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Can Basic Beliefs Help to Answer the Epistemic Regress Problem?

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Can Basic Beliefs Help to Answer the Epistemic Regress Problem? Skepticism, Foundationalism, and the Epistemic Regress Problem: Can basic beliefs help to answer the epistemic regress problem? Matthew Hale H399- Honors Thesis Advisor: Dr. Andrew Cling April 24, 2012 Hale- 1 The debate over the epistemic regress problem is one of the most philosophically challenging and important ones philosophers encounter. The problem directly affects whether or not we can have reasons for propositions. There are numerous theories postulated by philosophers that purport to solve the problem. The proposed responses can be divided into two groups, skeptics and anti-skeptics. Skepticism rejects all of the theories that argue we can have evidential support and, in its strongest version, claims that we cannot have reasons for propositions. This skeptical problem provides a significant challenge to anti-skeptical arguments because it is based on propositions the anti-skeptic seems to be committed to. Anti-skeptical views are attempts to respond to the epistemic regress problem. One such response is the foundationalist response. I propose that the foundationalist response provides the best answer to the epistemic regress problem because it allows for a stopping place in reasoning necessary to have non-arbitrary reasons for support. One problem a foundationalist faces is when determining what kinds of propositions could end the epistemic regress problem. I propose that the kinds of things that can end the regress of reasons without themselves requiring support are sensory states. In this paper I will consider the epistemic regress problem and the skeptical argument, and then defend a view of non-doxastic support proposed by Peter Markie. The epistemic regress problem is an epistemological problem. Epistemology is the study of knowledge and related notions: the study of how and even whether we can have evidence- providing reasons for belief. The regress problem poses a problem about how and even whether we can have evidential support for propositions. Obviously, almost all people believe they can have evidential support for some things they believe. It seems that if we do not have any evidential support for some of the important things we believe, such as propositions about moral values, those beliefs look to be arbitrary, and we do not want our beliefs to be arbitrary. If our Hale- 2 beliefs are arbitrary, how will we know which beliefs are correct and which are false? How can we be responsible thinkers if our beliefs are arbitrary? In a society that values being able to choose between right and wrong, allowing arbitrary beliefs is unacceptable, at least in the areas in which we think it is necessary to be able to discern between a wrong and a right. The epistemic regress problem poses a significant challenge to our answers to what makes our reasons non-arbitrary. It challenges whether or not we can have evidential support for propositions. The regress problem attacks a specific kind of support. We can propose to use anything we want as support regardless of whether it is actual evidence or not. The epistemic regress problem wants to examine what it takes to have evidential support for a proposition. Evidential support is support that makes belief in the proposition supported more likely to be true. Good evidential support ought to make it more reasonable to believe whatever it is the evidence is supporting. For example, if the proposition is “Jack ate a carrot today,” evidential support would be something that makes it more reasonable to believe he is orange such as “Mary saw him eating a carrot at lunch.” If the skeptical argument succeeds, it would be the case that we do not have at least a certain kind of support for our beliefs that we would like to have. Since we value having beliefs that are not arbitrary, the problem is important. By further considering our commitments about evidential support, the regress problem forces us to make difficult decisions about what kinds of support we can actually have. Each of these commitments is used to formulate the skeptical problem, and eventually, the skeptical argument that is one response to the epistemic regress problem. So, let us look at the epistemic regress problem. In order to evaluate the skeptical argument, I will first have to formulate the skeptical problem that constitutes the epistemic regress problem. The skeptical problem is different from the skeptical argument because the Hale- 3 skeptical argument is a proposed answer to the skeptical problem. The skeptical problem is simply the set of propositions that anti-skeptics seem to be committed to. In order to have the most powerful version of the skeptical problem, I will be using the version of the problem as set forth in Andrew Cling’s article, “Reasons, Regresses, and Tragedy: The Epistemic Regress Problem and the Problem of the Criterion.”1 Cling sets up the skeptical problem as a set of independently plausible but jointly inconsistent propositions. By this it is meant that each of these propositions is a commitment an anti-skeptic seems to be committed to, but that cannot all be true. The three propositions are: 1. “It is possible that some proposition is evidentially supported by a proposition.” 2. “Necessarily, if a proposition P1 is evidentially supported by a proposition P2, then there is a proposition P3 that evidentially supports P2.” 3. “Necessarily, if it must be that proposition P1 is evidentially supported by a proposition P2 only if P1 and P2 are the first two members of an endless sequence of propositions, each of which is evidentially supported by its successor, then no proposition can be evidentially supported by any proposition.”2 Cling posits these propositions as individually plausible but jointly inconsistent. Consequently, they constitute a paradox. You cannot consistently accept all three. So, let us look first at what must be done to get out of the problem and then at why the premises at least seem plausible to the anti-skeptic who wants to argue we can have evidential support for propositions. 1 A Cling, “Reasons, Regresses, and Tragedy: The Epistemic Regress Problem and the Problem of the Criterion,” American Philosophical Quarterly 46, no. 4 (2009): 333–346. 2 Ibid., 334. Hale- 4 In order to get out of this paradox, you must reject at least one of the propositions. You cannot consistently accept all three propositions. If you think proposition 2 and Proposition 3 are true, you must believe that proposition 1 is false because 2 & 3 entails that 1 is false. If (1) evidential support is a possibility and (2) evidence- providing reasons must be supported, then you must believe infinite regresses do not block evidential support, not (3). You can form a deductively valid argument for the negation of any of these propositions by taking two of the propositions as true as your premises and taking the negation of the third as your conclusion, as shown. The first proposition of the epistemic regress problem as posited by Cling is “It is possible that some proposition is evidentially supported by a proposition.”3 This claim seems to be the most simple and plausible of the three statements. This is also the statement which, if rejected, commits us to the view that we cannot have evidential support. The plausibility of this proposition can be seen through our judicial system. When a prosecutor proposes proposition E, that Edward murdered Bella, we believe he can have evidential support for this proposition. Our law system is based upon the belief that we can have evidence for propositions. People are convicted on the basis of evidence which a judge or jury deems to be evidentially supporting enough to prove something like assertion E. In order for our system to be non-arbitrary, we must be able to have evidence that provides support for propositions. Without evidence in a court of law, the decisions of the court would be arbitrary, a fact that we certainly do not wish to be the case. It seems necessary that in order to keep our courts from being arbitrary, we must admit that there can be evidential support for a proposition. This premise must be plausible and is a defining commitment of the anti-skeptic. 3 Ibid. Hale- 5 The second proposition of the skeptical problem deals with what kinds of things are required for good evidence-providing reasons. To restate the exact proposition as Cling does it is, “Necessarily, if it must be that proposition P1 is evidentially supported by a proposition P2, only if P1 and P2 are the first two members of an endless sequence of propositions, each of which is evidentially supported by its successor, then no proposition can be evidentially supported by any proposition.”4 Essentially, this proposition says evidence-providing reasons must themselves be supported by good reasons. Once again, I will use our judicial system as an example. With the previously stated proposition E, suppose we have evidence P1 for proposition E. (2) states that in order for this evidence P1 to provide evidential support for proposition E, P1 must have a proposition P2 that provides as evidential support for it. So, let P1 be the proposition Edward was arguing with Bella the morning of the murder. In order for this proposition P1 to support E, P1 must also have proposition P2, make it Bella’s neighbor saw Edward and Bella arguing from her front porch. Now it seems P1 can function as evidential support for proposition E. However, this continuing need for evidential support will lead to problems when considering the third proposition of the skeptical problem, but for now, we may conclude that in order for our evidence to function as we assume that it does in a court of law, in which we attempt to uphold and apply societal and moral values that are near and dear to our belief systems, this premise is plausible.
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