UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI
______, 20 _____
I,______, hereby submit this as part of the requirements for the degree of:
______in: ______It is entitled: ______
Approved by: ______BONJOUR’S RECONSIDERATION OF FOUNDATIONALISM
A thesis submitted to the
Division of Research and Advanced Studies of the University of Cincinnati
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
MASTER OF ARTS
in the Philosophy Department of the College of Arts and Sciences
2002
by
Fred J. Harrington
B.A., The Ohio State University, 1995
Committee: Robert C. Richardson, Ph.D. (Chair) Robert A. Skipper, Ph.D. Thomas W. Polger, Ph.D. BonJour’s Reconsideration of Foundationalism
Fred Harrington
ABSRTACT: In BonJour’s recent essay, “The Dialectic of Foundationalism and
Coherentism,” he argues for a reconsideration of foundationalism. BonJour makes three assumptions: (i) that the realist conception of truth as correspondence with the appropriate region of mind-independent reality is correct; (ii) that foundationalism is offering an account of “the fundamental structure of the epistemic justification of contingent or empirical beliefs, where what is distinctive about epistemic justification is that it involves an acceptably strong reason for thinking that the belief in question is true or likely to be true;” and (iii) that an internalist conception of epistemic justification is correct.
BonJour then argues that an internalist foundationalism offers the correct conception of epistemic justification.
I argue that, given the assumption of the correspondence theory of truth, an internalist foundationalism fails to provide an acceptably strong reason for supposing any belief to be true with regard to a mind-independent reality. After explicating BonJour’s notions of foundationalism, internalist justification, and truth as correspondence, the nature of foundational beliefs is explored through a dilemma posed as a challenge for metajustification. I attempt to demonstrate that foundationalism does not provide an adequate basis for epistemic inference to the external physical world, and use this to show that BonJour’s three assumptions are together incompatible. This is the goal of the first part of the thesis. In the second part of the thesis, both to emphasize that it is only this specific triumvirate that is incompatible and to suggest viable directions to proceed that are free from this criticism, I show that any two of these three notions plus the contrary of the third are compatible. Finally, I suggest that the combination of internalism, a correspondence theory of truth, and coherentism, thereby rejecting the assumption of foundationalism, shows the most promise for a complete and internally compatible theory of epistemic justification.
Table of Contents
Introduction 2
I. The Incompatibility of Foundationalism, Internalism, and the
Correspondence Theory of Truth 5
1. Epistemic regress 5
2. Foundationalism 8
3. Internalism 10
4. A dilemma 12
5. BonJour’s proposed solution 14
6. Correspondence theory of truth 18
7. The external world 19
8. Incompatibility 26
II. Possible Internally Compatible Solutions 33
1. Reject internalism 34
2. Reject the correspondence notion of truth 39
3. Reject foundationalism 42
4. Conclusion 49
References 51
1 BonJour’s Reconsideration of Foundationalism
A theory of knowledge is intended to provide an account of what knowledge is and of what it is for a belief to be justified. Not all beliefs need to be justified, but it is usually required of beliefs regarded as knowledge. An epistemological account is used to show
“not only the extent and nature of our cognitive grasp on the world but also our right to that grasp: to show how far we are rational in taking the world to be the way it seems to us” (Dancy, 1988: 1). This thesis will address the structure of epistemic justification for empirical beliefs and what can and cannot be justified in a given structural schema.
Some sort of structure of knowledge is needed to prevent an infinite regress in the justification of beliefs, for such a regress may leave our beliefs without any ultimate justificatory basis. That is, an adequate theory of knowledge cannot require that a belief is justified by another belief which requires justification and the justification itself is in need of justifying, ad infinitum. For at least the last four centuries, the dominant epistemological conception was that of our knowledge ultimately resting on a foundation of basic beliefs whose justification is usually grounded in our ‘given’ sensory experiences.
This is the foundationalist view of the structure of knowledge. Justification of any beliefs must either appeal to basic or foundational beliefs or they must directly appeal to given experiences. Furthermore, such foundationalism has traditionally been an internalist theory of epistemic justification, wherein the justification of a belief must be accessible to
2 the believer.1 However, in the past four decades the foundationalist epistemology has increasingly come under attack as untenable; the appeal to the basic beliefs may fail to halt the epistemic regress, and the idea of a ‘given’ may itself not be coherent (Sellars,
1963; BonJour, 1978, 1985).
Foundationalism has largely been replaced by coherentism, the theory that the structure of knowledge is such that beliefs considered knowledge are justified by their relation to other beliefs, forming a coherent system. Coherentists reject the notion that justification of knowledge has a structure like a building, where all beliefs derive their justification from certain foundational beliefs. Instead they favor a system structured like a raft, with the justified beliefs supporting one another (Sosa, 1980). Despite coherentism becoming the dominant internalist view in the later part of the twentieth century, there have been recent attempts to reestablish traditional internalist foundationalism as a viable theory of the structure of knowledge (BonJour, 1999a, 1999b, 2001; Fales, 1996;
Fumerton, 1995, 2001).
The central focus of this thesis will be the critical examination of the current foundationalist program of Laurence BonJour, a prominent epistemologist who was previously a vocal opponent of foundationalism. In BonJour’s recent essay, “The
Dialectic of Foundationalism and Coherentism,” he argues for a reconsideration of foundationalism. BonJour makes three assumptions:
1 The predominance of internalism in traditional epistemology has been noted by both internalists and externalists. Laurence BonJour, an internalist, writes: When viewed from the general standpoint of the western epistemological tradition, externalism represents a very radical departure. It seems safe to say that until very recent times, no serious philosopher of knowledge would have dreamed of suggesting that a person’s beliefs might be epistemically justified simply in virtue of facts or relations that were external to his subjective conception. (BonJour, 1980: 56) In the externalist camp, Alvin Goldman writes: “Traditional epistemology has not adopted this externalist perspective. It has been predominantly internalist, or egocentric” (Goldman, 1980: 32).
3 (i) that the realist conception of truth as correspondence with the appropriate
region of mind-independent reality is correct;
(ii) that foundationalism is offering an account of “the fundamental structure of
the epistemic justification of contingent or empirical beliefs, where what is
distinctive about epistemic justification is that it involves an acceptably
strong reason for thinking that the belief in question is true or likely to be
true;” and
(iii) that an internalist conception of epistemic justification is correct (BonJour,
1999a, 117-118).
BonJour then argues that an internalist foundationalism offers the correct conception of epistemic justification.
I will argue that, given the assumption of the correspondence theory of truth, an internalist foundationalism fails to provide an acceptably strong reason for supposing any belief to be true with regard to a mind-independent reality. My strategy for substantiating this thesis will be to first explicate BonJour’s notions of foundationalism, internalist justification, and truth as correspondence. The nature of foundational beliefs will be explored through a dilemma posed as a challenge for metajustification. After addressing whether foundationalism can provide an adequate basis for epistemic inference to the external physical world, I argue that BonJour’s three assumptions are together incompatible. This is the goal of the first part of the thesis. In the second part of the thesis, both to emphasize that it is only this specific triumvirate that is incompatible and to suggest viable directions to proceed that are free from this criticism, I will show that any
4 two of these three notions plus the contrary of the third are compatible. Finally, I suggest the combination that I believe shows the most promise.
Although it is the current philosophy of BonJour that is under direct consideration, his foundationalism may be viewed as an exemplar. The argument attempting to establish the incompatibility of foundationalism, internalist justification, and truth as correspondence may be generalized to any theory that holds all of these positions.
I. The Incompatibility of Foundationalism, Internalism, and the
Correspondence Theory of Truth
1. Epistemic regress
Traditionally, formulation of a specific theoretic structure of epistemic justification has arisen in response to the problem of epistemic regress. BonJour notes that “it seems highly plausible to suppose that many of a person’s contingent or empirical beliefs are interrelated in such a way that if a particular belief or conjunction of beliefs were somehow known or assumed to be true, this would provide a good reason for thinking that some further belief was true” (BonJour, 1999a: 118). Such justificatory reasoning would be a conditional inference with the belief assumed true serving as the antecedent and the belief justified serving as the consequent. BonJour refers to this type of putatively justifying reasoning as a “conditional reason” (BonJour, 1999a: 118). That is, my justification for thinking that a is true is that I know that b is true. And if I know that b is true then I know that a is true (this language is used to describe the problem of epistemic regress in Chisholm, 2000 [1964]: 108).
5 However, it would seem that epistemic justification could only be correctly inferred by a conditional reason if the antecedent belief is itself sufficiently justified; if I cannot be justified in thinking that b is true, then justification for thinking that a is true cannot follow. Belief a may still be true, but there would be no justificatory proof for thinking that a is true. That is, there seems to be a requirement for the justification by conditional reasoning that the further justification of the antecedent belief be provided.
A further conditional reason could be given to justify the originally antecedent belief, thereby allowing that belief to serve in the conditional justification of the initial belief. I am justified in thinking that a is true because I know that b is true and if I know that b is true then I know that a is true. Furthermore, I am justified in thinking that b is true because I know that c is true and if I know that c is true then I know that b is true.
Once again, though, justification of the more distal antecedent belief must be provided, and, once again, a conditional reason may be supplied by appeal to a still further antecedent belief. Obviously the threat of a regress looms, with the proximal belief justified by conditional reason from an antecedent belief which in turn must be justified by conditional reason from a more distal antecedent belief, and so on.
An underlying structure is sought to demonstrate how our beliefs can ultimately be justified, for without such a structure, it would appear that none of our beliefs could have any ultimate justificatory basis. Some structure of epistemic justification is necessary to halt the regress. Assuming that such questions regarding the justification of beliefs are sound and appropriate questions to be asking when engaged in epistemological endeavors, there are three general alternatives to the underlying structure of epistemic justification:
6 (1) Any particular regress may eventually invoke antecedent beliefs that do not have any further conditional reason or justification available, or the regress may continue ad infinitum. This structure of empirical justification, regardless of how complex or interconnected it may be, has no solid substratum upon which justification can rest. No dependent beliefs can be fully justified. The strongest justification would merely be that some beliefs would be true if other beliefs were true, and that the other beliefs would be true if still other beliefs were true, until ultimately beliefs were reached that have no justification themselves (BonJour, 1999a: 119). There also may be room for a probabilistic theory of justification where the probability of a statement is determined by the probability of a second statement, which is determined by the probability of a third statement, and so on, until a statement is reached where merely a blind posit is made regarding its own probability (Chisholm, 2000 [1964]: 110). Belief a is justified by belief b, which is justified by belief c, and so on until belief n, which is unjustified or a blind posit.
(2) The regress may eventually invoke more distal antecedent beliefs which have as their justificatory conditional antecedent a previous, more proximal belief. Belief a is justified by belief b, which is justified by belief c, which in turn is justified by belief a
(Chisholm, 2000 [1964]: 108). The chains of justification loop back upon themselves in an apparently circular manner. Stated in a different manner, the justification for each belief depends upon its coherence with the system of beliefs or with a subset of the system of beliefs. The justificatory structure is like a self-supporting raft, as mentioned in the introduction. This is the basic structure of coherentism.
7 (3) The regress may eventually reach a substratum of “unconditionally justified” beliefs (BonJour, 1999a: 119). These ‘basic’ beliefs that form the foundation of the justificatory structure of empirical knowledge do not themselves require a conditional reason for justification. Belief a is justified by belief b, which is justified by belief c, and so on until belief n which is unconditionally justified. This justificatory structure is like a building of beliefs built upon a solid foundation of unconditionally justified basic beliefs.
This is the basic structure of foundationalism, and it is to the foundationalist structure of epistemic justification that we now turn.
2. Foundationalism
The central tenet of a foundationalist epistemology is that the justification for all justified beliefs is ultimately grounded in basic or foundational beliefs. Such beliefs are unlike other justified beliefs in that a basic or foundational belief is an empirical belief that is “adequately justified in the epistemic sense,” but “whose epistemic justification does not depend on inference from further empirical beliefs that would in turn have to be somehow justified” (BonJour, 1999b: 230). Basic beliefs serve to justify other beliefs as antecedent beliefs in conditional reasoning, but their own justification does not need to be inferred from other beliefs.
Basic beliefs are unconditionally justified, and BonJour clearly distinguishes this from suggestions that basic beliefs are somehow self-justifying or not in need of justification, which he sees as misleading. He rejects self-justification for basic beliefs because this would require the foundationalist to accept circular reasoning as a source of justification, and circular reasoning is one of the primary foundationalist objections to
8 coherentism (BonJour, 2001: 23). Although a self-evident nature of a priori beliefs may possibly be seen as a plausible means of self-justification, BonJour argues that such is not the case for empirical beliefs. Since the content of a contingent or empirical belief cannot by itself provide an adequate reason for accepting its verity, basic beliefs cannot be plausibly claimed as self-evident. Furthermore, a belief must “already possess something tantamount to justification” if it is to be claimed as not in need of justification, and this condition would need explication (BonJour, 2001: 23).
In the largely traditional version of foundationalism to which BonJour subscribes, beliefs about sense experience comprise the basic or foundational beliefs, and it is these beliefs that are somehow unconditionally justified. In BonJour’s reconsideration of foundationalism, he states that “foundationalism is extremely plausible from an intuitive or commonsense standpoint: it certainly seems as though we have many justified contingent or empirical beliefs that are not justified by appeal to other beliefs, but rather by appeal to sensory and introspective experience” (BonJour, 1999a: 120). Common justification of ordinary beliefs, when requested, often grounds out in an appeal to sensory experience. My justification for thinking that a is true is that I know that b is true, and I know that b is true because I can see (hear, smell, taste, feel) it. I am justified in believing that I have hands because I can see that I do.
The key point here is simply that what defines the epistemic structure of foundationalism is that all beliefs must be ultimately justified by appeal to basic or foundational beliefs via a non-circular chain of conditional reasons, and that basic beliefs do not derive their justification from other beliefs: they are non-inferentially justified.
The epistemic justification provided by the foundationalist structure is intended to confer
9 an acceptably strong reason for thinking that the justified beliefs are true or likely to be true. Contrary to BonJour’s earlier criticisms of foundationalism, he now thinks that “a traditional foundationalism offers the only hope of a non-skeptical answer” to questions regarding the fundamental structure of epistemic justification (BonJour, 1999b: 229).
BonJour’s explanation of the precise nature of foundational beliefs and how these unconditionally justified beliefs can transmit justification by conditional reasoning to beliefs in the superstructure will be examined in his response to the dilemma that will be raised against foundationalism.
3. Internalism
The third assumption in BonJour’s reconsideration of foundationalism is the correctness of an internalist, as opposed to an externalist, conception of epistemic justification. An internalist conception of epistemic justification is that “a belief’s being epistemically justified requires that the believer in question have in his cognitive possession or be suitably aware of such a reason or adequate basis for thinking that the belief is true” (BonJour, 1999a: 118).
For the believer to be justified in holding a particular belief, the justificatory support for that belief must be accessible to the believer. It is not enough that there is a justificatory chain of conditional reasons that support the believer thinking that a particular belief is true. The internalist requirement holds that the justification for that belief must be, at least in principle, accessible to the believer. The justification must be at least tacitly available, even though the believer may not be able to make it explicit in any given attempt (BonJour, 1985: 20). Although there also could be external justification for
10 a particular belief, what is needed is an adequate internally based justification. Externalist conceptions of epistemic justification reject the necessity of the accessibility requirement.
BonJour claims that some internalist view of the following sort is implicit in most traditional versions of foundationalism:
[T]he believer must be in possession of the reason for thinking that his basic belief
is true, but … the believer’s cognitive grasp of that reason does not involve further
beliefs, which would then require justification, but instead cognitive states of a
different and more rudimentary kind: intuitions or immediate apprehensions,
which are somehow capable of conferring justification upon beliefs without
themselves requiring justification (BonJour, 1980: 54).
Although foundationalism does not require internalism, BonJour holds the traditional assumption of an internalist constraint on epistemic justification. Many standard conceptions of externalism, such as reliabilism, can be regarded as versions of foundationalism, but they reject the assumed internalist requirement that the justification for a belief must be cognitively accessible to the believer.
BonJour defends what he sees as a traditional internalist view of foundationalism, and references to his conception of foundationalism should be taken to pertain to such a view. His central concern “is thus with what reasons there are for thinking that our familiar beliefs about the physical world are true, where I have in mind reasons…that are at least in principle available through reflection and analysis to believers more or less like ourselves” (BonJour, 1999b: 229). The foundationalism that BonJour defends is that of a structure of epistemic justification ultimately based on basic beliefs that are unconditionally justified. Such a foundationalist structure purportedly confers acceptably
11 strong reasons for thinking that many of our beliefs are true or likely to be true, provided that the internalist constraint of the believer being capable of an awareness of such justification is met.
4. A dilemma
For a belief to serve as a basic belief in a foundationalist structure of epistemic justification, the belief must be able to be shown to be both noninferential and justified.
Demonstration of this status requires further explanation of the precise nature of foundational beliefs and how they can transmit justification via conditional reasons to beliefs of the superstructure. A challenge for metajustification of basic beliefs in the form of a dilemma was previously issued by BonJour as a threat to foundationalism (BonJour,
1985: ch. 4)2. In his reconsideration of foundationalism, this dilemma is addressed as “the most fundamental objection to empirical foundationalism” and as a means of explicating the nature of basic foundational beliefs (BonJour, 1999b: 231).
As already noted, BonJour believes that many contingent or empirical beliefs are ultimately justified by an appeal to sensory and introspective experience. However, the difficulty for the traditional foundationalist is to explain how the “specific character of the experience is itself apprehended in a way that makes it possible to appeal to it for justification” within the requirements of an internalist conception of epistemic justification (BonJour, 1999a, 121). Consider the following example:
(a) I am having a sensory experience of Φ (say, my experience of a thin,
elongated yellow patch over a rectangular white patch; or, if you prefer, my
2 The original source of the dilemma is Wilfrid Sellars (1963).
12 experience of being appeared to in an adverbial form of the previous
description).
(b) I have a basic belief that I am having a sensory experience of Φ.
It is perhaps obvious, in light of my experience (a), that (b) is a true belief. However, this is not sufficient in an internalist view to justify belief (b). What is required by the internalist constraint is:
(c) an apprehension or awareness that belief (b) is true in relation to
experience (a).
That is, what is needed for justification is “some sort of apprehension or awareness” of the character of experience (a) that somehow shows an acceptably strong reason for thinking (b) to be true and, therefore, justified (BonJour, 2000: 474). The dilemma is this: is the apprehension (c) an apperceptive belief that is propositional in character, or is the apprehension (c) not itself belief-like or propositional in character?
If the apprehension (c) takes the form of a propositional belief, the belief that the experience of Φ has occurred, then apprehension (c) could certainly justify belief (b) through a straightforward conditional reason. However, further justification of the apprehension (c) would now be required. Belief (b) will have lost its status as a basic belief since it depends on a further belief for justification, and the epistemic regress would continue.
If, on the other hand, the apprehension (c) does not take the form of a propositional belief or belief-like cognitive state – if in my apprehension of the experiential content of my experience I am not cognitively aware that it is an experience of Φ – then it would not be the sort of item about which the issue of truth or falsity could be raised, and thus would
13 not require further justification (BonJour, 1999a: 121-122). But if the apprehension (c) is not propositional or belief-like in character, then it is difficult to see how it could impart justification to belief (b). And if the belief (b) is unjustified then, again, it could not serve as a basic belief. If I am directly acquainted with an experience (a), yet I am not thereby propositionally aware that the experience has such-and-such features, then in what way can my belief (b), the belief that I am having an experience with those features, be justified by my act of direct acquaintance (BonJour, 1999b: 231)?
BonJour previously held that this dilemma constituted a fatal objection to the foundationalist program (BonJour, 1985). However, he now feels that this challenge can be answered in a way that avoids both horns of the dilemma, and that foundationalism offers the best hope for an answer to the epistemic problem of infinite regress.
5. BonJour’s proposed solution
BonJour’s proposed solution to the dilemma formulated in the previous section is that the conscious experience (a) involves an intrinsic awareness of its content and that the non-inferential justification lies in the recognition of the correctness of the description of the content of that experience. Such an intrinsic awareness would thereby eliminate the need for a separate justificatory apprehension or awareness (c) that the belief (b) is true or likely to be true in relation to experience (a).
BonJour employs the example of metabeliefs, second-order beliefs or beliefs about beliefs, as a heuristic analogy to experiential sensory beliefs. Consider the metabelief that
I am having a specific occurrent belief, e.g. I believe that I have the occurrent belief that
Missouri recently defeated Ohio State in men’s basketball (the emotional ramifications of
14 such occurrent beliefs will be relegated to a separate essay). BonJour states that justification for this metabelief can be found in the conscious experience of having the particular occurrent belief under consideration (BonJour, 1999a: 131). The key to
BonJour’s proposed solution to the dilemma is that:
my most fundamental experience or awareness of one of my own occurrent beliefs
is neither an apperceptive belief or belief-like state that would itself require
justification nor a non-cognitive awareness of some sort that fails to reflect the
specific character of the apprehended state, i.e., in this case, the propositional
content of the belief. Instead, I suggest, to have an occurrent belief is ipso facto to
have an awareness of the content of that belief (and also of one’s acceptance of
that content), an awareness that is not reflective or apperceptive in nature, but is
instead partly constitutive of the first-level occurrent belief state itself (BonJour,
1999a: 131).
It is the appeal to this specific type of nonapperceptive awareness that justifies my metabelief. Furthermore, BonJour claims that it is the nonapperceptive apprehension or awareness itself, as opposed to the metabelief, that is actually basic or foundational.
According to BonJour, intrinsic to having an occurrent belief, and to any conscious state, is the aspect of being consciously aware of both the propositional content of the belief, in this case the proposition that Missouri recently defeated Ohio State, and the assertive character of that belief. An occurrent belief is a conscious state, and such a state consists of awareness of the propositional and assertive content of that state (BonJour,
1999b: 232). This apprehension or awareness of the content of the conscious state is argued to constitute “in and by itself … a justifying reason for the metabelief that I have
15 an occurrent belief with that very content” (BonJour, 1999a: 131). But since the awareness itself is not apperceptive or reflective in character, it does not have propositional content, and therefore requires no further justification. Specifically, it is the experiential aspect of the occurrent belief which enables the metabelief to be unconditionally justified.
Other basic experiential beliefs, such as beliefs about sensory or perceptual experience, can be unconditionally justified in a manner parallel with that described regarding apperceptive metabeliefs about occurrent beliefs. Apperceptive beliefs about sensory experiences can similarly be foundationally basic in the sense of having an internally accessible reason why the belief is likely to be true but without conditionally depending on any further antecedent belief for its justification (BonJour, 1999b: 233). My awareness of the sensory content of an experiential state is constitutive of the conscious state itself. As with metabeliefs about occurrent belief states, beliefs about sensory experiences are justified via the constitutive awareness itself.
Important for BonJour’s solution is that conscious experience involves an intrinsic awareness of the conscious content, and that such awareness “is not a second-order, propositional, apperceptive awareness that a state with that sort of content has occurred, but rather an awareness of that content which is constitutive of the conscious state itself, which makes it the specific conscious state that it is” (BonJour, 2000: 477). To hold a justified basic belief is not to make an inference by conditional reasoning from the conscious experience to that belief, but it is simply a recognition of the correctness of the description of the content of that experience.
16 BonJour argues that a request for a metajustification of the correctness of the recognition would be misguided. Beliefs about our sensory and introspective experience are fundamentally excepted from the requirement of further justification. It is only in this specific type of case that someone has a kind of access to the experience “that does not depend on any further propositional description, but instead only on the intrinsic awareness of content that is constitutive of the conscious state itself” (BonJour, 2000:
477). Anyone who is consciously aware of anything or has any sort of conscious experience has an awareness of the correlative content of that experience.
Moreover, BonJour claims that the nonapperceptive awareness of our experiential content is “strictly infallible” (BonJour, 1999b: 232). The awareness itself is constitutive of our conscious experience and, therefore, cannot be mistaken. Since it would still be possible to inaccurately reflect the content of the experiential awareness, the apperceptive beliefs themselves are not exempt from fallibility. Error may be introduced in our description of our experiences, for “what can be described can be misdescribed”
(BonJour, 2000: 478). Inattention and complexity increase the possibility for error. But in our awareness of the experiential content we cannot be mistaken. Our privileged access assures this certainty; and it is by this intrinsic awareness that basic foundational beliefs are unconditionally justified by our sensory experience.
While a nonapperceptive awareness of our experiential conscious states can perhaps provide unconditional justification for beliefs that are about those experiential states, and while this awareness may avoid the previously discussed dilemma for such beliefs, BonJour’s proposed solution may accomplish these feats at the expense of justification of our beliefs about the external world. If so, this would seem to be a high
17 price to pay as it would leave the door to skepticism wide open. Possibly compounding this difficulty is BonJour’s assumption of a correspondence theory of truth. I will briefly discuss this assumption before examining the problem of the external world.
6. Correspondence theory of truth
The first assumption in BonJour’s reconsideration of foundationalism is “the correctness of the realist conception of truth as correspondence or agreement with the appropriate region or chunk of mind-independent reality” (BonJour, 1999a: 117). This is a metaphysically realist notion of truth as being a correspondence with the facts about how the world really is. For example, my belief that there is a pencil in front of me is true just in case there is actually a pencil in front of me.
An alternative to the correspondence theory of truth would be a coherence theory of truth. A coherence theory of truth is distinct from a coherence theory of epistemic justification in that the latter is a theory of the structure of belief justification, whereas the former specifically addresses the notion of truth. According to the coherence theory of truth, the truth of a belief is identified with that belief standing in a suitably strong coherence relation with other beliefs in a system or relevant subset of a system of beliefs.
Although a coherence theory of truth may be compatible with a coherence theory of epistemic justification, one is not necessary for the other, and, as will be spelled out in greater detail later in this thesis (part II, § 2), a coherence theory of truth may in fact be compatible with a foundationalism in epistemic justification.
BonJour states that his own conviction is “that there is no alternative to this
[correspondence] conception of truth that is ultimately even intelligible” (BonJour, 1999a:
18 117). Although a correspondence theory of truth may seem intuitive and obvious, there may be problems regarding the possibility of our access to this type of truth. What is important to note about a correspondence theory of truth is that it appears that in order for someone to recognize the truth of a belief she needs to have access to, or at least to have a basis for inference to, the mind-independent world. Furthermore, without any acceptably strong reason for thinking that a particular belief is true, there cannot be any epistemic justification. If knowledge consists of beliefs justified via a foundationalist structure and knowledge requires the truth of those justified beliefs, and if, as will be discussed in the next section, pure foundationalism yields “no adequate basis for inference to the physical world” (BonJour 1999b: 230), then we seem to be left with no way of accessing the truth of our beliefs. This would appear to leave knowledge as something purely coincidental.
Again, as expounded above (Part I, § 3), under the assumed internalist constraint the believer must “have in his cognitive possession or be suitably aware of such a reason or adequate basis for thinking that the belief is true” (BonJour, 1999a: 118). Since truth is taken to be a correspondence with mind-independent reality, I now turn to the question of whether a foundationalist structure of epistemic justification can provide adequate reason for thinking that we have access to the state of affairs in the physical, mind-independent world.
7. The external world
Many of our beliefs are about the external world, the world external to our own mental states. My occurrent belief that Missouri recently defeated Ohio State in men’s basketball is supposedly not merely about my own mental states and beliefs, but it is about
19 an event that took place out there in the world external to my mind. My belief that there is a pencil in front of me is a belief I take to be about the mind-independent world in which I believe I exist. Granted, I may also hold metabeliefs that are about my internal beliefs and sensory experiences themselves, but most of my ordinary occurrent beliefs do not seem to be of this sort.
A foundationalist structure of epistemic justification ultimately grounds the justification for all justified beliefs in noninferentially justified foundational or basic beliefs. The foundationalism that BonJour presents as defensible against the dilemmatic challenge for metajustification relies on basic beliefs that are unconditionally justified by appeal to the constitutive awareness of the sensory content of experiential states. The question arises whether these sorts of foundational beliefs are capable of providing adequate justification for most of the beliefs that we commonly take to be justified, particularly those about the external physical world. The awareness of the content that is constitutive of an experiential sensory state or of an occurrent belief would only seem to provide a reason for thinking it true that I am having a sensory perception or that I have an occurrent belief. That is, the foundationalism presented only appears to justify the metabeliefs that one is having an occurrent belief or sensory experience with a specific content. However, bearing in mind that truth is assumed to be a correlation with a mind- independent reality, such awareness does not seem to provide a strong reason for thinking that a belief or perception accurately reflects the state of affairs in the external world.
Thus, we are still left with the outstanding question of how the content of conscious states can enable epistemic justification of beliefs about the external physical world (BonJour,
1999a: 134).
20 In order to understand how beliefs about the physical world can be justified by our beliefs about sensory experience, it is important to understand the conceptual formulation of the content of such experience. BonJour recognizes the need to respond to the challenge that foundationalism is not capable of yielding “an adequate basis for an inference to the physical world” (BonJour, 1999b: 230), and he considers two main possibilities for the conceptually formulated character of sensory experience.
One possibility is that the content of our sensory experience is formulated in terms of physical objects (BonJour, 1999b, 236); our given experience is presented to us fully conceptualized. I formulate my sensory experience as the sort of experience that would lead me to believe that I am experiencing certain physical objects and the relations between those objects, given normal circumstances. On this view, I may formulate my current sensory experience as the sort that I take to be indicative of a pencil lying in front of me. Perhaps I may more accurately state that I am aware of the pencil-like appearance of my experience.
However, the fact that my given experience has the features that I normally associate as being indicative of a pencil in front of me does not demonstrate that this experience is actually caused by the presence of a pencil. Whether there is a correlation between the experiential features of my sensory state and the physical object that I unreflectively believe to exist does not seem to be affected by the fact that my characterization of such an experience is formulated in conceptual terms of physical objects (BonJour, 2000: 472). In particular, BonJour states that:
it is crucially important to distinguish a description of experience that merely
indicates what sort of physical objects and situations seem or appear, on the basis
21 of that experience, to be present from one that embodies some further causal or
relational claim about the connection between experience and the physical realm,
one whose justification would clearly have to appeal to something beyond the
experienced content itself (BonJour, 1999a: 136).
It cannot simply be assumed that a formulation of experiential content in terms of physical appearances entails that such content accurately reflects the mind-independent physical world, for this is exactly what is at issue. At this point, the constitutive awareness inherent in the conscious experience can only serve to justify the appearance features of the experience itself. The occurrence of a single physical-object appearance provides no a priori reason to infer justification for a belief regarding a corresponding physical reality.
Because formulation of sensory experience in conceptual terms of appearances of physical objects and situations does not seem able to do any justificatory work, BonJour tentatively embraces the second possibility: the content of sensory experience is formulated in phenomenological terms that most fully capture the non-conceptual character of the given sensory experience, phenomenological terms “something like the pure sense-datum concepts” (BonJour, 1999b: 237). BonJour is aware that descriptions in sense-datum terminology that attempt to consider only the qualitative character of the experience are extremely difficult to provide since our language relies on concepts of physical objects and situations. But he believes that, although “the justificatory force of such experiential features in relation to physical-object claims depends on their being ultimately describable in ways that are logically independent of such claims”, physical object descriptions may be utilized as a heuristic tool for discussing the relevant features of the experience (BonJour, 1999b: 241).
22 In BonJour’s argument for an inference from our sensory experiences to the external world, he appeals to the characteristics of our sense-data. When we believe that we are moving around a physical object, we experience varying central sense-data. The visual sense-data change in a fluid, continuous manner, altering perspectivally as I believe that I am changing my point of view. Similarly, there is a “gradual transition” of the character of the visual sense-data as I believe that I am moving closer or farther away from the object. Additionally, when I believe that am touching the object, I experience a collection of tactual sense-data that can be coordinated with the collection of visual sense- data I experience (BonJour, 1999b: 242). This likewise applies to the various other types of sensory experiences that may be experienced in relation to the believed physical object.
When I believe another physical object to partially block my view of the initial object, the patterns of experienced sense-data change in such a manner as to reflect this visual obstruction. Furthermore, the characteristics of our sense-data appear to reflect causal relations between objects.
BonJour suggests that the basis for an inference from sensory experience to an objective external world can be found in the “involuntary, spontaneous character” of our sensory experiences and in “the fact that they fit together and reinforce each other in, dare
I say, a coherent fashion” (BonJour, 1999a: 138). From an internal epistemic standpoint, the above sensory experiences are cognitively spontaneous. The observational input comes to me involuntarily, and in this respect I am a passive recipient. The sensory experiences and derivative beliefs are generally consistent in that they do not conflict, and they are greatly coherent – they fit together and agree with one another in a manner that is mutually supporting. He qualifies that the type of coherence in support of an inference to
23 the physical world pertains only to “sensory appearances or the beliefs that they directly justify”, as opposed to pertaining to other sorts of beliefs (BonJour, 1999a: 138).
An inference to the external world is supported by the notion that these complicated patterns of the characteristics of experiential sense-data need some sort of explanation. In earlier writing, embedded within an argument for a coherence theory of epistemic justification, BonJour held that if a system of beliefs that allows for involuntary sensory input remains coherent over the long run, then “it is highly likely that there is some explanation (other than mere chance) for this fact, with the degree of likelihood being proportional to the degree of coherence…and the longness of the run (BonJour,
1985: 171). He now utilizes this premise in his foundationalism and argues that “the
“specific characteristics of our sense-data, and especially their spatial characteristics, are such as to be easily and naturally explainable by supposing that they are systematically caused by a relatively definite world of (mostly) solid objects arranged in 3-dimensional space, ” and that our sensory experiences and experiential beliefs correspond, within a reasonable degree of approximation, to the mind-independent world (BonJour, 1999b:
241).
Any other explanation, such as cause by an outside agent or mechanism, would seem to be ruled out by parsimony. Granted, there could be many explanations that posit some external agent or mechanism that produces such experiences in a manner that
“mimics the experience that we would have if the represented world were actual and we were located in it, even though neither of these things is in fact the case” (BonJour, 1999b:
244). Maybe I really am just a brain floating in a vat that is fed electrical impulses that produce my sensory experiences, or perhaps it actually is the case that Descartes’
24 malicious demon is deceiving me into thinking that my sensory experiences and experiential beliefs are an accurate reflection of the external physical world. Yet there can be no reason to prefer one of these alternative mechanisms over another, and it seems fairly arbitrary to suppose that the main features of the external world are “utterly different” from those coherently portrayed by our experience (BonJour, 1999b: 245).
BonJour’s suggestion is that it is unreasonable to posit such a further, arbitrary outside agent or mechanism as the cause of our sensory experiences as this would involve an additional, unnecessary level of complexity. Although clearly not an argument that can guarantee the certainty of its conclusion, the inference to an external world is derived from the best explanation for the combination of the involuntary character of our sensory experiences and the large degree of coherence in those experiences and experiential beliefs.
Despite BonJour’s claim that he uses the terminology of sense-data for heuristic purposes, there is a danger that doing so will introduce the standard objections to sense- data. A particularly worrisome problem with invoking the terminology of sense-data in foundationalism stems from the fact that much of the content of my consciousness appears to be conceptual. Additionally, my conscious thought is largely conceptualized, and I express my conscious beliefs in conceptual terms. BonJour notes elsewhere, “when I consciously perceive (or seem to perceive) various sorts of physical objects, the concepts of those kinds of objects and of their relevant features normally figure in my conscious experience and so are involved in what is given” (BonJour, 2000: 470). For a belief to be foundational or basic it must be noninferential. But if the justification for a foundational or basic belief is grounded in non-conceptual sense-data, then there must be an inference
25 from the sense-data to the conceptualized basic belief. The given experiential content cannot enter our awareness without the belief losing its very status as basic since to have something in our conscious thought it must be conceptualized, and conceptualization is believed to be an intellectual activity that involves inference. Furthermore, if concepts are derived from remembered past experiences, then the conceptualization of sense-data in beliefs about experience would necessarily incorporate inferences from past experiences.
Yet BonJour does not see his phenomenological characterization of sensory experience in terms of sense-data as committing him to an ontology of sense-data. He “is inclined to think that the so-called ‘adverbial’ account of the contents of experience is almost certainly correct,” particularly since there seems to be no acceptable account of the
“relation that would have to exist between ontologically independent sense-data and the mind that apprehends them” that could be independent of an adverbial theory (BonJour,
1999b: 248, note 13). If what the mind experiences is sense-data, then it would be the adverbially characterized mental states that would be epistemically significant. But regardless of any problems that may be inherent in sense-data terminology, a more critical problem arises in regard to the compatibility of BonJour’s theory with his stated background assumptions.
8. Incompatibility
The proposed solution to the problem of epistemic justification of beliefs about the external physical world, although somewhat vague, seems to venture in the right direction.
The consistent coherence of my sensory experiences and derivative beliefs appears to provide a reason to think that my beliefs about the external world are likely to be true.
26 But foundationalism requires all beliefs to be ultimately justified by certain noninferentially justified foundational or basic beliefs. Regardless of his qualification that the appeal to coherence pertains only to beliefs most directly justified by sensory experience, it is difficult to escape the conclusion that the structure of epistemic justification presented by BonJour is not genuinely a foundationalist epistemology.
BonJour rejects the notion that basic beliefs are self-justifying because it would require the foundationalist to accept circular reasoning as a source of justification, and this would
“undercut one main objection to coherentism” (BonJour, 2001: 23). Even if so-called higher level beliefs are inferentially justified by conditional reasoning from lower-level antecedent beliefs, the ultimate justificatory grounding appealed to by BonJour is in a web of coherence, regardless of how limited that web. The coordination between sensory systems that is appealed to has more of a structure of coherence than of foundationalism.
BonJour failed to demonstrate a purely foundationalist structure of epistemic justification as being able to provide sufficient reason for thinking that beliefs about the external world are true. A strict chain of inferential justification leading down to sensory experience could merely be shown to justify metabeliefs about our occurrent beliefs or our experiences themselves; foundationalism only seems able to justify beliefs that certain sensory experiences are occurring or that certain beliefs are held. But justification for beliefs about a mind-independent external world has not been shown to ultimately ground out in foundational basic beliefs needing no further justification. Instead justification for such beliefs ultimately grounds out in the coherence of the sensory experiences or beliefs directly justified by those experiences. It is only by an appeal to the coherence of sensory
27 beliefs or experiences that beliefs about the external physical world can be thought likely to be true.
If we are to take seriously Dancy’s injunction from the opening of this thesis, that the purpose of an epistemological account is to show the extent of our cognitive grasp on the world and how far we are rational in taking the world to be the way it appears, then foundationalism seems to provide us with an anemic epistemology. Foundationalist justification cannot extend to beliefs about the external physical world. However, my goal is not to offer a general skeptical critique of foundationalism, but to point out a problem internal to BonJour’s theory. BonJour appears to be trapped back into a coherence theory, a theory he no longer wishes to hold, due to an incompatibility between his underlying assumptions. I argue that his assumptions of foundationalism, internalism, and the correspondence theory of truth cannot be maintained together.
The correspondence theory of truth regards truth as correspondence with mind- independent reality. For a belief to be true under this theory, the belief must correspond with the facts about the external physical world. Furthermore, in order for someone to think a belief true or likely to be true, in order for someone to infer the truth of a belief, that person must have reason to think that a correspondence between the belief and the mind-independent world obtains. So if someone lacks access to reasoning for an inference to the external physical world and the measure of correspondence obtaining between the external world and her belief, then she is left without access to a reason for thinking that belief veridical. Such a reason for thinking that a belief is true or likely to be true is necessary for epistemic justification.
28 Foundationalism provides an account of the structure of epistemic justification where all justifiable beliefs are ultimately grounded via a non-circular inferential reasoning in unconditionally justified basic foundational beliefs. But foundationalism is open to the dilemmatic challenge for metajustification of basic foundational beliefs as requiring a justificatory apprehension of the sensory experiences. Such an apprehension or awareness may be propositional or non-propositional in character, either of which casts doubt upon the purported unconditional justification of the basic belief. In order to avoid the challenge for metajustification, BonJour argues that basic beliefs are unconditionally justified by the experiential awareness that constitutes the conscious state itself.
The internalist requirement constrains belief justification to that which the believer can access. Under an internalist conception of epistemic justification, a belief cannot be epistemically justified if a reason for thinking that the belief is true is not in the believer’s cognitive awareness or somehow accessible to the believer.
On BonJour’s account of the unconditional justification of the basic foundational beliefs there must exist a correlation between the belief and the introspective sensory experience. But a lone experience itself and its resultant empirical belief, absent coherence with other empirical beliefs, cannot render an internalist reason for thinking that the belief corresponds with the external world. A solitary empirical belief, involving a constitutive nonapperceptive awareness of sensory content, does not provide an indication of its likelihood of being true if not embedded in a system of beliefs that has a greater or lesser degree of coherence, at least within the particular subsystem of beliefs of which that belief is a part. And of course all of our beliefs are embedded in a system of beliefs and relevant subsystems. As seen in the previous section, BonJour argues that the
29 large degree of coherence of our sensory experiences and experiential beliefs is best explained by inferring that our sensory experiences are caused by a mind-independent world to which our experiential beliefs correspond.
Without coherence, a single sensory experience would fail to give any basis for thinking an empirical belief true, even if the belief is apparently passively and spontaneously produced. Suppose that I have an empirical belief that there is a pencil on the desk in front of me, and that this belief, unbeknownst to me, is true. This particular belief is true since it actually corresponds to the facts of the mind-independent physical reality. However, also suppose that as I alter my visual perspective slightly, I then have the (false) belief that the pencil is on the chair next to me. Additionally, as I reach my hand to where I originally believed the pencil to be, I have the (false) tactile belief that I am touching something spongy soft, wet, and very cold. My initial true belief lacked coherence with the other relevant beliefs and provided no compelling reason to suppose that belief true or even likely to be true.
Now imagine that none of my empirical beliefs involving nonapperceptive awareness of sensory content ever involved coherence with any other such beliefs. What reason would I have for thinking that any of them are true? It seems that experiential awareness constitutive of the conscious state itself is not enough to unconditionally justify empirical beliefs. The point is not so much that lack of coherence disconfirms the likelihood of the truth of an empirical belief, but that coherence is necessary to provide a reason to think that the majority of our empirical beliefs are likely to be true in the first place, since it is only the coherence of involuntary sensory inputs and derivative beliefs that seems to require an explanation beyond mere chance. And the best explanation
30 appears to be that our sensory experiences are caused by an external physical world that largely corresponds to our experiences and experiential beliefs.
Awareness of a solitary sensory experience seems to provide no basis for an inference to the external world. Foundationalism leaves us without any basis for inferring a correspondence between the sensory belief and the external physical world. Since truth is assumed to be a correspondence between a belief and mind independent reality, and foundationalism lacks a basis for inferring such a correspondence, it leaves us without any acceptably strong reason for thinking that such a belief is likely to be true.
It appears that a genuine foundationalist account could only provide justification for metabeliefs regarding the existence of the conscious experiential states themselves, as well as for any derivative beliefs. The most that the awareness of one’s experiential state could provide access to is the experiential state itself. I may have justification for my belief that I am having a particular sensory perception or occurrent belief, but the experiential awareness of the particular conscious state alone does not provide access to an inference to the external world. In a foundationalist account of justification, such metabeliefs and their derivatives cannot provide any acceptably strong reason for thinking that any belief regarding the world external to the mind is true; it is only through some appeal to the coherence among experiential beliefs that we can have reason to think that beliefs about the external world are likely to be true.
This external world is the mind-independent reality for which an internalist foundationalism cannot provide justification. Without an acceptably strong reason to infer correspondence with a mind-independent reality, we are left without an acceptably strong reason to think a belief true. With no internalist reason for thinking any belief true; the
31 most that we could hope for would be coincidental truth. Even the likelihood of the truth of a belief regarding the external world would be beyond our access, since foundationalism leaves us without inference to the external physical world. And without access to a reason for thinking a belief to be veridical, we therefore have no justification, for internalist justification involves access to “an acceptably strong reason for thinking that the belief in question is true or likely to be true” (BonJour, 1999a, 118).
An epistemological theory is supposed to provide an account of belief justification.
Without justification for most of the beliefs that we commonly hold to be true, we seem to be left without a theory that can do any significant epistemic work. Without inference to the external world, we have no internalist reason for thinking that our beliefs correspond to that mind-independent world, and the correspondence theory of truth seems to be able to tell us nothing. Without any reason for thinking that our beliefs are true, an internalist epistemology cannot provide justification for our beliefs. Without justification, there can be no unconditionally justified basic beliefs upon which foundationalism may rest. We are left without truth, justification, or a substratum for epistemological structure. Thus, foundationalism, internalism, and the correspondence theory of truth are incompatible and mutually defeating.
If my reasoning has been sound, then it would appear that something needs to give. One of BonJour’s initial assumptions must be jettisoned and replaced by a contrary assumption that is compatible with the remaining assumptions. In the second part of this thesis I will briefly canvass these three possibilities for internally compatible epistemic theories.
32 II. Possible Internally Compatible Solutions
The assumptions underlying BonJour’s current epistemological theory are: a correspondence theory of truth, a foundationalist structure of epistemic justification, and an internalist constraint of epistemic accessibility. In the first part of this thesis I argued that these three notions together are incompatible. In this part of the thesis I will attempt to demonstrate that any two of these three notions are compatible with a contrary of the remaining assumption. Table 1 previews the path ahead: the first row lists BonJour’s three underlying assumptions that above were explored and shown to be incompatible; each of the following rows show the assumption to be rejected and the contrary notion that will be incorporated with the remaining original assumptions. The alterations to
BonJour’s original assumptions are highlighted with a gray background.
Accessibility Conception of truth Justificatory Compatibility requirement structure BonJour’s Internalism Truth as correspondence Foundationalism Incompatible assumptions Reject Externalism Truth as correspondence Foundationalism Compatible internalism Reject Internalism Truth as coherence Foundationalism Compatible correspondence Reject Internalism Truth as correspondence Coherentism Compatible foundationalism Table 1: Possible incompatible and compatible assumptions in epistemological theories
My purpose in this demonstration is twofold. First, I wish to emphasize that it is only the three initial assumptions together that are incompatible, not any specific pair of those assumptions. Second, I hope to show three possible directions that an epistemological theory could follow while maintaining internally compatible assumptions.
33 I will also note difficulties for each combination that are not directly related to internal compatibility. In doing so I will suggest which of the combinations I believe to have the most promise for a theory of epistemic justification.
1. Reject internalism
The first possibility is to reject an internalist conception of epistemic justification in favor of externalism. For epistemic justification, internalism requires that the believer
“have in his cognitive possession or be suitably aware of such a reason or adequate basis for thinking that the belief is true” or likely to be true (BonJour, 1999a: 118). As previously mentioned, externalism rejects the internalist requirement that the justificatory support for a belief be accessible to the believer. Under this approach, although “there must in a sense be a reason why a basic belief is likely to be true, the person for whom such a belief is basic need not have any cognitive grasp of this reason” (BonJour, 1980:
180). A belief can be justified, under the externalist conception of epistemic justification, regardless of whether the believer is aware of a basis for justification or can state or provide a justification for it.
To help clarify the notion of externalism, let us look at an example of an externalist theory. A prominent version of externalism is reliabilism. The basic idea of the reliabilist conception of justification is that a belief is justified if it results from a reliable cognitive process, where a reliable process is one which tends to produce true beliefs (Goldman, 1979). Under the correspondence theory of truth, a true belief is one which corresponds with the appropriate region of mind-independent reality. Here, foundationalism may ultimately ground belief justification in foundational or basic beliefs
34 that are justified simply by the fact that they are produced by a reliable process. Although the reliability depends upon a mind-independent reality, the believer need not be aware of the tendency to produce truthful beliefs that constitutes the reliability under externalism.
With externalism, it does not matter that foundationalism fails to provide an inference to a mind-independent reality since an awareness of the basis for thinking a belief to be true is not necessary for justification. The dilemmatic challenge for metajustification does not even arise without the internalist requirement. And because basic beliefs can be justified by appeal to reason of reliability of which the believer need not have cognitive grasp, beliefs about the external physical world can be justified. Through such beliefs, truths of correspondence can possibly be realized.
Given a correspondence theory of truth, an externalist notion of epistemic justification appears compatible with foundationalism. However, such a theory can only get off the ground because of the externalist rejection of the requirement for the believer’s accessibility to justification is embraced. Without accessibility, the believer would not seem to be able to recognize whether a particular belief is justified. In an externalist conception of epistemic justification, a belief can be justified even if not justified by the believer. Although she may have a true belief, she may not be aware of any reason for thinking that the belief is true.
Keith Lehrer notes that most externalists agree “that a belief resulting from a certain kind of process or relationship connecting belief with truth can yield knowledge without the sustenance or support of any other beliefs or system of beliefs” (Lehrer, 2000:
178). Without support from any other beliefs the believer would not be able to recognize the reliability of this process. But according to externalism, we need not have any
35 knowledge of, or even access to, such a process or relationship. Now that the rejection of internalism in favor of externalism has brought internal compatibility to our theory, the adequacy of epistemic externalism should be considered. The central question that needs to be explored is: If I form a belief through a reliable process, but I am not aware that the process is reliable, then, although the belief seems likely to be true, can I be rightfully justified in thinking the belief likely to be true? The answer to this question is precisely what is at issue in the debate between internalism and externalism.
I am inclined towards a negative answer to the above question. Lehrer argues that
“All externalist theories share a common defect, to wit, that they provide accounts of the possession of information, which may be opaque to the subject, rather than of the attainment of transparent knowledge” (Lehrer, 2000: 185). A reliable belief forming process may suffice for the recording of information, but if we remain ignorant of the reliability of this process, we do not have knowledge. Consider one of Lehrer’s examples:
Someone informs me that Professor Haller is in my office. Suppose I have no idea
whether the person telling me this is trustworthy. Even if the information I receive
is correct and I believe what I am told, I do not know that Haller is in my office,
because I have no idea of whether the source of my information is trustworthy.
The trustworthiness of the information and of the source of the information is
opaque to me. Opacity deprives me of knowledge. The nomological, statistical, or
counterfactual relationships or processes may be trustworthy, but this is not
transparent to me, for I lack information about them. (Lehrer, 2000: 188)
It seems to me that if the person in the example truly has no access to the reliability of the informant, even to the point where people in general are not seen as reliable to the person,
36 then that person would have no reason to think the belief that Haller is in his office likely to be true. And, as noted in the introduction, what is distinctive about epistemic justification “is that it involves an acceptably strong reason for thinking that the belief in question is true or likely to be true” (BonJour, 1999a, 118). Similarly, suppose that a completely unfamiliar device produced a reading that the current temperature in Toledo is
65 degrees Fahrenheit. As long as I have no indication as to the reliability of the device in accurately determining the temperature in Toledo, then I cannot count such information as likely to be true, and therefore I cannot consider this information as being justified.
But the force of these objections relies on an internalist intuition, and, hence, they are by no means decisive. If we do accept externalism and thereby reject the internalist requirement, as is under consideration in this section, then the objections would not hold.
Under an externalist theory such as reliabilism, a belief may be justified merely by the fact that it is produced by a reliable process, regardless of whether the believer has access to any reason to think that the process is reliable. Such a belief that is justified in this manner, if coupled with being true, would putatively constitute knowledge, not merely the possession of information.
However, the intuition for an internalist constraint on justification seems pervasive. In his article “Internalism and Externalism in Epistemology,” even after concluding that “existing forms of internalism are in serious trouble,” William Alston suggests that we turn not to externalism, but to a different, “suitably modest form” of internalism (Alston, 1986: 215). In order for a belief to be justified, the subject must have
“what it takes to respond successfully” to a challenge to specify an adequate ground that provides sufficient indication that the belief is likely to be true, even though the belief
37 need not actually be put to such a test. “A justified belief is one that could survive a critical reflection…the justifier must be accessible to the subject” (Alston, 1986: 217).
The internalist intuition even appears to infiltrate externalist writings. In arguing for reliablism, Goldman proposes that a belief is justified if it is produced by a reliable cognitive process as long as there is no “conditionally reliable process,” such as evidence gathering, available to the believer that would result in the believer not believing the belief in question (Goldman, 1979: 20). That is, if there is “previously acquired evidence” available to the believer that would call the reliability of the belief formation process into question, there would not be justification. The conditionally reliable process of properly using evidence that is available to the subject can serve to defeat the justification of a belief even if that belief is produced via a reliable cognitive process. A similar idea is reflected in BonJour’s statement, “If the acceptance of a belief is seriously unreasonable or unwarranted from the believer’s own standpoint, then the mere fact that unbeknownst to him its existence in these circumstances lawfully guarantees its truth will not suffice to render the belief epistemically justified and thereby an instance of knowledge” (BonJour,
1985: 41). External reliability is not enough for justification; a belief must also be able to pass a tribunal of internally available evidence without defeat. At least some concession to the internalist intuition seems difficult to avoid.
My largest hesitation in accepting an externalist conception of epistemic justification is a worry about how justification for a belief can be ascertained. Perhaps on an individual basis it initially seems that we can roughly determine whether someone is using a reliable belief forming process. Although the subject may not be aware that her belief is formed by a reliable cognitive process, and perhaps even denies justification of
38 the belief, external observers may be able to judge such to be the case. However, how can it be determined that the observers are forming these opinions in a reliable manner? If we are only capable of justifying each other, we are threatened by circularity. The only recourse may be to appeal to overall coherence and consistency of reported observations, but this just seems to lead to internalism on a group level. If the reliability or trustworthiness of a source of information is not or cannot be cognitively available to either the believer or external observers, then there cannot be a means by which we can deem beliefs based on that information knowledge, at least not by the traditional conception of knowledge as a justified true belief. There would be no measure by which anyone could determine what is knowledge and what is conjecture.
Although compatible with foundationalism under a correspondence theory of truth, the strongly intuitive need for an internal recognition of an acceptably strong reason for thinking that a belief is likely to be true raises a serious epistemological question for an externalist theory. Furthermore, only the possible awareness of the reliability or trustworthiness of the information source or process could allow for a measure by which justification and, by extension, knowledge can be determined. As we will see below (part
II, § 3), awareness of, or inference to, the reliability of an information source or process may arise through the coherence of sensory experiences or beliefs.
2. Reject the correspondence notion of truth
A second possibility would be to reject the correspondence notion of truth. An alternative theory of truth that may be compatible with an internalist foundationalism is the coherence theory of truth. As stated earlier, the coherence theory of truth holds that
39 the truth of a belief is identified with that belief standing in a suitably strong coherence relation with other beliefs in a system or relevant subset of a system of beliefs.
Under this conception of truth, one does not need inference to the mind- independent world in order to recognize the truth of a belief, which is the problem that confronts an internalist foundationalism that assumes truth as correspondence. The foundationalist may justify beliefs through a chain of conditional reasoning that ultimately reaches distal antecedent basic beliefs that are unconditionally justified as self-evident by the coherence of each of those beliefs with other beliefs. Perhaps BonJour would balk at the appeal to self-evidence, but what is self-evident in this case is not the justification but the truth of the basic belief since the truth is internally accessible as the coherence of that belief with other beliefs. Even the truth of beliefs regarding the existence of external physical objects can be discovered completely by internally accessible criteria. And a belief which is a self-evident truth would seem able to justify any beliefs consequent in conditional reasoning.
The inconsistency of the correspondence theory of truth with an internalist foundationalism resulted from the need for an inference to the external world. Without such an inference, there was no reason to think that many of our beliefs are likely to be true. But under a coherence theory of truth, an internalist foundationalism has no need for an inference to the mind-independent world since truth is the internal coherence of a belief with other relevant beliefs. The inconsistency that plagues an internalist foundationalism under a correspondence theory of truth does not arise under a coherence theory of truth.
Since, according to the coherence theory of truth, the truth of a belief is dependent upon the internal relations within a system of beliefs or subset of that system, the
40 coherence theory of truth does not present itself as a metaphysical realist notion of truth.
However, it may capture the notion of truth used in our ordinary language. The way we speak of ‘truth’ may have more to do with a tacit or implicit coherence than with an actual correspondence to mind-independent reality. But is a notion of truth that does not require any correspondence with a mind-independent reality the kind of truth that would seem necessary for knowledge? In the traditional conception of knowledge as being a true justified belief, a coherence notion of truth may fail to capture those beliefs that we would intuitively consider to be true as required for knowledge. There is certainly a sense in which it would seem that if I have a belief that there is a pencil in front of me, and there is actually a pencil physically in front of me, then my belief is a true belief regardless of whether it coheres with any other beliefs that I may hold. Whether such a belief meets the internalist justification requirement for knowledge is an issue separate from that of truth, although we have seen that there is no general inconsistency with internalism.
Another related concern is that certain construals of a coherence theory of truth may conflate truth with justification. We may want a theory of truth that tells us the metaphysical status of truth – what truth consists in. However, instead of identifying truth with a coherence relation, some interpretations of a coherence theory of truth only state that the criteria for determining the truth of a belief is whether it coheres with other beliefs. This notion of a coherence theory of truth seems more a description of justification, as opposed to a conception of what truth actually is. Since coherence as a description of justification would directly conflict with a foundationalist justification, this construal of a coherence theory of truth would be incompatible with foundationalism.
41 However, if the coherence theory of truth is clearly understood as a view of the nature of truth, there seems to be no incompatibility with foundationalism.
The coherence theory of truth appears, at least at first glance, compatible with an internalist foundationalism. As a theory of truth, coherence is possibly not stringent enough, and perhaps stands in danger of conflating truth with justification, but maybe it best captures our common notion of truth. The epistemological worry is that the coherence notion of truth may not be strong enough to account for common intuitions about what is true. Perhaps an even greater hesitancy to rejecting a correspondence theory of truth than the epistemological worry about a coherence theory of truth is simply my desire to preserve a metaphysically realist notion of truth, where truth is a notion relating directly to a mind-independent reality. The preservation of a metaphysically realist notion of truth also underlies my conviction, which I share with BonJour, that the correspondence theory of truth, as opposed to other conceptions of truth such as deflationary theories, should be considered the working hypothesis until convincingly shown to be less tenable and intelligible than alternative theories.
3. Reject foundationalism
The final possibility is to reject foundationalism. The primary alternative would be some form of a coherence theory of epistemic justification. Coherentism accepts the second solution mentioned in response to the epistemic regress problem, the response of the chains of justification looping back upon themselves. In this structure of epistemic justification, the justification for each belief depends upon its coherence with the system of beliefs or with a subset of the system of beliefs.
42 Since the beliefs within a believer’s own system of beliefs are in principle accessible to the believer, the internalist requirement is easily compatible with coherentism. And a coherentist system of justification, lacking foundational basic beliefs, would not be threatened by the possibility of the dilemmatic challenge for metajustification. Unlike a coherence theory of truth, a coherence theory of justification does not directly invoke truth; it merely suggests a reason for thinking something true in a justificatory sense. But we are here accepting a correspondence theory of truth, so the question arises as to why a belief that is coherent with other beliefs in the believer’s system of beliefs would provide a reason for thinking that the belief in question corresponds with the appropriate region of the external world and is therefore justified.
Perhaps the central difficulty confronting any coherence theory of justification (or confronting a coherence theory of truth, for that matter) is the elucidation of the notion of coherence. Coherence is more than mere consistency, lack of explicit contradiction.
Consistency is necessary for coherence, but it clearly is not sufficient. A set of beliefs can be “perfectly consistent and yet have no appreciable degree of coherence” (BonJour,
1985: 98). BonJour gives the example of two sets of propositions. The first set contains
“this chair is brown,” “electrons are negatively charged,” and “today is Thursday.” The second set contains “all ravens are black,” “this bird is a raven,” and “this bird is black”
(BonJour, 1985: 96). Both sets are consistent, but the second set possesses a much higher degree of coherence. The individual propositions are positively related in such a way that they lend support to one another; coherence involves fit and reinforcement.
Mutual supportiveness is clearly integral to the notion of coherence. Any particular belief in a highly coherent set of beliefs will be given support by the other
43 beliefs in that set. In the above two sets of propositions, the first set lacks mutual support, any two of the propositions lend little support to the third, whereas the second set has a much greater level of mutual supportiveness. Similarly, my belief that my car is now in the garage is supported by my belief that I saw my car in the garage this morning, by my belief that I have not moved my car today, and by my belief that I am the only person who drives my car. The coherence of this set of beliefs can be seen in the internal consistency of the set combined with the way that any particular belief within this set is supported to some degree by the other beliefs. The other beliefs of a largely coherent set provide evidence, even if not conclusive evidence, for the belief in question. Susan Haack (1999) employs an analogy of a crossword puzzle to help elucidate the notion of mutual supportiveness. In her analogy, the clues of a crossword puzzle are analogous to experiential evidence, and already-completed intersecting entries are analogous to reasons or relevant beliefs. Just as “how reasonable a crossword entry is depends both on the clues and on other intersecting entries,” how justified a particular belief is depends on how well that belief is supported by sensory experience and other experiential beliefs (Haack,
1999: 287).
Although the coherence of beliefs is difficult to define, I will attempt to shed light on coherence as an intuitive notion. Take my experiential belief that I see a hair that has fallen onto the desk in front of me. Consider my belief that there is physically a hair on the desk in front of me. I also have the belief that a noticeable amount of hair has fallen from my head recently (harbinger of middle age? stress?). My belief that there is physically a hair on the desk in front of me coheres with my belief that I have lost a lot of hair recently. However, as I reach out to brush it off of the desk, consider my experiential
44 belief that I feel no hair on the desk. Additionally, visually I believe that what looks like a hair does not move as I swipe my hand across it. My previous belief that there is physically a hair in front of me does not cohere with the last two beliefs. Because of this lack of coherence I seem to be no longer justified in my previous belief; the lack of coherence decreased the likelihood that my previous belief would be true. Furthermore, my new belief that there is a hair-like pencil mark on my desk does cohere with all of the above beliefs. It seems reasonable to think that this belief is likely to correspond with mind-independent reality, and I am therefore justified in holding such a belief.
This appeal to intuitions is similar to BonJour’s argument for an inference from our sensory experiences to the external physical world. The large degree of coherence of many of our sensory experiences and beliefs seems to need some explanation. And the most reasonable explanation is that those experiences and beliefs which are strongly coherent are caused by an external physical world to which they largely correspond. To return to a previous example, take my experiential belief that I see a pencil on the desk in front of me. Consider my belief that there is physically a pencil in front of me. Now, as I believe that I move, I have the experiential belief that I see the pencil on the desk in front of me from a different angle. Consider again my belief that there is physically a pencil in front of me. This belief is now coherent with several beliefs, and, it would seem, more likely to correspond with the external physical world than with less coherence. If I believe that I have a tactile experience that I am touching the pencil, then my belief that there is physically a pencil in front of me coheres with a larger set of beliefs, and I have an even stronger reason for thinking that this belief is likely to be true, that correspondence is likely. Although the attempted elucidation of coherence is essentially the same appeal
45 that BonJour made for an inference from his foundationalism to the external world, notice that it really is a description of coherence.
But there is also something intuitive about foundationalism. A request for justification of a belief statement is often responded to by appeal to sensational experience
(How do you know that x? Because I saw x!, or Because I saw y which implies x). I think
BonJour was basically on the right track in wishing to preserve such intuitions. However,
I have argued that an internalistic requirement cannot support justification of strictly foundational beliefs regarding events in an external world. Foundationalism ultimately grounds justification in unconditionally justified basic beliefs. BonJour explains such unconditional justification by appeal to the constitutive awareness of the sensory content of experiential states. However, this awareness only appears to justify beliefs that one is having an occurrent belief or sensory experience with a specific content. Under a correspondence theory of truth, such awareness does not seem to provide a strong enough reason for thinking that a belief accurately reflects the mind-independent world. He was right to suggest that it is the coherence of our sensory experiences that gives prima facie high epistemic warrant for empirical beliefs. And this prima facie high epistemic warrant gives a certain primacy to observational beliefs. But it is coherence that is doing the epistemic work in giving high credibility to sensory beliefs.
BonJour feels that an important point in favor of foundationalism is that, in any coherence theory that allows a central role in empirical justification to sensory observation or perception, although observational beliefs depend upon coherence for justification, the greater status afforded still depends in some way “on the fact that the belief was a result of perception” (BonJour, 1999a: 125). But recall the example of a solitary empirical belief
46 failing to cohere with other empirical beliefs and the subsequent example of no empirical beliefs ever cohering with any other beliefs (part I, § 8). It is not a priori that sensory beliefs have high epistemic warrant. Locke suggested that coherence between the various senses is what allows an inference to the external physical world when he wrote, “Our
Senses assist one anothers Testimony of the Existence of outward Things” (Locke, 1975
[1689]: book IV, ch. xi, § 7). The central role afforded to sensory beliefs is attained a posteriori through coherence: the coherence with various experiential beliefs via the same sensory modality (e.g. viewing the same object from different angles), the coherence with beliefs via other sensory modalities, and the coherence of sensory beliefs over time. It is the prodigious coherence of sensory beliefs and experiences, particularly consistently so over time, that endows these beliefs with such a status.
The notion that sensory beliefs have high epistemic warrant because they result from reliable cognitive processes may also be involved. This is the notion favored by many externalist theorists (see part II, § 1 above). But we are currently examining a coherence theory of justification under the assumption of an internalist requirement. For reliability to play a justificatory role, it must be available to the awareness of the believer.
As with other beliefs about the mind-independent physical world, the reliability of cognitive processes that result in sensory experiences and experiential beliefs must be inferred from the coherence of such beliefs with each other. Under internalism, it is coherence that provides the reason for thinking that certain beliefs are reliably produced and should therefore be given high epistemic warrant.
Perhaps it will be objected that since I am willing to give a high prima facie epistemic warrant to experiential beliefs, and that other beliefs may be justified via
47 conditional reasoning from these beliefs (although my guess is that coherence plays a role throughout the empirical structure), that the theory that I am suggesting as most promising is not purely a coherence theory. After all, even recent supposedly foundationalist
BonJour admits that, “while it is very plausible that coherence or something like it is one important ingredient in empirical justification, it is initially very implausible that it is the whole story” (BonJour, 1999a: 122). Fine. Terming the suggested theory as some version of foundherentism (a la Haack, 1999) or other hybrid notion of epistemic structure does not detract from my claim that without the coherence that supports a reason to think that purported basic experiential beliefs are true, or even reliably formed, foundationalism is not compatible with epistemic internalism and the correspondence theory of truth.
Furthermore, since the ultimate justificatory work for experiential beliefs is done by coherence, such a structure cannot rightfully be called foundationalism. For this reason, the theory I am suggesting as having the most promise may appropriately be called a type of coherence theory.
This theory differs from BonJour’s above all in its emphasis: primacy is given to coherence in epistemic justification. I also leave open the possibility that any belief, not only supposedly basis beliefs, can alter the justificatory status and acceptance of another belief. Beliefs can be acquired and justified against a background system of relevant beliefs, including tacit beliefs regarding the trustworthiness and reliability of sensory experiences, each of which can play a role in the justification of another belief.
Although coherentism would not provide us with direct access to the physical world, it may provide a basis for thinking that our beliefs about the physical world are likely to be true. Thus, the coherentist structure of justification remains clearly distinct
48 from truth as correspondence, but establishes an internalist justification of beliefs.
Furthermore, under the assumption of truth as correspondence, coherentism appears to be compatible with internalism.
4. Conclusion
The reconsideration of foundationalism attempted by BonJour is founded upon the background assumptions of the correspondence theory of truth, a foundationalist structure of epistemic justification that purportedly provides an acceptably strong reason for thinking a belief likely to be true, and an internalist conception of epistemic justification.
I have argued that these three assumptions cannot successfully be maintained together and are mutually defeating. However, replacing any one of the background assumptions with a contrary theory appears to yield an internally compatible solution.
None of the internally compatible possibilities are without epistemic worries.
Replacing internalism with externalism carries the danger that the believer may not recognize the justification of her own beliefs and that there would be no available measure by which justification could be determined. Rejecting the correspondence theory of truth would raise worries of giving up a metaphysically realist conception of truth.
Finally, foundationalism may be replaced by a version of coherentism. Although this would send BonJour back down the road from whence he came, he appeals to coherence in his argument for an inference to the external world. Without such an inference, all that a foundationalist epistemology would seem to justify are metabeliefs that we have certain internal experiences and occurrent beliefs, but it would not justify our
49 numerous beliefs regarding the external world. And these seem to me to be some of the most important beliefs that an epistemology of justification can attempt to justify.
Without their justification, skepticism looms as immanent. Although the notion of coherence is in need of more specific clarification, a version of coherence that is able to highlight the importance of sensory experience seems to me to have the best chance for a complete theory of epistemic justification. At the very least, under a correspondence theory of truth a coherentist structure of justification would be compatible with an internalist conception of justification.
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