Knowledge and Justification Foundationalism, Coherentism and Reliabilism The other criticism of foundationalism is that some basic beliefs

that some basic beliefs are not in fact

basic on further inspection. For example perceptual beliefs are not properly basic.
They can be illusions. If you were to say there is a car before you, the justification
1. Explain "The infinite regress problem"
of that belief is that you can see a car before you.
As far as justifying beliefs is concerned, in order for us to have a belief, it must be
However that isn't properly basic as you could be asked what leads you to believe
justified by another belief for it to be justified itself. Belief A is justified by beliefs B
that it is a car you are seeing and not an illusion. This has meant that some
and C. However A can only be justified if both B and C are also justified. A's
foundationalist have decided that sensation beliefs are basic. Therefore they
justification is conditional upon the justification of B and C. The infinite regress
would say `I seem to see a blue, shiny, hard, object that can move.' This is flawed
problem is that for each belief that is justified by another, that belief must also be
though, because although it might seem properly basic how can have provided us
justified by another. This chain will go on infinitely and therefore no belief will
with all the knowledge that we know today. Also the way in which we describe
ever be more than conditionally justified.
our sensation makes it seem that it depends first on our knowledge of the objects.
An example of this is how do we know we have a throbbing pain without first
2. Outline foundationalism as a response to this problem
knowing what it is for an object to be throbbing.
Foundationalism provides an answer to the infinite regress problem by saying that
there are some beliefs that are infallible. The chain of beliefs being justified by
4. Outline coherentism as an alternative
others carries on until it comes to a foundational belief, one that can not be
Coherentism is an alternative theory to foundationalism. They believe that there
doubted. Often these foundational beliefs are perceptive beliefs and therefore
are no foundational beliefs, instead beliefs mutually support each other. In order
they can't be doubted. Or they may be beliefs that no one can question you
for a belief to be justified it must be part of a coherent set of beliefs. A metaphor
having, such as feeling pain. No one can disprove or doubt that you are feeling
for coherentism is a raft that floats free of any anchor or tie. We must stand on
pain at that moment.
some of it in order to replace or repair other parts. This means we must rely on
some of our beliefs in order to modify others, as they all cohere with a
3. State and explain two problems with foundationalism
comprehensive set of beliefs.
A major problem with foundationalism is the fact that it is difficult to say what a
foundational belief is. They are either arbitrary or they are chosen for a reason. If
5. State and explain two problems with coherentism
there is a reason for choosing the belief to be basic then a justification has been
There are only two main objections to coherentism. They are that there may be a
offered and the belief can not. be foundational. This means that there can't be
degree of circularity in the theory and the inability of coherentism to distinguish
any foundational propositions. The modern foundationalist however replies to this
competing sets of coherent beliefs.
argument by using contextualism. This belief is that foundational beliefs change
depending on the context. For example the belief that Jupiter has a new moon
The fact that a belief is coherent does not mean that the belief is justified.
can have different basic beliefs depending on the circumstances in which it's being
Coherentism however implies this. Fairytales and, dreams may be coherent but
told If I am telling my friends this and they ask how do you know, I can say I read it
they aren't justified beliefs. Astrology, which many people believe to be sceptical
in the paper. That is sufficient enough to be a basic belief in that situation, as it is
and unreliable, can be as coherent as astronomy, which is scientific and uses
unlikely that the fact that I read it in the paper will be doubted. However if I was
evidence and facts. If they are as coherent as each other are, they can then be as
to say to astronomers that Jupiter has a new moon my basic belief will need to be
justified as each other can. However we know that astronomy has a lot more
that I saw it in a telescope for it to be infallible. Nevertheless contextualism can
justification fan astrology. The question put to coherentists `What makes one set
still not distinguish between a properly basic belief and one that a community
of coherent beliefs more acceptable than an alternative set of beliefs?' weakens
agrees needs no justification.
the theory immensely. For the coherentist to answer they will have to abandon
their theory, and if they don't answer the theory is criticised. If the coherentist
attempts to answer the question they have to provide a reason for believing the
set of beliefs. That reason will not be part of the set of beliefs, and therefore they
will have resorted to foundationalism.
Beliefs must be justified by related beliefs. However for the coherentist there isn't
an infinite regress of beliefs. This means that for there to be justification there
must be some circularity between the beliefs. If I believe that apples contain
vitamin C, partly because I believe that fruits contain vitamin C. As the coherentist
can't regress with his beliefs, I may believe that fruits contain vitamin C because
apples do. However, this is circular reasoning and we know that arguing in a circle
is not an acceptable pattern of inference. We can accept that individual beliefs
within the system may be justified in this way but even if we do acknowledge this
we can't use a circular argument to justify a whole system.
The circularity problem is not so much a criticism which can severely weaken the
theory but merely an objection to the theory. The coherentist says that they aren't
saying one should argue in a circle, but that our beliefs mutually support each
other and come in bunches with a web like structure.
6. Explain reliabilism as a third alternative
Reliabilism is the theory that a belief is justified if it is processed by a reliable
method. Reliable methods are processes such as perception, recent memory, and
inference. Unreliable processes are wishful thinking, guesswork, and
generalisation. The reliability of a process can be measured by the probability that
it produces true beliefs. Of course, not all reliable beliefs are perfectly reliable, as
if they were they wouldn't provide justification, but certainty of truth.
Reliabilism fits in with the idea that we do not choose our beliefs. It isn't our
feelings about them that decide whether they are justified or not. Instead it is
through a process of causation and is therefore external to the believer.
There are different versions of the theory, such as Nozick's truth tracking belief. He
says that a belief is justified if it tracks with the truth. You believe X if X is true. You
would not believe X if X were not true because the process, which produces the
belief that X is true, would not function if X were false. This is only acceptable
under ordinary circumstances, as it could all be different under sceptical
circumstances such as the evil demon etc.
7. State and explain two problems with reliabilism
The generality problem is one of the main criticisms of reliabilism. It's difficult to
specify the exact process chosen to be reliable. Often a process that is too broad
can be selected, such as perception. This results in many false beliefs being let
through and believed to be justified. You can often be mistaken when perceiving,
for instance when it's dark or if one is drunk. If you were to say that all beliefs
created by perception were justified, often false beliefs such as I saw a black
post-box, will be justified. The post-box was in fact red, however you perceived it
to be black as it was dark when you saw it.
Also the opposite can occur, the process can be chosen too narrowly. His process
will establish when the belief is true. For example, if your process of reliability was
seeing whether something is red or not in broad daylight the probability of that
being true is virtually 100%. This creates the problem that the belief is only
justified by this process when the belief is true. This is the case because the
process of reliability always produces true beliefs. This results in truth and
justification becoming the same thing, which defeats the point of reliabilism as it
is to justify beliefs in order to finally discover if they are true of not: The reliabilist
must specify how reliable he wants processes to be in order to furnish
justification. All of these create problems for the reliabilist, hard to overcome and
weakening the theory.
The clairvoyance example weakens the theory to a greater extent. If a cognitive
agent happens to have managed to predict the future successfully many times,
the probability of them being correct could be fairly high. For the reliabilist, this
process of justification would be reliable and therefore they would say that
clairvoyance is a reliable process. However, there is no evidence that this person
has an ability to see into the future or that he doesn't. It could easily have been
lucky guesswork. The beliefs that he predicts are unjustified, as there is no factual
evidence that it works. Reliabilism says his beliefs are justified though. This makes
the theory seem ridiculous, as the majority of people would not consider
clairvoyance as a reliable way of obtaining justified information.