How Can Knowledge Be Justified?

Foundationalism and Coherentism

Questions about Knowledge

Epistemologists ask two basic questions:

The Source question:

What gives us confidence in our claims to knowledge?

The Justification question:

Why should these sources of confidence be trusted?

Class Exercise (individual):

Write down five statements that you believe are true.

Try to vary the subject matter of these statements

Rank these statements from most to least certain

Class Exercise (small group): Compare and Discuss Your Selections

Is there general agreement about the statements?

Why is there agreement or disagreement? That is, on what criteria do you base your views?

Class Exercise (small group):

Expand Your Discussion

For any one belief you accept, what evidence would persuade you that it isn’t true?

Formulate the principles or criteria you have used to make these decisions.

Knowledge v. Belief

Common Sense: Claims to knowledge must be supported by something – usually, by evidence or logic.

“Today is Tuesday.”

Evidence: checking a calendar, the date on a newspaper, etc.

Logic: remembering that yesterday was Monday and inferring that today is Tuesday.

Foundationalism

Ultimately, claims to knowledge must rest on something that is “self-evidently” true.

For “evidence” – How do you know the calendar is correct?

For “logic” – how do you know yesterday was Monday?

Foundationalism

Without a stopping place, we would be involved in an “infinite regress.”

This would mean that our claims to knowledge could never be supported: we could always wonder if our support was reliable/acceptable.

FoundationalismThere is a Basis for Knowledge

that We Can Trust Implicitly

Foundationalism

Thus, the Foundationalist argues that some beliefs are known to be true “self-evidently”

1. Certain kinds of perceptual experiences

2. Certain basic logical principles

Problems with Foundationalism

1. People argue over supposedly “self-evident” things.

Example: The Principle of Sufficient Reason

2. Foundationalism seems to apply to basic beliefs better than to complex beliefs and knowledge-building practices.

Transition to Coherentism

Suppose there is no “self-evident” foundation for our beliefs.

R (It’s raining):

1. Justified by S (I see the rain):

2. Justified by T (sight gives me truth):

3. Justified by ?

If the foundation is uncertain, everything built on the foundation is uncertain.

Interregnum

Consider the question of whether or not to consider a person “trustworthy.”

There is no direct empirical confirmation of “trustworthiness.”

We are aware of degrees of “trustworthiness.”

How do we come to our decision about the trustworthiness of a person?

Coherentist Considerations

“Deliverances” that might support the belief that a person is trustworthy:

Others attest to this.

There are physical records or known data attesting to this (loans paid back on time; work produced as promised, keeping confidences).

Apparent anomalies can be explained (an unpaid loan forgiven by the lender).

Coherentist Considerations

“Deliverances” that might support the belief that a person is trustworthy:

Others attest to this.

There are physical records attesting to this (loans paid back on time; work produced as promised).

Apparent anomalies can be explained – reference to other things we know

Others attest to this – personal testimony

There are physical records attesting to this (loans paid back on time; work produced as promised) – objective evidence

Apparent anomalies can be explained.

The Coherentist View

We Rightly Trust Multiple, Supportive Systems of Statements to Produce

Beliefs on which We Can Rely.

Basic Principle of Coherentism

“The acceptability of individual sentences…is derivative, stemming from their role in a tenable system.” (p. 35)

Working Model of Coherentism

The stolen Latin book.

Three individually unreliable and unrelated students testify that they saw a young man with green spiked hair in the hallway at the time of the theft.

“…the fact that the three reports provide the same antecedently improbable description inclines us to believe it.” (p. 36)

Coherence Among Beliefs Means…

Individual beliefs do support one another and (importantly) don’t conflict with one another – at least in ways that we cannot explain.

The aging geometry teacher’s testimony that she saw a young man in a green hat.

The teacher is too old to even imagine that someone might have green hair.

Our Model, Revisited

“Object-level deliverances” = immediate data and beliefs relevant to the case at hand.

The various testimonies, including the aging teacher’s

“Contravening considerations” = data/beliefs that threaten the consensus of beliefs.

The aging teacher’s claim that the green stuff was a hat, not hair.

Dealing with Conflicting Claims/Data

“Higher-order commitments” = the rules and methods developed over time to help us sort through immediate data and beliefs (or object-level deliverances).

The conditions under which contravening considerations can be dismissed.

When otherwise unreliable deliverances can be accepted, etc.

Belief and Practice

Coherence provides the “internal justification” for accepting a belief or claim.

Successful actions based on those beliefs provide “external justification” for accepting a belief or claim. (p. 41)

On the arrest and questioning of the green-haired young man, he confesses.

One Important Qualification

Elgin is supporting coherentism as a theory of justification, not a theory of truth.

She is describing the grounds on which we must, and can, accept claims as our “working truths,” even if those grounds don’t establish that they are in fact true (beyond doubt).