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INTRODUCTION
There are two known theories in arriving at epistemic justification of beliefs. These
are the foundationalist theory and coherence theory of justification. My paper aims to
discuss the argument between these theories. The argument that has long been debated by
foundationalists and coherentists is between justified basic beliefs or immediately justified
beliefs and justified nonbasic beliefs or mediately justified beliefs. The foundationalists
argue that there are justified basic beliefs or beliefs that have some degree of justification
that is independent of the justification, if any, it gets from other beliefs (Lemos, 2007). These
are the beliefs that get justification from mental states and perceptual experiences. On the
other hand, coherentists hold that it is only nonbasic beliefs that can justify other beliefs.
Justified nonbasic beliefs depend entirely for their justification on other beliefs (Lemos,
2007).
To support the long debate between foundationalists and coherentists, I chose two
philosophers in which one is foundationalist and the other coherentist. These two
philosophers are James Pryor and Brandon Schaller. Pryor sides with foundationalism and
defends the immediate justification. On the other hand, Schaller sides with coherentism
which rejects the view that there are basic beliefs.
PRYOR’S ARGUMENT
In his paper entitled “Is There Non-Inferential Justification?”, Pryor presented what
he thinks is the best argument for immediate justification which is considering examples. His
considering examples goes like this,
(1) Suppose I feel tired, or have a headache. I am justified in believing I feel those
ways. And there do not seem to be any other propositions that mediate my
justification for believing it. (Pryor, 2003).
(2) Suppose I raise my arm. I am justified in believing that I’m doing this in order to
scare a fly. That is my reason for trying to raise my arm. Sometimes my reasons
for acting are opaque to me and have to be carefully reconstructed. But not always.
In cases like this one, my reasons can be immediately evident to me. There doesn’t
seem to be anything else I’m justified in believing, that makes me justified in
believing my reason for trying to raise my arm is to scare a fly. (Pryor, 2003).
(3) I think about a domino and a chessboard. It’s obvious to me that the only way to
wholly cover two spaces on the board is to place the domino horizontally or
vertically. That’s something I could have derived from geometric premises. But in
this case I didn’t. I just immediately saw that it was true. In this case, too, my
justification does not seem to be mediated by any further propositions. (Pryor,
2003).
In the examples he had given, it is clear that immediate justification is possible. No need for
other beliefs to support and justify the beliefs stated above. Experiences and mental states
could be the sole sources for their justification.
Master Argument
In his paper, Pryor also addressed an argument against immediate justification. It is
called the Master Argument. In this, coherentists propose that,
(1) The Content Requirement (Revised) In order to be a justifier, you need to have
propositional content, and you need to represent that proposition assertively.
(2) Only Beliefs (Revised) Only beliefs (or other states that are epistemically like
beliefs) represent propositions assertively.
Therefore, only beliefs (or other states that are epistemically like beliefs) can be
justifiers. (Pryor, 2003)
SCHALLER’S ARGUMENT
Premise Principle
Premise Principle strengthens premises I (Content Requirement) and II (Only Belief) in
Master Argument and its conclusion which is beliefs are the only ones capable of justifying
other beliefs. When these three are combined with Premise Principle, it rules out the
possibility of experiences in justifying beliefs and experiences do not satisfy premises I and
II. But, Pryor still contends that there must be a premise such as experiences do not satisfy
premise I in order for the Master Argument to be true. However Schaller has an objection to
Pryor’s contention. According to Schaller (2013),
Foundationalists rejecting (IV) face the arbitrariness objection. Simply stated,
why should the experience of seeing a squirrel justify the belief of seeing a
squirrel and not some unrelated belief? The experiences alone do not seem to
contain anything to prevent arbitrariness.
But apparently, Pryor had addressed the problem of arbitrariness. He claims that
experiences alone are enough support for a belief.
Arbitrariness
The debate between Pryor and Schaller does not end here. Schaller has another
objection to Pryor’s claim for arbitrariness. As what he stated on his paper, “an experience
and proposition may have the same logical structure but be entirely unrelated, so it is not
clear that the logical structure argument answers the charge of arbitrariness” (Schaller,
2013). Schaller claims that Pryor’s answer for the problem of arbitrariness is not clear and
unsatisfactory. The logical structure that Pryor claimed to be similar to the proposition’s
structure enabling it to justify a belief is not sufficient.
Basing objection
The second objection against coherence theory is the basing objection. The problem
here is why the justification of other beliefs be based to the justification of the entire sets of
beliefs and not just to the individual? An example can be why should my justified beliefs
about my breakfast be based on my beliefs about London? The solution, as what Schaller
(2013) stated in his paper,
Evans and Smith outline one possible solution in Knowledge (2012). They
claim that the basing relation need not be causal; it could be such that “in order
for his belief to be justified, he must be disposed to revise it if he loses” any of
the beliefs that the belief is based on (118). This translates to the following
biconditionals for S’s belief that p to be justified:
VI. P coheres with S’s belief system B and B is adequately large and coherent
VII. S’s belief that p is based on each member of a subset B’ of B (118- 119).
(Schaller, 2013)
But Schaller finds their solution insufficient so he added,
VIII. S’s belief that p is justified if and only if (VI) and (VII) are satisfied and
(VII) is strengthened such that B’, evidence for B, contains beliefs sufficient to
justify p without any additional basing support from B. (Schaller, 2013)
This solution contains that beliefs do not rely on irrelevant beliefs that are in the system.
There are subsets in the system of beliefs which contain the beliefs relevant and appropriate
in justifying another belief. Therefore the beliefs that are to be justified do not need to rely
on the entirety of the system of beliefs.