Haack's Foundherentism

 

I.  The Evolution of Fancier Forms of Foundationalism and Compromising Kinds of Coherentism

(a) Strong vs. weak foundationalism

(b) Pure vs. impure foundationalism

(c) Egalitarian vs. inegalitarian forms of coherentism

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

II.  The Main Ideas of Foundherentism: 

(1) Allows the relevance of experience to empirical justification without postulating any privileged class of basic beliefs or requiring that relations of support be essentially one directional. 

(2) Two kinds of constraints on rational belief:  experiential anchoring and explanatory integration.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

III.  Haack's Solution to the Boundary Problem:  Justification is a Double Aspect Concept, Partly Causal and Partly Logical.

 

IV.  First Formulation:  "A is more or less justified, at t, in believing that p, depending on how good his evidence is."(285)

(a) The Double Aspect of the Concept of Evidence: 

(i) "his evidence" is a causal notion;

(ii) "how good" is a logical or quasi-logical notion.

 

V.  Double Aspect of Belief:  Belief as a state in causal relations with other states (S-belief); belief as a proposition in logical or quasi-logical relations with other propositions (C-belief).

 

 

 

 

 

VI.  Causal Aspect of Evidence (S-Evidence for S-Beliefs):  S-evidence includes beliefs and experience (not wishes, hopes, fears).  S-evidence includes both sustaining and inhibiting factors.  Experience includes perceptions, introspection, and memories of perceptions and introspections.

 

VII.  Logical Aspect of Evidence (C-Evidence for C-Beliefs): 

(a) Where Beliefs are C-Evidence for Other Beliefs, the Evidential Relation is a Relation Between the C-Beliefs

(b) Where Experience is C-Evidence for Beliefs (Experiential C-Evidence), the Evidential Relation is a Relation Between a Description of the Experience (Which the Subject may not Believe) and the C-Beliefs. 

 

 

 

 

 

VIII.  How is Experiential C-Evidence to be Described?

Format:  "A is in the sort of perceptual state a normal subject would be in when seeing this or that in these or those circumstances."(287) 

 

IX.  The First Circularity Problem:  How Can There be Mutual Support Without a Vicious Circle? 

The Analogy of the Crossword Puzzle.

 

X.  The Smith Brown Examples

[CORRECT THE FIRST EXAMPLE]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

XI.  Three necessary conditions for A to be justified in believing p:

(a) A has some C-evidence for p. 

(b) A's C-evidence for p includes some (direct or indirect) experiential C-evidence.

(c) A's C-evidence for p meets minimal conditions of supportiveness, independent security, and comprehensiveness. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

XII.  Ratification of Foundherentism (contrast with BonJour's Meta-Justificatory Requirement):  The Epistemological Part of the Crossword Puzzle

Haack's Strong Claim:  "If any truth indication is possible for us, the foundherentist criteria are truth-indicative." 

Does she need to make such a strong claim to fill in the epistemological part of the crossword puzzle?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

POTENTIAL PROBLEMS FOR

HAACK'S FOUNDHERENTISM

 

I.  Haack's solution to the First Circularity Problem: 

(1) Is her Foundherentism sufficiently holistic?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

INDEPENDENT SECURITY:

THE CONTRAST BETWEEN ATOMISTIC AND HOLISTIC COHERENCE IN A CROSSWORD

 

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CLUE:  Begin

 

When all entries are single words, coherence can be understood atomistically, because each word gets significant independent support from the other entries.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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CLUE:  Excessive

 

For multi-word entries, atomistic coherence is not adequate, because the individual words of a multi-word entry get little or no independent support.  Holistic coherence can favor combinations of words (beliefs) that have little or no independent support when considered individually. 

 

 

 

 

II.  Haack's solution to the Boundary Problem

      (1) Is her account externalist?  If it is externalist, is this a problem? 

      (2) Is her account of the content of experiential c-evidence adequate?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A PROBLEM FOR HAACK'S ACCOUNT OF THE CONTENT OF EXPERIENTIAL C-EVIDENCE

 

Consider the red-green color-blind person S.  Suppose S knows that red and grey are different colors, but S has never seen anything red or grey before.  T shows S a red wall and tells S that it is red.  What is the content of S's experiential C-evidence looking at a red wall?

 

(1) I am in the sort of perceptual state a normal subject would be in when seeing a GREY WALL in normal lighting circumstances. 

 

S also knows:

 

(2) Red is not the same color as grey. 

 

(3) T says that this is a red wall.

 

Conclusion:  Either T is not perceiving normally or I am not perceiving normally.

 

But in this situation, S would have no reason to believe that one of them was not perceiving normally. 

 

 

III.  The Second Circularity Problem:  Is her ratification of a theory of justification objectionably circular?

MACDOWELL'S HYBRID VIEW

 

 

KEY IDEA (FROM KANT):  "Thoughts without content [from intuition] are empty; intuitions without concepts [from thought] are blind." 

 

CRUCIAL CONTRASTS

 

Intuition

Thought

Content

Concept

Receptivity (Passive)

Spontaneity (Active)

Sensibility

Understanding

Input

(External Rational Constraints on Belief)

Reasoning

(Internal Rational Constraints on Belief)

The Given (Foundationalism)

Coherentism

 

Annis's Contextualism

 

(1) Contra Foundationalism:  Denies there are basic statements or, if there were any, that they could justify the beliefs that we normally take to be justified.

 

(2) Contra Coherentism:  Denies that coherence is sufficient for justification.

 

(3) Being justified in holding a belief is being able to answer current objections based on the current evidence available.  Objections must be expressions of real doubt (cf. Peirce and Dewey), not an idle remark.  Objections are primarily local rather than global. 

 

 

 

 

 

(4) Two kinds of objections to S's claim that a statement h is true.  We may object:

      (A) that S is not in a position to know that h or

      (B) that h is false. 

 

(5) Justification depends on the issue context. 

(a) The issue context determines the level of understanding and knowledge that S must exhibit and the appropriate objector group. 

(b) The issue context includes the importance of accepting h when it is false or rejecting h when it is true. 

      (c) The issue context includes the current social practices and norms of justification. 

 

(6) Annis's Contextualism requires only contextually basic beliefs.  What are contextually basic beliefs?

 

POTENTIAL OBJECTIONS

TO ANNIS'S CONTEXTUALISM

 

(1) Is Annis's Contextualism too demanding?  Context-dependent conditions of excusability: 

(a) The example of Jones the partygoer and Jones the police officer. 

(b) The example of Jones returning the book to Smith's twin brother. 

 

(2) Is Annis's Contextualism a form of relativism?

According to Annis, are there any universal non-context-relative constraints on justification?

Problem:  The example of the Soothsayers Community.

 

(3) Is Annis's Contextualism a theory of how we show that our beliefs are justified rather than a theory of what makes them justified?