a critique of bonjour's analysis of the foundationalism

Sachin Nandha V7DMETDepartment of Philosophy, University of NottinghamA Critique of Bonjour’s Analysis of the Foundationalist Argument

A Critique of Bonjour’s Analysis of the Foundationalist Argument

The Structure of Empirical Knowledge by Bonjour puts forward what he calls

“conclusive” arguments against the central doctrines of Foundationalsim. In this

essay I aim to show that Bonjour has failed in his attempt for the simple reason that he

has interpreted and portrayed the central ideas that he wishes to dispel inaccurately,

and therefore his reasons for rejecting foundationalism also come into question. I aim

to show that two of his premises in his anti-foundationalist argument are self-

defeating and another begs the question. In the final section of this essay, I aim to

show that his interpretation of the doctrine of the given is fallacious in two ways and

conclude by stating that the central ideas of foundationalism cannot be conclusively

rejected on the reasons Bonjour gives.

Before I delve into the concept of Foundationalism and its central argument, I must

summarise the “story so far”. The primary aim of this paper is to look at

‘propositional knowledge’: the knowledge that something is the case, that a

proposition is true. For a person A to know that P, where P is some proposition, three

conditions must be satisfied:

1) A must believe that P,

2) P must be true, and

Hence, A’s belief that P must be justified

This essay stems from an investigation around condition 3, what does it mean to have

adequate justification for a belief? More specifically, this paper revolves around

Bonjour’s Structure of Empirical Knowledge, in which, he attempts to give a

conclusive account of why foundationalism is flawed. Foundationalism attempts to

defeat the regress problem hence, scepticism by introducing ‘basic beliefs’, beliefs

that are justified but not dependent on other justified beliefs. It is these basic beliefs

that a person has which make up his or her foundation of knowledge on which all of

their beliefs depend on for justification. Bonjour uses the following passage from

Quinton to express the problem:

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“If any beliefs are to be justified at all…there must be some terminal beliefs

that do not owe their…credibility to others. For a belief to be justified it is not

enough for it to be accepted, let alone merely entertained: there must also be a

good reason for accepting it. Furthermore, for an inferential belief to be

justified the beliefs that support it must themselves be justified. There must,

therefore, be a belief that does not owe its justification to the support provided

by others. Unless this were so no belief would be justified at all, for to justify

any belief would require the antecedent justification of an infinite series of

beliefs. The terminal…beliefs that are needed to bring the regress of

justification to a stop need not be strictly self-evident in the sense that they

somehow justify themselves. All that is required is that they should not owe

their justification to any other belief.” [Bonjour, Ch. 2, Structure of Empirical

Knowledge]

My concern is that Bonjour has failed to give an account of the anti-foundationalist

theory that conclusively puts to bed foundationalism. Instead, he has set up

foundationalism in his book, to fail. I aim to show that his argument is not as

conclusive as he makes out.

Bonjour at the end of chapter two summarises his anti-foundationalist argument as

follows (lightly edited):

a) Suppose there are basic empirical beliefs (beliefs that are epistemically

justified and not reliant on any other belief for its justification)

b) A belief is justified if there is a reason why it is likely to be true

c) A belief is justified for a person only if he or she is in cognitive possession

of such a reason

d) A person is in cognitive possession of such a reason if he or she believes

with justification the premises from which it follows that a belief is likely

to be true

e) The premise of such a justifying argument must include at least one

empirical premise as it cannot be entirely ‘a priori’

Bonjour goes onto say that premise ‘e’ contradicts premise ‘a’ as the justification of a

supposed basic belief depends on the justification of at least one other empirical belief

and therefore there can be no basic beliefs. Bonjour claims that foundationalists can

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only attack premise ‘c’ or ‘d’ which he goes onto defend in later chapters, however I

aim to show that he fails to conclusively defend either.

My concern with premise ‘c’ is that it seems to “beg the question”. What is it for a

person to be in ‘cognitive possession’ of a reason why one’s belief is likely to be true?

Bonjour says that in order for a belief ‘B’ to be justified for a person ‘A’, it is

necessary that ‘A’ himself be in cognitive possession of that justification, or in other

words believes justifiably 1 and 2 of the following justificatory premises:

1) B has a feature Ø

2) Beliefs having a feature Ø are highly likely to be true

3) Hence, B is likely to be true

Therefore premise ‘c’ of the anti-foundationalist argument claims that a belief is

justified for a person only if he believes in the premises of a justifying argument. But

foundationalism denies this claim and thus premise ‘c’ begs the question.

The second immediate objection to Bonjour’s anti-foundationalist argument is that

premises ‘c’ and ‘d’ together leads to scepticism. His premise ‘c’ states that a person

must have a reason for believing that his belief is likely to be true and that he must be

in cognitive possession of that reason. Following onto premise ‘d’, it states that it is

not enough for a person to be in possession of a reason which makes a belief highly

likely to be true, but instead asks that the justificatory premises themselves be

justified. In other words, a person’s belief that ‘r’ is justified only if he justifiably

believes both that a) his belief that ‘r’ has Ø and b) beliefs having Ø are highly likely

to be true.

So, if I were to apply Bonjour’s premises ‘c’ and ‘d’ to any situation, it would lead to

an endless regress and hence scepticism as it entails that a persons belief that ‘r’ at a

time is justified only if he has infinitely many other justified beliefs at that specific

time. If I were to believe that my neighbour has a red car, under premise ‘c’, I must

have a reason for believing that my neighbour has a red car and be in cognitive

possession of it at the same time. However, my justificatory proposition that “I have

seen a red car outside my neighbours house” must itself be justified under premise

‘d’. The question that arises from the example is that how is my perception that “I

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have seen a red car outside my neighbour’s house” itself be justified? Howard-

Snyder (Anti-foundationalist argument and the doctrine of the given, 1998) makes a

similar point regarding Bonjour’s anti-foundationalist argument. He has said that two

major problems arise from premises ‘c’ and ‘d’. ‘The first problem is that given our

present cognitive powers, humans cannot have infinitely many beliefs at once and

secondly, even if they could, the type of beliefs generated by the reiterative

application of premises ‘c’ and ‘d’ are too complex for us to grasp them all’.

(Howard-Snyder, 1998) Therefore, if Bonjour’s premises ‘c’ and ‘d’ are true, I

justifiably believe nothing as I lack the cognitive capacity it requires.

Therefore the anti-foundationalist argument is self-defeating given that premises ‘c’

and ‘d’ entails that one cannot justifiably believe anything, thus, one cannot also

believe the anti-foundationalist argument itself. Howard-Snyder makes the point that

‘even if the argument was correct, it gives us no justifying reason to reject

foundationalism’.

How is Bonjour to defend premise ‘c’ and ‘d’ against the charge that they lead to

scepticism and thus are self-defeating? One way in which Bonjour could potentially

defend himself against this charge is by appealing to a form of implicit commonsense.

By this I mean that a person could meet premise ‘c’ and ‘d’ by naturally believing the

premises of a justifying argument. When one is said to believe a proposition

naturally, all that is being said is that one would affirm it sincerely and unhesitatingly

were one to consider it, and since humans have infinite premises of this kind, it can be

followed that one can have infinite beliefs at once and hence, act as a counter against

Howard-Snyder’s conclusion that humans cannot possess infinite beliefs at any one

time.

There would be a problem if Bonjour were to give this type of response to the attack

on his anti-foundationalist argument. Firstly, there is a difference between a “natural”

belief and “natural” to believe. While it can be said that often our natural beliefs

entail a natural inclination to believe those propositions, it still does not follow that a

natural belief is synonymous to the statement ‘natural to believe’. For example

imagine a man is snoring too loudly in his cabin (keeping awake all the other

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campers), although he would sincerely and without hesitation agree that he was

snoring too loudly were it brought to his attention, he may “naturally” believe it or

disbelieve it. Even if it is possible for a person to have infinite beliefs at once, it is

still not possible to have the justified meta-beliefs that Bonjour requires.

Imagine that I hold a belief ‘r’ that “I can see a laptop in front of me”. According to

Bonjour, I must believe ‘r’ only if I justifiably believe that ‘r’ has a feature Ø and

such beliefs with this feature are highly likely to be true. Therefore, my belief ‘r1’ is

that my belief that I can see a laptop in front of me – has a feature Ø (which makes it

highly likely to be true). Of course I can only believe ‘r1’ if it is itself justifiable.

And ‘r1’ can only be justifiable if I believe that the belief ‘r1’ has itself the feature Ø

to make a new meta-belief ‘r2’ – being that “I see a laptop in front of me” [r] that has

a feature Ø [r1] that itself has a feature Ø [r2]…and so on and so forth to infinity. Of

course none of my meta-beliefs have to be explicit in order to meet Bonjour’s initial

criteria, for all my justifications can be tacit or “natural”. Can this infinite regress of

meta-beliefs be graspable by the human mind? It seems plainly clear that it cannot. If

I cannot even tacitly or naturally grasp what belief ‘r5’ might be like then I cannot be

said to be in cognitive possession of it and hence generalising the rule does not defeat

scepticism even if “natural” beliefs are “natural” to believe and we can have infinitely

many “natural” beliefs.

A completely different type of response that Bonjour could give to defend his anti-

foundationalist argument is to apply premise ‘c’ to basic beliefs only. Therefore, a

basic belief is justified for a person only if he was in cognitive possession of such a

reason. However, this would also fail due to the simple fact that there is no way to

restrict cognitive possession of a justifying argument to basic beliefs only. In fact it is

more suitable to apply it in the context of non-basic beliefs as their justifications are

directly derived from other beliefs.

So far, I have given two major objections to Bonjour’s anti-foundationalist argument;

namely, that premise ‘c’ and ‘d’ lead to scepticism thus, are self-defeating for which I

have considered two potential answers that Bonjour could give and dispelled both.

Secondly, that premise ‘c’ begs the question. I will now consider how Bonjour could

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potentially defend premise ‘c’ which says that a belief is justified for a person only if

he or she is in cognitive possession of such a reason.

Bonjour says that premise ‘c’ must be valid as without it a person cannot be

epistemically responsible in accepting beliefs unless he himself has access to the

justification. Otherwise the person in question will have no reason for thinking that

the belief is true. In addition, if a person believes a belief ‘B’ without having “access

to its justification, then he could be said to be acting irresponsibly” according to

Bonjour. (Chapter 3, Structure of Empirical Knowledge) For example, suppose Jay

believes his secretive neighbour has a red car but has no direct or indirect access to

any form of justification for his belief (hence his belief does not have feature Ø),

Bonjour would say that he is acting irresponsibly and should give up his belief that his

neighbour has a red car until he has had access to any justificatory premise(s). On the

surface this argument seems conclusive and if taken to be so, then foundationalism is

indeed false. But can I believe responsibly without a justifying argument?

Imagine that Jay through careful investigation has attempted to find out belief ‘r’ –

that his secretive neighbour has a red car. His investigation seems to have

conclusively justified his belief ‘r’ – his secretive neighbour does indeed have a red

car. But suppose unknowingly to Jay his neighbours car is a car used by spies

designed to deceive people by making them see the colour they want to see (in Jay’s

case – the colour red) but in actual fact the car is black. Jay, it can be said, is in direct

access with a justificatory argument (belief that ‘r’ has Ø and beliefs having Ø are

highly likely to be true), that he has seen a red car on several occasions on his

neighbours drive, however he is still wrong as in actual fact his neighbour has a black

car. Imagine if another person saw his neighbour’s car as black, was this because he

saw the ‘real’ colour of the car or was it that he wanted to see black and so did indeed

saw what he wanted to see – can this be classed as justification? How are we to

know? Of course this is beyond the scope of this paper. However, one thing seems

clear and that is, it cannot be said that Jay is blameworthy for believing ‘r’ if contrary

to appearances the argument turns on a subtle error and in fact there is no good

argument for believing ‘r’ as Jay has done everything he could to get to the truth.

Bonjour would maintain that if his belief does not posses feature Ø (and beliefs with

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feature Ø are highly likely to be true) then he would be irresponsible for believing ‘r’.

So what exactly does it mean to have a belief with feature Ø?

Bonjour is unclear on the matter, and in fact never attempts to make it explicit.

Nevertheless with reasonable certainty, it can be assumed that by feature Ø Bonjour

meant ‘in fact’ makes my belief highly likely to be true as only through ‘facts’ can it

give me sufficient grounding to profess that it is likely to be true. If this were the

case, then the first premise of the justifying argument (my belief that ‘r’ has Ø) would

have to be false. As I cannot be responsible for that over which I have no control, and

I have no control over whether my reason is ‘good’ in the sense that it ‘in fact’ makes

my belief highly likely to be true. All one can do is try their best to position

themselves to find the truth and, having done so, the rest is out of ones control.

Therefore, epistemically responsible believing does not necessarily correlate well with

the notion that my reason for believing ‘in fact’ makes my belief highly likely to be

true. So in simplistic terms, I can be epistemically responsible and still not have a

good reason ‘in fact’ that makes my belief highly likely to be true. On the other hand,

if it is possible to have a good reason epistemically that does not make my belief that

‘r’ highly likely to be true then the second premise (beliefs having Ø are highly likely

to be true) is false.

In addition, the second reason to refute Bonjour’s claim that epistemically responsible

believing requires justifiably believing the premises of a justifying argument is that

one can believe in a proposition responsibly and be completely astray from the ‘fact’.

Suppose that I believe that my neighbour has a red car but ‘in fact’ is black and

unknown to me, it is engineered in such a way as to deceive me (following the

previous example). Am I still irresponsible for believing that my neighbour’s car is

red? – I think not, as I am not responsible for that which I have no control over. As

discussed earlier that premise ‘c’ of the anti-foundationalist argument with premise

‘d’ leads to scepticism and surely one would be irresponsible for believing in it unless

one has infinitely many meta-beliefs or believes nothing. Neither is possible. As one

in only responsible for what one can do, epistemically responsible believing does not

permit premise ‘c’.

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So far, I have discussed the anti-foundationalist argument put forward by Bonjour in

his book Structure of Empirical Knowledge. I have attempted to show that the

premises ‘c’ and ‘d’ lead to scepticism and hence are self-defeating and I have also

shown that premise ‘c’ begs the question along with dispelling the notion that one is

epistemically responsible for believing through Bonjour’s justificatory argument. I

have shown that one can be responsible in believing and still not satisfy Bonjour’s

justificatory argument.

In Bonjour’s Structure of Empirical Knowledge, chapter 4, he discusses the doctrine

of the given, a doctrine upon which foundationalist arguments rest. Bonjour argues

that the central thesis of the doctrine of the given is ‘incoherent’. I aim to show that

Bonjour just as he did with beliefs, has not conclusively dispelled the doctrine. The

doctrine of the given is described as the following; that basic beliefs are justified, by

appeal to states of ‘immediate experience or direct apprehension or intuition’

(Bonjour, Ch 4, Structure of Empirical Knowledge) and not by appeal to other beliefs

or facts in the world. These states provide justification for the basic beliefs without

themselves having to be justified and thus rejecting premise ‘d’ of the anti-

foundationalist argument. Bonjour goes onto say:

‘If the basic belief whose justification is at issue is the belief that P, then

according to the most straightforward version of the doctrine, this basic belief

is justified by appeal to an immediate experience of the very fact or state of

affairs or situation which it asserts to obtain: the fact that P. It is because I

immediately experience the very fact, which would make my belief true that I

am completely justified in holding it, and it is this fact, which is given.

Immediate experience thus brings the regress of justification to an end by

making possible a direct comparison between the basic belief and its object.’

(Bonjour, 1985, Ch 4, Structure of Empirical Knowledge)

The quotation will act as a basis to question the way in which Bonjour has put

forward the doctrine of the given. A significant aspect of the above paragraph seems

unclear, and in fact raises a few crucial objections. Firstly, let me restate the sentence

in question: ‘by appeal to an immediate experience of the very fact or state of affairs

or situation which it asserts to obtain’, this sentence can be taken in one of two ways.

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The first interpretation is valid, in that a person who has a basic belief looks for

justification via an immediate experience, intuition or direct apprehension which he

would call the ‘given’. The second interpretation is questionable. The same sentence

could be taken to mean that a person may only justify his basic belief via an

experiential state. If taken this way, then Bonjour has given a false perception of the

doctrine and leaves it venerable to two attacks. Firstly, that the person who believes

in the ‘given’ is failing to separate the state of justifying ones proposition as true and

the state of believing once justified. And secondly, one could point to the notion that

one is not entitled to be justified without showing that one is justified.

Another misperception that Bonjour communicates to the reader, is that persons who

support the doctrine, believe that any belief is completely justified as long as it is in

ones sphere of immediate experience. Foundationalists often say that one can hold

onto their beliefs even if their immediate experience does not provide complete

justification as long as other factors contribute to complete the “whole” justification.

Sosa in his book “Knowledge and Perspective” (1991) says ‘proponents of the given

can say that an experiential state can completely justify a persons belief only if other

conditions are met’, and by this he meant conditions such as ‘reliability’ of the

experience, etc.

Therefore, Bonjour has portrayed the doctrine of the given in two fallacious ways.

Firstly, that ones basic belief is justified only if one appeals to experiential states and

secondly, by making the claim that such an experiential state provides complete

justification for ones basic beliefs. In actual fact, the doctrine of the given, according

to Sosa (Knowledge and Perspective, 1991) says, that experience plays a fundamental

role in developing a justification for a basic belief that can end the regress problem.

To say anything more on the matter would be to give a ‘sided’ interpretation of one of

many versions of the ‘given’.

This paper set out to show that Bonjour’s account of the Foundationalist argument

was portrayed in such a way that it may be countered and as a result Bonjour fails to

conclusively dispel either the central idea of basic beliefs or the doctrine of the given.

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All that the papers puts forward is not that foundationalism is correct but merely that

for the reasons Bonjour gives, foundationalsim cannot be rejected.

Bibliography

1. Bonjour, Lawrence, 1985, Structure of Empirical Knowledge, Harvard

University Press

2. Howard-Synder, 1998, Basic Anti-foundationalist argument and the doctrine

of the Given, Journal of Philosophy

3. Sosa, E., 1991, Knowledge in Perspective, Cambridge University Press

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a critique of bonjour's analysis of the foundationalism

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