Classical Foundationalism - A Critique
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 28 ก.ค. 2024
- Classical Foundationalism, by historically choosing only starting points that are incorrigible, ends up excluding the actual "starting points" in favor of beliefs we are very certain are true. They correctly identify some beliefs that we can know are true, but they aren't actually "starting points" that can be successfully built on. In failing to conclude that our actual starting points are "proper", you end up unable to have a pathway to rational belief in inferential justification at all.
More modern types of foundationalism don't define their starting points (aka properly basic beliefs) in such a narrow way and do not run into the same problem.
Beautiful critique!
Welcome back! Weirdly, I was thinking about your channel just a few days ago.
Looking forward to more from you.
Good to have you back. Truth has died a little since you were last here. Good is becoming evil, and evil is becoming good. Apart from that, everything is going well. Isa 5:20.
that name aged like fine wine, lol.
it's good to see you again!
Try "Epydemic 2022" lol. Also thanks for the helpful critique!
welcome back, haven't seen you since video responses was a thing. I had to go back to our little how-do-ya-do from March 2010 to see if your name was 2020 back then XD. Nice one. can confirm from our old videos that it was 2020 back then too, had it in the video tags. All of my odl videos are unlisted now though.
Nice to see you again!
When I studied Epistemology about a decade ago I walked away with the view that we know almost nothing lol. Oh btw, I just learned yesterday that gravity apparently doesn't exist (As a force), it's just an illusion of the movement of time in curved space, but my brain hurt and I only half understood it, and it's also not a properly basic belief so feel free to take it with a grain of salt :D
I don't think that gravity is a properly basic belief at all. That was my example of an inferentially justified belief. It's a theory we (rightly or wrongly) derive from seeing stuff keep falling to earth. (the curved-space stuff is currently beyond me as well).
I really want to make a video about epistemology and what we can know, but I still need to work on the rough edges.
Here is the alpha version:
We have knowledge and we can even give examples of it. "I feel pain" is one such example. However, we suck at taking that example and then extracting from it the traits that are sufficient to make it count as knoweldge. So we start off by observing "that exmaple is justified, true, and is a belief. Knowledge must be "JTB". But then, we come up with later examples (called gettier cases) where we realize that something can be JTB and not count as knowledge. So we go back and redefine our criteria for knoweldge (and we define that one poorly as well). It's not that we don't have knowledge, it's that we don't have a good criteria for what makes a thing knowledge.
The phenomenon of knowing things is easy. The act of explaining exactly what it is that turns some beliefs into knowledge... well... we are really bad at that part. Skeptics often think they are showing knoweldge doesn't exist, but what they are really doing is showing only that our definitions of knowledge fall short by either excluding or including too much.
@@Testeverything521 Good points. For me, knowledge (Or JTB) has to be something we believe that cannot be incorrect, otherwise it's not knowledge obviously. And from there, it appears that almost nothing falls into a category where that criteria is met. Funny enough though, we probably have tons of true beliefs but we don't know if we know them. So for me, I only really know raw experience for certain, but I probably have lots of true (And false) beliefs but I can't be sure if they are actual knowledge or not.
I hadn’t seen you since that Nazi video you made 3 years ago. Great video
You might be seeing some more of me. I've got some more videos already scripted and just need to find the time to record them.
@@Testeverything521 That's great, looking forward to it
clairvoyant like the simpsons
You know you have been thinking about epistemology too much when someone makes a comment about the Simpsons and your brain keeps trying to interpret it as a statement about " "Laurence BonJour's case of Norman the clairvoyant".
@@Testeverything521 hahaha. you also have to remember some of your audience are probably just plebs (like me).
Christ i forgot i was even subscribed to you. i havent seen one of your videos since Atheism videos were popular here on youtube.
Now I have nostalga. lol
nostalgia*
I might be being extremely obtuse here, but i disagree with the idea that to believe "Aarons facebook argument was incorrect" you must necessarily believe "aaron exists" and "faceboo exists". Because "aarons facebook argument" is a variable set to a specific value, regardless of whether aaron is real or facebook is real.
For example, "aarons facebook argument" might be equal to "vaccines cause autism". And that claims existence and truth value are independant of the existence of aaron or facebook.
btw critical analysis is how i show affection. great video
There is a difference between "the argument is incorrect" and "the facebook argument is incorrect".
If there is no facebook, there can be no facebook arguments at all.
I could have chosen a less tricky example though.
@@Testeverything521 Okay its a difference in how we view labels then. I'm tend to think of labels like a programmer or mathematician where each label or variable is set to a specific value. the label can be anything. In addition labels are often misnomers.
I dont think this is a matter of your argument being wrong, its more a matter of it being open to misinterpretation.
Okay, so no offense, but these are weak arguments that either misunderstand CF, beg the question against it, or else demonstrate no familiarity with how CFs overcome these challenges. We've totally gotta debate someday.
So the first argument was what is often referred to as the argument from impoverished foundations. Basically, you argued that we simply don't have enough incorrigible beliefs to get the sort of beliefs we want to hold. So I would give two responses here. First, I do you not agree with this assessment of the situation. I think we have many incorrigible beliefs and that they are sufficient to gain knowledge of the external world. However, secondly and perhaps more seriously, even if the objection holds this does not do anything to damage CF. Since when is it appropriate to gerrymander your epistemic principles in order to get the conclusions that you want? If I want to believe in God, and I can't get to that belief on the basis of the available evidence, do I now get to just assume whatever I want in order to get to that belief? Of course not. So all this amounts to is a complaint that CF doesn't let you believe the kinds of things that you want. But that's completely irrelevant to whether or not it is a workable theory of epistemic justification.
You stated on multiple occasions that we do not get inferential justification. I'm really curious as to where you picked this up since CF is an attempt to explain how inferential beliefs can be justified. We don't deny inferential knowledge. We simply say that inferential knowledge must terminate in incorrigible foundations because no other foundation is adequate to confer justification. In fact, in our discussions on this, you seem to admit as much. You basically take for granted certain beliefs without any justification. And of course you are free to do that, but these beliefs are not justified. In any case, the claim that CF denies inferential justification is completely wrong.
You say that there are always assumptions, but I dispute that this must be the case. Theoretically any justifed belief could be decisively justified in my view.
You say that sense perception and memory must be taken for granted but you offered no argument for this assertion. Why should these not be taken to be understood as incorrigible in a relevant sense? I believe they are!
You assume some sort of epistemic externalism near the end when you say that any argument for the reliability of cognitive processes is going to depend on the reliability of cognitive processes. CF is an internalist theory of justification. We don't see cognitive processes as justificatory. So you're right that if you are looking for justification there then you are bound to circular reasoning. But that's a problem for your view, not for CF. Since justification is a matter of evidence in our view, we don't face the circularity problem.
Lastly, you charge that CF entails that we have no knowledge of the external world. This is patently false. CF entails that our knowledge of the external world is not incorrigible, but that does not mean we don't possess any knowledge of it at all. The usual strategy here is an inference to the best explanation. Now you can contest that such an inference really would be the best if you want to, but it is at least theoretically possible. CF allows that it could be done.
My argument is actually, no matter how many incorrigible beliefs you have, those aren't the real "starting points". Are they true beliefs? Yes. Are they the beliefs that are able to explain why belief in gravity is rational? no.
"they are sufficient to gain knowledge of the external world"
This is where we disagree. Incorrigible beliefs don't have that capacity, but it'd be interesting to see the attempt in action.
"Since when is it appropriate to gerrymander your epistemic principles in order to get the conclusions that you want"
You don't choose your epistemic views in order to get the result that you want. I'm not suggesting you do. I'm just pointing out an absurd consequence of CF.
My objection is that CF thinks it has found "Starting points", but has instead found "beliefs we can be extremely confident are true". It's a mistake to think that those true beliefs make for good starting points.
CF is an attempt to start with a foundation and build on that to explain inferentially justified beliefs. The most famous of the CF''s is Descartes, who famously succeeds at the first objection and horribly fails at the latter. He literally tries to bridge the gap from "I think therefore I am" to "Science can be trusted" by using a version of the ontological argument.
" CF denies inferential justification is completely wrong."
CF does not deny inferential justification. It just fails to support it. Whenever a CF tries to talk about how belief in gravity is rational, they end up accidentally taking for granted their ACTUAL foundational beliefs (which is the reliability of sensation, cognition, and memory).
"You say that sense perception and memory must be taken for granted but you offered no argument for this assertion. Why should these not be taken to be understood as incorrigible in a relevant sense? I believe they are!"
If I say "I feel pain" that is true whether or not I'm dreaming. If I say "The knife caused me to feel pain", belief in the pain is incorrigible, but belief in the knife is not. If I'm dreaming, the knife didn't actually exist. If you are saying "I have this memory" then you are saying something incorrigible. If you say "I have this memory and that accurately depicts events that happened in the real world" then it is not incorrigible, because the last part could be false. If it could be false, then by definition it can't also be incorrigible. Memories definitely exist, but they don't definitely correspond to reality.
"You assume some sort of epistemic externalism near the end when you say that any argument for the reliability of cognitive processes is going to depend on the reliability of cognitive processes"
This is not the case. You don't have to be an externalist to recognize that you can't prove your senses by using your senses. Even internalists can recognize that circular reasoning is bad.
" We don't see cognitive processes as justificatory"
We must be talking past each other here again. Internalists most definitely do view cognitive processes as justification. "Cognitive processes" are just thinking and reasoning. Those are things that you have direct internal access to. Denying that cognitive processes count as justification is akin to saying "reasoning doesn't give you reasons".
"The usual strategy here is an inference to the best explanation"
Yes... Excellent.
This is exactly my point. When a CF tries to say that belief in inference is rational, they appeal to the "best explanation" which takes for granted that their cognitive faculties are reliable. (Taking for granted your cognitive faculties are reliable is the REAL foundation.) After all, you can't figure out which of two explanations is "Best" unless you possess the ability to accurately tell which of two arguments is better. To put it in a very straightforward way: Your cognitive faculties are the things that allow you to make inferences. So if you want to make an inference to the best explanation, you will be taking for granted the reliability of your cognitive faculties. If taking this basic view for granted was IMPROPER, then you cannot successfully make an inference to the best explanation. If, however, your taking of that basic for granted was proper, then you have just discovered a "properly basic belief" that was not incorrigible, and now you have abandoned CF.
Hahaha I knew I'd see you in the comment section of this. Great rebuttal, David.
heya, a friend sent me here to see if you would talk to me, a skeptic - if so let me know, my email is on my about page - by the way the webpage on your about page does not function.
Thanks for the heads up about the link. I'll shoot you an email :)
Wow It's been a while! You can change your channel name btw.
I'm contemplating it. It probably is a good idea.
@@Testeverything521 pandemyc2020
@@GallusSapien The perfect alternative!
I just hope I recognize that it’s him if he does. Typically when someone I’m subscribed to does that I’m like, “Who is that person again and when and why did I subscribe to them?”
@@jcrebel18 Yeah. That's a pretty big downside.