FOUNDATIONALISM AND THE IDEA OF THE EMPIRICAL CIARA FAIRLEY University College London Submitted for the degree of PhD, May 2007 1 UMI Number: U592757 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Dissertation Publishing UMI U592757 Published by ProQuest LLC 2013. Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 ABSTRACT This thesis is about foundationalism in epistemology. It distinguishes between different forms of foundationalism and defends one particular version of this doctrine. Chapter 1 gives an account of the motivations for foundationalism, including the so-called epistemic regress argument. It criticizes recent accounts of the core doctrines of foundationalism, such as those of Michael Williams and Ernest Sosa, and proposes a different account according to which foundationalism is the view that (a) some of our beliefs must be non-inferentially justified, (b) perception is a source of non-inferential justification, and (c) perception is a basic source of such justification. Chapter 2 gives an account of traditional foundationalism and tries to identify both what is right with it and what is wrong with it. It argues that the basic insight of traditional foundationalism can be detached from some of the other doctrines with which it was associated by the traditional foundationalists. That insight concerns the role of perceptual awareness or acquaintance as a regress-terminating source of epistemic justification. Chapter 3 exploits this idea in defending a more modest form of foundationalism according to which ordinary perceptual beliefs may be foundational. Chapters 3 and 4 focus on two influential arguments against the view that ordinary beliefs about the world around us can be non- inferentially justified by perception. The first argument trades on the alleged fallibility of perceptual justification, the second on its defeasibility. It is shown that neither argument poses a genuine threat to the more modest version of foundationalism that I defend. Chapter 5 compares perception with other sources of non-inferential justification such as memory and testimony. It defends the view that perception is a privileged source of non- inferential justification, even if it isn't the only source of such justification. It also contrasts foundationalism with traditional forms of extemalism such as reliabilism and explains why the latter should not be counted as a form of foundationalism. 2 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Thanks to Mike Martin for getting me started on this topic and for his input in the early stages of my research. In the last two years I have been helped by Quassim Cassam whose support, encouragement, and own example made it possible for me to finish this thesis. I would also like to thank Marcus Giaquinto and Paul Snowdon for useful discussions and feedback on earlier drafts of some of the following chapters. I gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the Royal Institute of Philosophy. This thesis is dedicated to those who have helped me most; you know who you are. 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE 6 1. WHAT IS FOUNDATIONALISM? 13 1. Introduction 13 2. The Epistemic Regress Argument 24 3. Conclusion 49 2. THE HISTORICAL FOUNDATIONALISTS 50 1. Introduction 50 2. Historical Foundationalism 52 3. Revisionary Epistemology 63 4. The Idea of the Empirical 76 5. Conclusion 82 3. THE ARGUMENT FROM FALLIBILITY 84 1. Introduction 84 2. Propositional Perception 88 3. Non-Propositional Perception 96 4. Having Reasons 110 5. The Argument from Fallibility 124 6. Conclusion 138 4. THE ARGUMENT FROM DEFEASIBILTY 141 1. Introduction 141 2. Perceptual Defeasibility 142 3. The Argument from Defeasibility 151 4 4. The World Made Manifest 161 5. Historical Foundationalism Reconsidered 166 6. Indefeasibility and the Mental 175 7. Conclusion 177 5. THE PRIMACY OF PERCEPTION 178 1. Introduction 178 2. Concept Empiricism 184 3. Basic Knowledge 186 4. Generating Knowledge 192 5. Perception and Explanation 209 6. Conclusion 220 BIBLIOGRAPHY 223 5 FOUNDATIONALISM AND THE IDEA OF THE EMPIRICAL PREFACE When I first encountered foundationalism as a topic in epistemology I had a certain understanding of what it was supposed to be. I thought that foundationalism was roughly the view that not all of our justification could be inferential and that perception is the basic source of justification that is not inferential. So foundationalism, as I understood it, was a doctrine both about the structure of human knowledge or justification, and its sources. This initial impression was strengthened when I read Contemporary Theories of Knowledge by Pollock and Cruz. They claim: The simple motivation for foundations theories is the psychological observation that we have various ways of sensing the world and that all knowledge comes to us via those senses. The foundationalist takes this to mean that our senses provide us with what are then identified as epistemologically basic beliefs. We arrive at other beliefs by reasoning (construed broadly). Reasoning, it seems, can only justify us in holding a belief if we are already justified in holding the beliefs from which we reason, so reasoning cannot provide an ultimate source of justification. Only perception can do that. We thus acquire the picture of our beliefs forming a kind of pyramid, with the basic beliefs provided by perception forming the foundation, and all other justified beliefs being supported by reasoning that traces back ultimately to the basic beliefs (Pollock & Cruz 1999: 29). 6 Though Pollock and Cruz ultimately mishandle this insight they remain virtually the only commentators in this area to acknowledge the importance of perception. Their book had a lasting impact on my thinking. I thought that if I had correctly understood foundationalism it was pretty obviously true. Although some of our beliefs are justified because we have inferred them from other things that we are justified in believing it seemed obvious to me that they cannot all be justified in this way. Some of our beliefs must be non-inferentially justified and perception is the obvious source of such justification. How then could foundationalism - which says just this - fail to be true? It came as something of a surprise, then, when I discovered that not only is foundationalism not a position that most philosophers think is true. It is a position that most philosophers think is false. That left me puzzled: how could so many philosophers be so critical of a position that seems to get so much right? This thesis is to a large extent a direct product of that puzzlement and a more or less direct attempt to resolve it. The first thing that I discovered when I starting reading more widely was that other people don’t all understand foundationalism in the way that I did. The historical foundationalists - people like C. I. Lewis, Roderick Chisholm, and A. J. Ayer - agreed that our knowledge of the world rests upon a foundation of basic beliefs and that those beliefs are not justified in the way that the rest of our beliefs are justified. But while I took basic beliefs to include ordinary beliefs about objects and events in the world around 7 us, the historical foundationalists took them to be beliefs about our own minds.1 And while I thought that the basic beliefs are justified by perception the historical foundationalists claimed those beliefs are infallible and so either justify themselves or are justified by some sort of special introspective awareness. This seemed a long way from the rather commonsensical doctrine that I had always taken foundationalism to be. In recent years foundationalism has enjoyed something of a renaissance. Unfortunately, the form of foundationalism that is popular nowadays is a long way from the position that I call foundationalism. Sometimes called ‘formal foundationalism’, the new foundationalism is a bland doctrine that normally involves no more than a commitment to the idea that epistemological properties like justification supervene on non- epistemological ones. Since this makes just about everyone a foundationalist it’s not a position that I felt very excited about defending. I think that foundationalism is a substantive doctrine though not the very unattractive doctrine the historical foundationalists made it out to be. Foundationalism, as I understand it, has got three basic components. The first is that there must be such a thing as non-inferential justification and there must be because otherwise we face a vicious epistemic regress. This is the least contentious of what I regard as the three basic elements of foundationalism. I think that the so-called epistemic regress argument for 1 1 It sounds odd to say the foundational beliefs include ‘ordinary beliefs’ about the world. Aren’t ordinary beliefs supposed to be the beliefs that are supported by more basic beliefs? If the former are basic, what would be an example of a non-basic belief? This problem arises where we assume we can individuate the foundational beliefs in terms of their subject-matter. We will see later this is a mistake: foundational beliefs are not ‘about’ any particular subject-matter. What distinguishes these beliefs is the source of their justification. Here, all I mean is that the foundational beliefs might include beliefs like this: ‘the squirrel is on the fence’ ‘Ross is at the party’ and so on. This is something more traditional foundationalists denied.