of claims for which we have
justification too small
it would seem that there are claims in which we cannot be wrong about
- eg, I am thinking, I am alive
the class of claims with this status is pretty small
if the things that are justified must
follow logically from this small class of claims, it would seem like very few of our beliefs will actually be justified, according to this view
infallible beliefs
beliefs that cannot be wrong
within classical foundationalism, we can’t have these
my memory of the computer being in
my office, my knowledge of the statistics of office thefts etc
If we want to find infallible beliefs I would be forced to appeal to facts about how things mentally appeared to me in the past, and how things
mentally appear now
But nothing about the location of my computer follows logically from these facts about my mental seemings
It would seem that infallibility pushes our beliefs inward…we aren’t infallible about the external world, but perhaps we are infallible about our own internal world
But logic can’t take you from propositions describing your internal mental state to propositions about the external world
If, then, you can only be justified in believing what logically follows from your infallible beliefs, it follows that you won’t be justified in believing much at all about the external world.
Classical Foundationalism, then, would seem to impose too demanding a condition on justification
Modest foundationalism
In response to these problems, one could relax either the constraints on
being a basic belief, or the constraints on justification, or both
Basic Beliefs: These include beliefs about which one could be in error
Justification: One belief B2 may be justified by a belief B1, even if B2 does not follow logically from B1
our standard beliefs that we form on the basis of perception are basic beliefs
we walk into a room and we believe that it is red, so we take it that the room is red
it is infallible that we believe the room is red, but we cannot be sure if the room is actually red
A proponent of (MF), then, may claim that we have basic justification for our fallible beliefs about the way that the world is that we form based on
perception
On this version of (MF), a basic belief is one that is justified, so long as there is no defeating evidence
Basic belief and defeat
If we allow that such beliefs may count as basic, then we need to allow that a basic belief may be defeated
For example, if I learn that there is trick lighting, then I am no longer justified in believing that the room is red, given its visual appearance
what types on inference the proponent of (MF) will take to confer justification
Induction: You have a bag will 1000 marbles. You drawn out 500 and the proportions are 256 white and 254 black. This gives you good reason to think that the overall proportion is roughly 50/50
Inference to the Best Explanation (IBE): Typically there are many ways of explaining some data. We tend to prefer those explanation that explain the data in as simple a way as possible
what justifies basic beliefs
According to our version of (MF), our normal beliefs that we have on the basis of perception count as
basic—they are justified but not in virtue of any other beliefs
then, what justifies these
fallible beliefs, if not other beliefs
- There’s no story to tell…it’s a just a brute fact that some such beliefs are justified
- Our perceptual states justify these beliefs
