The Structure of knowledge Flashcards
Propositional justification
A matter of having good reasons for holding a belief to be true . Being in a
position to justifiedly believe. Focus: proposition.
Doxastic justification
A matter of properly believing based on the good reasons one possesses.
Justifiedly believing. Focus: belief.
What are reasons for belief
In most cases these reasons are other beliefs that stand in
an appropriate relation to the belief in question
What makes something the right reasons for a belief?
To believe something for the right reasons is to have further beliefs
that support the belief in question
Thus, the right reasons are supporting beliefs
Put another way, the right reasons are the grounds for which you believe in something
this assumes internalism about justification
Evidentialism about epistemic justification
S is justified in believing p if and only if S possesses evidence for p
which supports believing p
If justified beliefs are grounded by supporting beliefs, then
what are the grounds for believing in the supporting beliefs?
This line of questioning can go on indefinitely, giving rise to the
regress problem
3 possible solutions to the regress problem
1) Unjustified basic belief: We end the regress arbitrarily, and the belief that terminated the chain will be an unjustified basic belief
2) Accepting infinity: The regression of supporting beliefs goes on infinitely—fairly early on in the infinite chain we would be unable to account for our supporting beliefs
3) Embracing circularity: We may circle back and use a previously
supported belief to close the chain into a loop
Problems for 1: “unjustified basic beliefs”
Houses with no foundations
Problems for 2: “accepting infinity”
Psychologically impossible to assess whether supporting beliefs
far down the chain of reasons count as evidenc
Problems for 3: ”embrace circularity”
Circular reasoning is by many considered an informal logical
fallacy
But more important for us: Where does the justification
originate in this circle
Agrippa’s trilemma
Three unattractive options. Our beliefs are justified by:
o Nothing at all, they are unsupported
o They are justified by an infinite chain of justifying beliefs
o They are justified by a circular chain of justifying beliefs
Three theories of justifcation
Foundationalism
Infinitism
Coherentism
Foundationalism
There are basic beliefs which do not rely on supporting beliefs for
their justification. The chain of justification has an end.
Infinitism
The chain is potentially infinite, and that’s okay!
Coherentism
Embrace the circle, and allow previous beliefs in the chain to count as
supporting beliefs (non-vicious circularity).
What do the theories have in common?
Foundationalism, coherentism, and infinitism are all
evidentialist theories of epistemic justification
They are all, in our case at least, internalist theories of
justification
Problems for coherentism
Circularity does not seem like an appropriate structure for justification
Where does the justification originate on a circular structure of justification?
There can be many different coherent systems of beliefs
Problems for infinitism
Counter-intuitive; embracing an infinite, non-repeating, chain of reasons seems to support a sceptical view of the regress problem, not a solution
Psychologically impossible; “one cannot traverse an infinite series
Same as with coherentism: where does the justification originate?
Foundationalism
The theory: There are some beliefs which are basic, and the rest of one’s beliefs inherit their epistemic status (i.e.,
justification) by virtue of being supported by these basic beliefs.
Two claims central claims:
o F1. There are justified basic beliefs
o F2.All justified non-basic beliefs are justified
in virtue of their relation to justified basic beliefs
Justified basic beliefs
Beliefs that are justified, but not by further supporting beliefs
“self-justifying”, or better “self-evident”
Justified non-basic beliefs
Beliefs that are deduced or derived from other justified beliefs
Three questions for foundationalism
Question 1: Which of our beliefs count as justified basic beliefs?
Question 2: How are basic beliefs justified?
Question 3: What sort of relation must a non-basic belief have to justified basic beliefs in order to be justified?
Decartes basic belief: foundation of Foundationalism
I think therefore I am
The basic belief: I exist (as a thinking entity)
This is a tiny foundation!
Appearance beliefs
Only about one’s own state of mind
External world beliefs
Entail something more than just one’s
own state of mind
What sort of relation must a non-basic belief have
to justified basic beliefs in order to be justified?
Answer: Non-basic justified beliefs (ordinary everyday
knowledge, external world knowledge, etc.) are justified
because they can be deduced from our justified basic
beliefs
It is difficult to see how non-basic beliefs can be a logical
consequence (deduced) of the justified basic beliefs, because
of the radical doubt introduced by Descartes
How can we eliminate doubt? Decartes solution
God
This solution, as we talked about last time, is clearly
question-begging
Classical foundationalism has three claims:
CF1: Beliefs in one’s own existence, one’s own states of mind, and logical truths are justified basic beliefs
CF2: These are justified basic beliefs because they are infallible
CF3: Non-basic beliefs are justified if they are deduced from our justified basic beliefs
Logical empiricism and foundationalism
Q1: Which of our beliefs count as justified basic beliefs?
Answer: Direct observation, logico-mathematical truths,
analytic statements
Q2: How are basic beliefs justified?
Answer: Either self-evident (logico-mathematical truths and
analytic statements) or produced by a properly functioning
cognitive faculty (direct observation)
Q3: What sort of relation must a non-basic belief have to
justified basic beliefs in order to be justified?
Answer: Deduction and/or induction
Immediate problem Logical empiricism
Such an account of logical empiricism relies on
externalism in order to make observational beliefs
justified basic beliefs
Produced by a properly functioning cognitive faculty
Myth of the given: Sellars argues that we cannot disentangle the conceptual
parts of our experience from the “raw-data” of sensation:
BonJour’s attempt at a solution
Beliefs from our experiences are not just raw sensations or thoughts about our sensations. They are basic, unconscious beliefs about what we’re experiencing. While we may not be aware of the exact content of these beliefs, they still justify our understanding of our experiences.
Problems:
This view doesn’t help us know about the external world; it only validates our private beliefs.
It doesn’t fully tackle the challenge of the “myth of the given.”
The infinitist objection to foundationlism
Does indubitability guarantee truth?
A foundationalist has three possible options here: affirm, deny, or
withhold
Denying it: Then it shouldn’t be a basic belief, it would consist in an
arbitrary termination of the chain of justification
Withholding answer: Then it seems like the basic belief lacks
justification
Affirming it: Is it possible to affirm it without continuing the chain of
reasoning?
Infinitism
Our beliefs can be justified by an infinite chain of reasons
Main motivation: The chain of reasons that make up the
structure of justification is “reason-enhancing”
o A major goal of reasoning (i.e., providing reasons for our belief) is to
enhance the justification of our belief
o Reasoning is not merely a tool for transferring justification from
reasons to beliefs (cf. foundationalism)
o Rather a belief’s justification is enhanced when sufficiently good
reasons are offered on its behalf
- Thus, long chains of reasons might indicate that our justification of a
belief is pretty good—while short chains might indicate that our
justification is somewhat lacking
Objection to infinitism
It is psychologically impossible to produce infinite chains of
reasons
We have finite lives and minds, infinitism requires too much of
us
Where in the infinite chain does justification originate?
Even if infinitism is the only correct solution to the regress
problem, and thus the correct account of the structure of
justification, then it seems like scepticism is the correct view
after all
Infinitist reply to the objection
Justification seems to come in degrees
Adequate justification
Complete justification
While complete justification is impossible to have we can still have adequate justification
Coherentism
Main alternative to foundationalism
Circularity solution
Justification is not primarilty attribuatable to individual beliefs but rather to a syustem of beleifs in which the belief in question is embedded
This does not mean that individual beliefs are not justified, but
that they derive their status as justified from the system as a
whole
What is the most appropriate structe of chain of justification in coherentism
repeating finite chain
coherentist argues that if the repeating chain is sufficiently large, this circularity need not be vicious
The structure can be more like a spider web—it is only circular in so far that it loops back on itself
Main motivations for coherentism
Practical motivation: When we justify our beliefs, it tends to
involve a system of beliefs in which these are embedded
When is a belief justified on the coherentist theory?
S’s belief that p is justified if and only if p belongs to, and coheres with, a system of S’s beliefs, and this system is coherent
What is a coherent system?
The beliefs have to be logically consistent
The beliefs must have propositional content that relate them to one another
In order for coherentism to make a theory of justification there needs to be a psychological relation between the beliefs
Problem for coherentism
If there are many alternative coherent systems of belief, which include beliefs that are not compatible across systems, then how are we to judge what system of belief is the best indicator of truth?
Summing up the problems
- Most serious problem for foundationalism:
How can we go from justified basic beliefs to non-basic yet justified
empirical beliefs? - Most serious problem for infinitism:
We are never able to tell if the chain of justification is actually justified,
the best we get is that we can believe that some chain of justification
are more likely to be justified than others - Most serious problem for coherentism:
How are we to choose between different, equally coherent,systems of
believes when attempting to justify a belief?
