CT

Week 3 Architecture of Justification

II. The Basic Foundationalist Picture.

In response to the infinite regress problem, foundationalist argue that there is a fourth option: which is that the infinite regress terminates at a self-justified belief.


Justified Basic Belief: A justified basic belief when at least some of its justification is not on the basis of any other belief. Some other names include “properly basic beliefs” and “immediately justified beliefs”. 


General Foundationalist Claim:

  1. There are justified basic beliefs

  2. All justified nonbasic beliefs are justified in virtue of their relation to justified basic beliefs


III. Locating the Justified Basic Beliefs.


Cartesian Standard of J-basicness (Mark of J-basicness) 

The belief that p is a J-basic belief IFF:

  1. P is indubitable

  2. Any belief that P is infallible 


Cartesian Indubitable definition: Indubitable means anyone who considers if p is true or not cannot doubt that p is true (automatically believe p). I.e. If a person has the J-basic belief (or what the proposition is about), and they consider it, they will definitely conclude that they do have whatever it is. Ipso facto he will believe himself to have it. 


Cartesian Infallible definition: There is no possible circumstances in which someone believes p, but p is not true. 


An example: I feel sick. Why? Because I feel pain in my head. Your evidence for pain in your head? I feel pain in my head. (Simply repeats the problem). 

But this is somewhat problematic - unhelpful. E.g. asking for feedback “The lesson was not helpful.” Your evidence? “It wasn’t helpful.” 


Which beliefs are J-basic?

  1. Your beliefs about one’s own psychological states. E.g. what you believe you believe, desire, hope, fear, etc.

  2. Appearance beliefs: The subject’s internal subjective experiential states which occurs in the person’s mind


What is Descartes’ strategy in using non-basic beliefs justifying beliefs about the external world?

  1. J-basics are used to logically deduce that God exists

  2. Demonstrate that it is inconsistent with God’s existence that our senses are being tricked


What is Chisholm’s strategy through Principles of Evidence (Give Principle B)?

If S believes, without grounds for doubt that he perceives something to be F, it is beyond reasonable doubt for S that their perception really is F. 


Example: if a duck is appearing duckly to you, and you don’t have other evidence for thinking there isn’t really a duck, you are justified in believing that there is a duck in the extenral world.


What is Chisholm’s strategy through Principles of Evidence (Give Principle H)?

When you have beliefs which have low levels of justification, but cohere with each other, they support each other, and their justification is increased -> moving towards beyond reasonable doubts

COUNTERS 1, 2, 3

Counterexamples to the foundationalist J-basic claims of indubitability and infallibility

Keith Lehrer:

  • Hot/Cold (attacks infallibility) 

  • Little Green Martians (attacks ???)


Counter 4

Dark squares (but can be countered)


Counter 5: Theory Dependence on observations and perceptions

There are never any PURE interpretations. Our interpretation of an image or word is always informed by something else (e.g. CAT with the letter A and H spelt in a weird way where it is also shown that there is a statistical bias toward either A or H). 


Coherentist view is pointed out as another possible position:


Coherentist Theory of empirical theory (CTEK)

  1. All epistemic justification for individual empirical beliefs is inferential, there are no basic beliefs

  2. Two fold claim. (i) The regress of justification circles upon itself, creating a closed system (ii) The primary unit of epistemic justification is this system, justified in terms of internal coherence


I.e. S is justified in accepting that p iff p coheres with the acceptance of system S


IMPORTANT: S is justified in believing p iff the coherence value of S’s system of beliefs would be greater if it included a belief in p than if it did not include that belief. 


What is Coherence? 

  1. Logically consistent

  2. Coherent in proportion to probabilistic consistency 

  3. Coherence is increased by inferential connections between beliefs and increased in proportion to the strength of connections

  4. Is diminished to extent where it can be divided into subsystems which are relatively unconnected by inferential connections 


Objection 1:

  • Case of the Lost Mariner

  • Counter to lost Mariner: sure we can grant that he does not have knowledge -> BUT we are talking about individual justification, not actual knowledge


Objection 2: 

  • Isolation from Truth: There is no reason to think that coherence itself GENERATES truth

  • It is an internal relation -> how beliefs are connected to each other -> does not connect to outside of one’s beliefs 

  • There could be many coherentist systems which are incompatible but still equally justified -> it is not easy to separate the false ones from the actual “truth” -> which renders the system knowledge-less, and knowledge in itself implies truth