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Alston on Iterative Foundationalism and Cartesian Epistemology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Stephen Jacobson
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Extract

In his influential paper ‘Two Types of Foundationalism,’ (TTF) William Alston distinguishes two important conceptions of foundationalism: ‘simple foundationalism’ (SF) and ‘iterative foundationalism’ (IF). SF is the view that there are immediately justified beliefs of some kind or other. IF is the stronger view that certain epistemic propositions are immediately justified. Alston favors a reliability account of immediate justification of the kind defended by externalists such as Armstrong, Dretske, and Goldman. Alston rejects IF by appeal to what he calls the ‘second level argument.’ He claims, further, that since IF is essential to the Cartesian project of reconstructing knowledge, the Cartesian project must be abandoned.

Type
Original Articles
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 22 , Issue 1 , March 1992 , pp. 133 - 143
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 1992

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References

1 Journal of Philosophy 73 (1976) 165-85

2 Epistemic Justification (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press 1989), ix

3 ‘Two Types of Foundationalism,’ 171

4 I do not claim that any of these projects is the project of the historical Descartes. I claim only that they are ‘Cartesian’ in the looser sense of being concerned with the justification of beliefs about the external world from an egocentric starting point. Later, we shall see that James Van Cleve believes that the third project I describe is the project of the historical Descartes.

5 There are familiar doubts as to whether this project (or the others I describe) can be successfully carried out. I do not take a stand on this issue. I mention these CPs to make two points. One is that Alston’s case against IF, even if it is sound, does not rule out all Cartesian projects. Second, in TTF Alston dismisses a Cartesian approach in epistemology in favor of a reliabilist approach. His case against IF, even if it is sound, does not support this preference, since there are CPs that do not involve IF. If there are reasons to prefer reliabilism over a Cartesian approach in epistemology, Alston does not identify them in TTF.

6 Cleve, James Van ‘Foundationalism, Epistemic Principles, and the Cartesian Circle,’ The Philosophical Review 88 (1979) 55-91CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7 It is important to understand the role of clear and distinct perception in Van Cleve’s view. At the outset, it is a source of justification. Descartes is immediately justified in believing p in virtue of the fact that he clearly and distinctly perceives p to be true. He need not be justified in believing that he clearly and distinctly perceives p or that whatever is clearly and distinctly perceived is certain. Later, clear and distinct perception serves as a ground for justification. Descartes’s justification for believing that p is certain depends on the justified beliefs that whatever is clearly and distinctly perceived is certain and that p is clearly and distinctly perceived.

8 For further explanation of these points, see Van Cleve, 66-74.

9 It should be observed that there is an important assumption I am making in claiming that Descartes’s project, on Van Cleve’s interpretation, is an example of the third kind of non-iterative foundationalism described above. The assumption is that Descartes’s project, on Van Cleve’s view, does not involve IF. This assumption is necessary, because Van Cleve simply shows that there is a set of reasons in virtue of which Descartes may be mediately justified in beliefs about the epistemic status of foundational propositions. This does not exclude IF, since there may be a source of justification for these beliefs independent of the possession of reasons.

10 ‘Two Types of Epistemic Evaluative Cognitivism,’ Philosophical Studies 10 (1986) 319-20. See also Lemos, Noah ‘High Accessibility and Justification,’ Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 49 (1989) 467-8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11 Lemos, ‘Two Types of Epistemic Evaluative Cognitivism,’ 320-1

12 Lemos acknowledges this criticism. See ‘High Accessibility and Justification,’ 466-7. Another response to these objections would be to argue that the beliefs of the man-in-the-street do not determine the requirements for justifying epistemic beliefs, just as one may argue that the fact that ordinary people lack beliefs about sensory appearances does not determine that beliefs about sensory appearances are irrelevant to justifying physical object beliefs. (I do not have space to develop this response here.)

13 I am adopting a concept of supervenience closely related to concepts of supervenience Jaegwon Kim has explored. See, e.g., his ‘Concepts of Supervenience,’ Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 45 (1984) 153-76.

14 Individualism and Self-Knowledge, The Journal of Philosophy 85 (1988) 649-63

15 What Is Justified Belief? in George Pappas, ed., Justification and Knowledge (Dordrecht: D. Reidel1979) 13

16 I would like to thank Louis Loeb, Stephen Yablo, Jaegwon Kim, and the anonymous referees of this journal for their comments on earlier versions of this paper.