The Raft And The Pyramid

Two Key Questions:

( i )What do we know?

(ii)How do we know?

Two Approaches:

-Particularism: First, answer ( i ), then look for the answer to (ii).

Ex. Descartes

-Methodism: First, answer (ii), the look for the answer to one.

Ex. Hume

Foundationalism : The Pyramid

(A) All nodes that succeed a node directly serve jointly to support it.

(B) Each node must be a proposition that S is justified in believing a t.

(C) if a node is not self-evident (for S at t), it must have successors.

(D) Each branch of the epistemic pyramid must terminate.

Coherentism : The Raft

The Coherentist Attack

( CA1 ) Either a mental state is a propositional attitude, or it is not.

(A1) Propositional Attitudes do not give us direct contact with reality.

(A2) If a state does not give one direct contact with reality, then it provides not guarantee against error.

( A3 ) If a state provides one with no guarantee against error, then it cannot serve as a foundation for knowledge.

( A4 ) Therefore, Propositional Attitudes cannot serve as a foundation for knowledge.

(B1) If is not a propositional attitude, then it can provide no logical support for a hypothesis.

(B2) If a state cannot supply logical support for a hypothesis, then it cannot serve as a foundation for knowledge.

( B3 ) Hence, if a mental state is not a propositional attitude, then it cannot serve as a foundation for knowledge.

( CA2 ) Therefore, given ( A4 ) and ( B3 ), no mental state can serve as a foundation for knowledge.

Sosa 's Challenge (B1)

(B1) If is not a propositional attitude, then it can provide no logical support for a hypothesis.

The Analogy With Ethics

The Intellectualist Model of Justification

Sosa attacks the second arm of the dilemma in two ways. First, he attacks the general idea that only propositional attitudes can justify propositional attitudes by citing a "legitimate" example of extraattitudinal support for propositions in consequentialist ethics. Next he attacks what he sees as the picture of justification which underlies the argument for the second dilemma. According to this model, justification is "parasitic" on logical relations between the content of propositional attitudes. Sosa attacks this idea by suggesting that it either (a) undermines the coherentist view, or any view of justification that requires a finite regress of justification, or (b) the notion is so trivial as to be boring.

The Regress Argument

Sosa attacks the foundationalist view on the grounds that it really cannot

rule out an infinite regress. Rather than prove this, he considers "the arguments" against the idea that there can be an infinite regress that justifies a belief at the begining .

( O1 ) It is humanly impossible to have an infinite number of beliefs.

( R1 ) (A)Who knows how many beliefs we have, especially if we allow unconscious or dispositional beliefs. (B) He adopts a methodological approach and claims that the question isn't restricted to limited human understanding.

( O2 ) There can be no infinite regresses of justification, since such a regress would never end, and hence it would never justify any belief.

( R2 ) If the end is temporal, why must there be a (temporal end)? If the end is justificational , then you are simply begging the question.

( O3 ) If one supposes that one must have a belief that the target belief is justified by the prior belief and that it is justified by the prior belief, etc., then an infinite regress would require that one have a belief in an infinite proposition.

( R3 ) Why suppose this? And, even if it were true, it only implies that one have an infinity of increasingly complex, finite beliefs.

( O4 ) We can imagine infinite regresses in which each belief seems to be justified by the next, but it is obvious that the belief is not justified.

( R4 ) Such beliefs are not justified, since in these cases the belief is merely one which would be justified if its predecessors were. Moreover,

this seems to miss the point: The main question is whether there are any actual infinite regresses of justification.

Moral: The fact that there seem to be some legitimate possible infinite regresses of justification seems to effectively block the regress argument. Hence, the foundationalist has no good argument for his/her view when construed as denying that there are possible infinite regresses of justification. However, the foundationalist need only claim that all justified beliefs are at the heads of terminating regresses of justification, a weaker claim since they could also be at the head of infinite regresses as well.

Formal vs Substantive Foundationalism

Formal Foundationalism : The view that "...with respect to a normative or evaluative property ... the conditions (actual and possible) within which would apply can be specified in general, perhaps recursively." (p.254)

Substantive Foundationalism : The view that there are ultimate sources of justification other than relations among beliefs.

Three Grades of Formal Foundationalism :

Grade 1: Mere supervenience of the property of justification upon some nonnormative , nonevaluative properties.

Grade 2: Supervenience plus the claim that the conditions (actual and possible) for belief justification can be specified, perhaps recursively [explicable supervenience ] .

Grade 3: Supervenience plus the claim that the conditions of (actual and possible) belief justification are specifiable in a simple, comprehensive theory [easily explicable supervenience ].

Doxastic Assent Arguments

These are the second line of attack against the foundationalist . The idea is that there is reasoning involved in the acceptance/recognition of foundational beliefs as foundational, and this reasoning requires premises that cannot be foundaytional themselves. Hence, they are not foundational at all.

Sosa 's response to this point is to claim that the point of being a foundationally justified belief is to be a belief, the justification of which, comes from its nonepistemic properties. He then responds that the coherentist cannot accept the premises of the argument as they would lead to a vicious infinite regress. Here Sosa suggests that such regresses are vicious because they would seem to violate supervenience .

Substantive Foundationalism vs Coherentism

Here Sosa offers an argument to the conclusion that mere coherence among beliefs is insufficient of justification because we can imagine equally coherent systems, one in which we have a clearly justified belief, the other in which we seem to have a clearly unjustified belief. His example is the belief that one has a headache.

The Foundationalist 's Dilemma and Reliabilism

In the remaining two sections, Sosa offers us an argument for adopting a sort of reliabilism based upon the notion of an intellectual virtue, a disposition to form beliefs in a reliable manner. Beliefs, then get their justification by being the products of these intellectual virtues. His primary motivation for adopting such a view is that it avoids a dilemms he sketches for the foundationalist who holds that perceptual beliefs are foundational.

Sosa asks the foundationalist with regard to the epistemic principle

underlying our justification in visual beliefs, "Is it a fundamental or a derived generalization?" If they are derived maxims, then the foundationalist must probe further. But, it seems implausible that they are fundamental, since we must then accept a ununified multitude of principles as fundamental. Sosa 's theory is offered as providing the fundamental principle underlying these generalizations.

The Raft And The Pyramid

Two Key Questions:

(i)What do we know?

(ii)How do we know?

Two Approaches:

-Particularism: First, answer ( i ), then look for the answer to (ii).

-Methodism: First, answer (ii), the look for the answer to one.

Foundationalism : The Pyramid

Coherentism : The Raft

The Coherentist Attack

( CA1 ) Either a mental state is a propositional attitude, or it is not.

(A1) Propositional Attitudes do not give us direct contact with reality.

(A2) If a state does not give one direct contact with reality, then it provides not guarantee against error.

( A3 ) If a state provides one with no guarantee against error, then it cannot serve as a foundation for knowledge.

( A4 ) Therefore, Propositional Attitudes cannot serve as a foundation for knowledge.

(B1) If is not a propositional attitude, then it can provide no logical support for a hypothesis.

(B2) If a state cannot supply logical support for a hypothesis, then it cannot serve as a foundation for knowledge.

( B3 ) Hence, if a mental state is not a propositional attitude, then it cannot serve as a foundation for knowledge.

( CA2 ) Therefore, given ( A4 ) and ( B3 ), no mental state can serve as a foundation for knowledge.

Sosa 's Challenge (B1)

(B1) If is not a propositional attitude, then it can provide no logical support for a hypothesis.

The Analogy With Ethics

The Intellectualist Model of Justification

The Regress Argument

Objections

Moral

Formal vs Substantive Foundationalism

Formal Foundationalism

Substantive Foundationalism

Three Grades of Formal Foundationalism :

Grade 1

Grade 2

Grade 3

Doxastic Assent Arguments

Substantive Foundationalism vs Coherentism

The Foundationalist 's Dilemma and Reliabilism