Foundationalism

What is the overall justificatory structure of our beliefs? Justification can be transferred from one belief to another by inference. Where does such justification originally come from? Foundationalism is the view that: a) some beliefs possess a measure of epistemic justification which is somehow immediate or intrinsic to them (basic beliefs). in the sense of not being dependent, inferentially or otherwise, on the empirical justification of other beliefs. o Not dependent on anything else (doxastic) o Dependent on something other than beliefs (non-doxastic) b) all other beliefs are justification in virtue of their relation to these basic beliefs. Simple motivation: the role of perception. Much knowledge comes to us via the senses. Sense experience provides us with epistemologically basic beliefs. We arrive at other beliefs via reasoning from these basic beliefs.

3. circle back on itself, so that beliefs which have already appeared as premises are again appealed to 4. terminate in basic beliefs which have a degree of justification which is not dependent on other beliefs. The foundationalist opts for 4. and argues that the other three are unacceptable. 1. seems clearly no good. Is the regress in 2. necessarily vicious? It is often supposed it is, but why? One reason might be that, given our finite capacities, we couldnt ever be justified by such an infinite argument (remember that a justification has to be available). Also, justification is inherited from premises; an infinite regress gives no place for justification to get in. 3. is the coherence theory, according to which justification attaches to the whole pattern or network of beliefs; a belief is justified because it is related in a certain way to a system of beliefs. Prima facie, it is difficult to see how being related to a system of beliefs could ever confer justification. There are three problems with coherence theories: i) there may be many coherent systems of belief and no way to choose between them ii) there is no way to accommodate input in such a system iii) there is no way to establish a connection between justification and truth.

Kinds of foundationalism
Basic beliefs are justified independently of reasoning. Some beliefs have a degree of epistemic justification that does not derive from other beliefs that have been antecedently justified. There are two ways that basic beliefs might have justification: they might be selfjustifying, or they might be justified by something that is not a belief. Perceptual beliefs dont derive from reasoning; they seem obvious candidates for basic beliefs. Do perceptual beliefs have a special epistemic status? Perceptual beliefs are about material objects, thats a chair, the wall is red, etc. They cannot be taken as basic because they are as much in need of justification as any other beliefs. Maybe there is a special class of perceptual beliefs beliefs not about material objects, but about how things appear to me to be, it appears thats a chair, it appears that the wall is red, or, minimally, redness!

An argument for foundationalism: regress

We can show a belief is justified by producing a justificatory argument. Inferential justification: P is inferable from Q; Q is a reason for P. Ps justification is inherited from Q. For P to be justified by Q, Q must already be justified. Being inferable from a guess or hunch doesnt confer justification. If P is justified by Q, then how is Q justified? Q might be inferable from another belief R. Then we can raise the same question about R, and so on. The only way this regress of justification can be stopped, and hence the only way any belief can be justified, is if there are basic beliefs not themselves justified by inference from another belief (a belief of type (a) above). Note: (1) how a belief is arrived at and how it is justified are distinct. A belief not arrived at by inference may be inferentially justified. (2) A justifying argument need not be explicitly rehearsed, but it needs to be available. The regress isnt a temporal regress, but a justificatory one. Possible outcomes of the regress of justification: 1. terminate in a belief for which no justification is available 2. continue indefinitely backwards, no belief is repeated, no end is reached

Self-justifying beliefs
Basic beliefs must satisfy two conditions a) there must be enough to provide a foundation for all other justified beliefs b) they must not require justification from other beliefs: they must be selfjustifying in the sense that one can be justified in holding the belief merely in virtue of the fact that one does hold it. The simplest kind of self-justification is incorrigible justification:

A belief is incorrigibly justified for a person S if and only if it is impossible for S to hold the belief but be unjustified in doing so. Very few, if any, beliefs meet this condition: a belief can be held for all sorts of bad reasons, so it doesnt seem that there are any beliefs which one cannot be unjustified in holding. Incorrigibly justified beliefs would produce an excellent foundation, if there are enough of them. It must be possible to be justified in holding a basic belief without a reason, but it neednt be that one is always justified in holding it. One might be justified as long as there is no counter-evidence, no reason not to hold it. A belief is prima facie justified for a person S if and only if it is only possible for S to hold the belief unjustifiedly if she has reason for thinking she should not hold the belief (equivalently, it is necessarily true that if S holds the belief and has no reason for thinking she should not then she is justified in holding the belief). Basic beliefs must be self-justifying in one of these two senses. Are there any such beliefs? What could make a belief self-justifying? The most common answer is that some beliefs cannot be mistaken if you hold the belief then it must be true that is, some beliefs are incorrigible:
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beliefs there is no such relation; is there for appearance beliefs? (One way would be to claim that appearance beliefs are appearances are identical.) Its implausible to think that there is: even if being appeared to a certain way is connected to a belief that you are, being not appeared to isnt.

Prima facie justified beliefs

Even if no beliefs are incorrigible, its possible that some beliefs are self-justifying for another reason. Beliefs might be prima facie justified. A general problem for appearance beliefs and prima facie justification It seems plausible that you could be appeared to in a certain way, but not form any belief to that effect. For example, you might not notice that you are appeared to a certain way. Even if this is not true, you could still believe it to be true. If you believe that you can have perceptual experiences without being aware of them, then it is possible for you to have inductive reasons for believing that you have perceptual experiences of various kinds. Suppose that you form a belief about your experience on inductive grounds. You could be wrong about how you are appeared to: you inductive grounds might be faulty. It follows that a belief that you are appeared to a certain way is not incorrigible. It also follows that you are not prima facie justified. Suppose you hold a belief, on inductive grounds, about how you are appeared to, and that these grounds are faulty. Then you have an unjustified belief that you are appeared to a certain way. If the belief is prima facie justified, then the only way that you could be unjustified in holding it is if you have some reason for thinking that you should not hold it. Do you have any such reason in this case? We could say: you automatically have such a reason for thinking you should not hold any belief you hold for a bad reason. Consider a belief P and suppose that you are unjustified in believing P. Then you do not believe that P for a good reason, and so you have a reason for thinking you should not believe P. Thus you can only be unjustified in believing P if you have a reason for thinking that you should not believe P, and hence belief in P is prima facie justified. But this works for any P. Therefore all beliefs are prima facie justified, so there are no basic beliefs. In summary: the problem is that prima facie justification and self-justification is a logical property of propositions believed; a proposition either has that property or lacks it; you can believe the same proposition for different reasons, some of which would lead you to hold the belief unjustifiedly; so whether a belief is justified is independent of the proposition believed. Therefore, no beliefs are self-justifying.

A belief is incorrigible for a person S if and only if it is impossible for S to hold the belief and be wrong. Ordinary beliefs are not incorrigible. It has seemed to many that appearance beliefs are incorrigible. Incorrigibility seems to provide and explanation of self-justification. If a belief cannot be false, then you have the best possible justification for holding it.

Problem: beliefs in necessary truths, e.g., mathematical truths are incorrigible, but not self-justifying. The definition fails to capture the requirement that one cannot be mistaken as to whether ones belief is true: believing that P should guarantee that P is true, believing not-P should guarantee that p is false. A proposition P is incorrigible for a person S if and only if (1) it is necessarily true that if S believes P then P is true, and (2) it is necessarily true that if S believes not-P then P is false. A belief is incorrigible just in case it is a belief in an incorrigible proposition. Necessary truths are not incorrigible because they remain true even if you disbelieve them. Appearance beliefs might be incorrigible in this sense; it seems reasonable that if they are incorrigible, that is sufficient to guarantee that they are incorrigibly justified.

Incorrigible appearance beliefs

How can any belief be incorrigible? There would need to be some kind of logical relationship between the having of the belief and what the belief is about. For most

The problem with this whole approach is that we are trying to define basic beliefs in terms of the kind of propositions believed. Intuitively, basic beliefs are those based on experience beliefs that we acquire in a certain way. A belief that P can be acquired in different ways, some of which lead you to have the belief that P justifiedly, so of which lead you to have the belief that P unjustifieidly. Thus, justification seems to attach to the method of acquisition of a belief.

Pollock, John L. and Joseph Cruz, 1999. Contemporary Theories of Knowledge. 2nd ed. Totowa, N. J.: Rowman & Littlefield. Chapter 2. Dancy, J. 1985. Introduction to Contemporary Epistemology. Oxford: Blackwell. Chapter on Foundationalism. BonJour, Laurence, 1985. The Structure of Empirical Knowledge. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Chapter 2. a version of which is: Laurence BonJour, Can Empirical Knowledge have a Foundation?, American Philosophical Quarterly 15 (1978): 1-13. See also: Michael Williams, Groundless Belief: an Essay on the Possibility of Epistemology, (Oxford: Blackwell, 1977; reprinted with a new preface and afterword, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999), chs. 2 and 3. William P. Alston, Two Types of Foundationalism, Journal of Philosophy 85 (1976): 165-185, reprinted in his Epistemic Justification: Essays in the Theory of Knowledge, (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989).

Justification by something else (not a belief)

Basic beliefs are those acquired in a certain way (e.g. on the basis of experience). We can define a property E of particular beliefs: A belief acquired on the basis of experience is a belief with property E. Beliefs with property E count as justified in virtue of being based on experience.

Bonjours problem for foundationalism

The feature by virtue of which a particular belief qualifies as basic must also constitute a good reason for thinking that the belief is true. A foundationalist account of a particular belief B could qualify as basic only if the premises of the following justificatory argument were adequately justified: (1) B has E (2) Beliefs having feature E are highly likely to be true. (3) Therefore, B is highly likely to be true. For a belief to be empirically justified requires there be a reason that it is likely to be true, a reason available to the subject. But now belief B is not basic after all since its justification depends on that of at least one other empirical belief. Responses: some kind of externalism, sophisticated foundationalism, coherentism.