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Plantinga, Foundationalism, and the Charge of Self-Referential Incoherence

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Plantinga, Foundationalism, and the Charge of Self-Referential Incoherence PLANTINGA, FOUNDATIONALISM, AND THE CHARGE OF SELF-REFERENTIAL INCOHERENCE John GRECO Brown University In his enlightening article "Reason and Belief in God", Alvin Plantinga conludes that belief in God may be properly basic.' By this he means that the proposition "God exists" (or more exactly propositions such as "God forgives me", wh ich entail "God exists") may be properly believed and not believed on the basis of other propositions. In the course of arguing to this conclusion Plantinga rejects what he calls "classical foundationalism", on the basis that that doctrine is "self-referentially incoherent". By this I take Plantinga to mean that the doctrine contains criteria for rationally acceptable propositions which exclude those criteria themselves. In this paper I would like to defend classical foundationalism against Plantinga's charge of self-referential incoherence, but before doing so it will be necessary to say a few words about foundationalism and classical foundationalism, respectively. 1. Consider that a subject's beliefs may be divided between two categories; a) those which he holds not on the basis of other beliefs (wh at Plantinga calls "basic beliefs"), and b) those which he holds only on the basis of other beliefs (what Plantinga calls "nonbasic beliefs"). Foundationalism, according to Plantinga, is the thesis that, for a subject S's system ofbeliefs to be rational, each ofS's nonbasic beliefs must be justified on the basis of relations linking them to S's basic beliefs. Basic beliefs must serve as a foundation for nonbasic beliefs. 1. Alvin Plantinga, "Reason and Belief in God" in Faith and Rationality, eds. Alvin Plantinga and Nicholas Wolterstorff (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983). 188 Of course not any belief can be properly basic for S. To merit such status a belief must meet certain criteria which allow it to serve its function as foundational. In other words, a basic belief must be able to serve as a proper ground for nonbasic beliefs. What is required of such a ground? First, the beliefs that make it up must be justified. Secondly, their justification must not depend on further beliefs. Throughout the history of philosophy different philosophers have identified different beliefs as properly basic. Plantinga defines classical foundationalism as those versions of foundationalism which explicate properly basic belief in terms of beliefs which are self-evident or incorrigible or evident to the senses. 2 Thus foundationalism is a general theory wh ich divides all rational beliefs between properly basic beliefs and beliefs which are grounded in properly basic beliefs. Classical founda­ tionalism provides a particular explication with regard to which beliefs may count as properly basic. 2. We are now in a position to consider Plantinga's first objection to classical foundationalism. Plantinga argues that, according to the c1assical foundationalist (call hirn F), the following proposition is rationally acceptable. (33) A is properly basic for me only if A is self-evident or incorrigible or evident to the senses for me. (p. 60) N ow according to F's own theory, if (33) is rationally acceptable for F, then (33) must either be properly basic for F or accepted on the basis of propositions which are properly basic for F. However, Plantinga continues, if the foundationalist has some argument for (33), whether that argument be deductive, inductive or whatever, then we should expect that he would have offered it by now. No such argument has been offered, and so we must think that (33), if acceptable at all, is 2. As I understand Plantinga's use, A beliefis self-evident for S ifS simply sees that it is true upon understanding it. An example would be "Redness is distinct from greenness." A belief is incorrigible for S if, upon considering it, S could not be wrong about wh ether it is true. An example would be "It seems to me that there is a tree before me." A beliefis evident to the sens es for S ifS can determine whether it is true simply by employing his senses. An example would be "There is a tree before me." .
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