Mike Mackus

Matthew Benton
Philosophy 220
November 4th, 2008

The Foundation of Foundationalism is Stronger than BonJour Thought

It is one thing to have a theory of knowledge that roots itself in justification; it is a vastly

different thing, however, to be able to explain how such justification supports itself. Here, we

shall concern ourselves primarily with the latter: if we are to assume knowledge is determined by

means of holding justified true beliefs then what justifies one’s justifications? Another justified

true belief? Then that must also be justified by yet another justified true belief and so on and so

on, ad infinitum. Thus we have come to a fork in the road, one that contemporary epistemologists

still arrive at today: the problem of epistemic regress. The trouble is as follows. A subject S holds

a belief p, that when questioned upon what justification he has for p, he replies, that since he

knows q is true and that q entails p then it is true that p. Then the subject S is questioned as to

what justification he has for holding the belief that q. He may answer with something along the

lines of, since he knows that r and that r entail q, then he is justified in asserting q. As to not

belabor the point, we can easily see what path this leads us down: by making use of inferential

justification, the subject S may be questioned on the justification for believing each piece of

justification he uses to support a belief. At first sight the problem might seem to be that there is

no place that the regress can ever end. And if this were the case, that the only problem is the fact

that the regress goes on inevitably, one might argue (as an infinitist would), that this is not

necessarily a dilemma. However, it is not simply that the chain of justification would go on

infinitely, but rather the difficulty that comes with justification, and thus knowledge, never being

able to begin. The regress we have illuminated actually shows the problem in a sort of

backwards, or upside-down, way. The problem must be inverted and then we see that knowledge

has no starting point if we fall into an epistemic regress.

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 Chisholm offers four possible hypotheses that have been assumed by various

philosophers in order to either account for or to do away with the regress problem. First he poses

that one may argue the questions we ask that lead to a regress are based on false assumptions and

thus there really is no problem at all. Chisholm holds that this is simply not the case; one may be

led to such a critique only because the vocabulary (terms like ‘doubt,’ ‘certain’ and

‘incorrigible’) can be easily misused and misinterpreted. Chisholm also notes that many have

mistakenly taken the question of ‘What is your justification for p?’ to presuppose a lack of

justification. Furthermore, even if the problem of epistemic regress is based on false assumptions

it may account for this given model but it certainly does not prove it to be the case that there is

not a regress (it may be a necessary condition but it is not a sufficient one). Next, Chisholm faces

the approach of infinitism, the theory where a claim must be justified and that claim cannot in

any way justify its own justification, leading to an infinite line of justification. Chisholm battles

this view mainly on the grounds that at some point or another one is forced to simply guess if

one is to ever end the regression of justification. He holds that by starting at such a point where

there is little distinction between a lucky guess and a justified true belief we are not left with

much of a theory of knowledge. Thirdly, Chisholm deals with the coherentist account of

justification wherein knowledge is a closed system that eventually falls back on itself so that a

somewhat simplified example would look as so: S is justified in believing p because of q, and he

is justified in believing q because of r and S finds justification for r in p. This does not

necessarily imply circularity as one might suggest; rather, there is a display of logical

consistency within the set of knowledge. Chisholm, however, points out that logical consistency

does not necessitate truth and that an internally consistent system still can produce false

propositions. And at this moment Chisholm intervenes to make clear that coherentism, when

supposing that the set is consistent and is “the system [in] which everything real and possible is

coherently included,” offers only a theory of truth, which at the present moment we are not

concerned with; for it is possible that one may hold a true belief and not be justified in holding it

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and also one may hold a false belief and be justified in doing so (111). Furthermore, the problem

of epistemic regress can still be applied to what belongs in the given set of “everything real and

possible.”

Finally, Chisholm poses the foundationalist theory; that is, the regress eventually stops at

a given justification n where n may either be self-evident or self-justifying. The justification n

then is part of a set of basic beliefs that form the foundation of knowledge. Chisholm holds that

the foundation is formed, at least in part, by the apprehension of sense impressions. This

foundation forms the base of our beliefs and, just as the foundation of a building supports all of

that which is above it, the foundational beliefs bear the load of the whole structure, thus without

them all knowledge would crumble. Chisholm argues that the chain of regress finally ends when

we reach either a claim that is justified by an experience or a claim that is justified by a claim

that refers to an experience. Here, we reach the given, where a claim justifies itself or the appeal

to an experience is not justified nor unjustified (a difference which, Chisholm suggests, is only

verbal).

We can see that foundationalism handles the problem of epistemic regress in a straight

forward way: one simply reaches the end of the chain of justification. It seems intuitive to take

experiences and observations as the given in an account of knowledge. For example if one is to

question “What is your justification for holding that p?” and the response is simply an

experiential claim q one may still question further “What is your justification for maintaining

that q?” Yet, the only answer can be “I believe that q because I believe that q.” The justification

for q is only a reiteration of the question asked. Chisholm notes that not all beliefs and claims

can be self-justifying in this way (it would be absurd to claim “I believe Al Gore is the president

because I believe Al Gore is the president), but rather one might still need to resort to further

beliefs. This chain, however, also still ends in a simple and self-justifying belief. Chisholm

contends that within this set of beliefs and claims that are self-justifying also falls the range of

“appearances” and sensory experience.

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 BonJour also agrees that there is a problem of epistemic regress if one is to hold the view

that justified true belief is at least necessary for knowledge. However, he still finds trouble with

a foundationist approach to solving this difficulty. BonJour formalizes the requisite justificatory

argument for holding a belief likely to be true:

1) A given belief p has the quality ϴ

2) Any belief having the quality is likely to be true.
3) Thus, it is likely for the belief p to be true.

If this is to be the case, then, BonJour contests, that one is sent right back into a regress. For any

empirical belief where a subject has possession of justification he must also accept some form of

the justificatory argument. The argument, however, must also have an empirical belief as one of

the premises. Therefore, if a subject S is to possess justification of an empirical claim p he must

also possess justification of an empirical premise within the justificatory argument.

At first glance BonJour’s argument against foundationalism seems very strong. He has

posed a problem that is by no means easy to account for; yet, this problem looks strikingly

familiar to the original problem of epistemic regress that we have encountered. That is, is it

possible that BonJour has only reformulated epistemic regress in an attempt to disband a givenist

solution? If so then it should be the case that we should easily point out how foundationalism

still can account for BonJour’s proposed dilemma. A foundationalist would surely argue that

BonJour has missed the main point of their theory: an empirical belief does not necessarily

require justification from another empirical belief; rather, foundational beliefs are justified by

non-belief states that do not require justification and are instead states of immediate

apprehension of experience. In this sense BonJour merely undercuts the basic principle of

foundationalism. While he does attempt to argue against this foundationist rebuttal he still seems

to fail. BonJour asserts that within such an apprehension of a given experience there are really

three events: the belief, the actual state of affairs, and immediate apprehension of that state of

affairs. He maintains that if the immediate apprehension, or intuition, of that state of affairs is to

be a cognitive process then it also should require justification. And, similarly for the opposite, if
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the intuition is a non-cognitive state then it surely cannot be used as justification. Assuming that

one takes the latter course, that the immediate apprehension of a sense experience is a non-

cognitive process, it can be argued that there is no reason that it is not a means of justification.

Rather, one may pose that a belief, say, of color perception, “The sky is blue,” follows quite

smoothly from the case that there is a state of affairs that causes such a sense experience as that

of seeing blueness. The sense experience becomes present to a subject prior to any formation of a

belief. Furthermore, such an experience must come before a subject forms that belief or else we

fall into a somewhat scary territory where a belief about the world is formed before any

experience to support it.

While BonJour’s argument at first glance appears to disband the foundationalist account

and the idea of the given, we see that simply reformulating the problem of epistemic regress is

not adequate in doing so. Furthermore, BonJour’s critique of the basic foundationalist principle

does not hold much weight: to make any (justified) empirical claim about the world, one must

already have an apprehension of that given stimuli. It is unintuitive to hold a position wherein

one cannot claim, say, “I believe it is hot in this room because I am having the sense experience

of hotness.” How else can a person form such a belief without a prior stimulus to warrant it?

BonJour seems to be entering a difficult territory in a dire attempt to uproot the foundation of

foundationalism.