Theory of Knowledge
Fall 2006
Lecture Notes: Cartesian Foundationalism

1) Review the Regress Argument, p. 51, beginning with the idea of a basic belief. Emphasize the limited number of options we have for responding to the argument.

2) See p. 52 for the key claims of foundationalism and the key questions that must be answered in order to have a reasonably clear formulation of foundationalism.

3) The main ideas of Cartesian Foundationalism are stated in CF1, 2, 3, p. 55. It’s important to understand exactly what the content of the allegedly basic beliefs is. Easy to get confused about this.

The First Objection: We’re not infallible

4) The Frying Pan example. Be clear about exactly what the example requires: you do have a belief about your experience, this is a belief about your mental state, this b

a) Some critics think that my example doesn’t work. Does it?

b) The conclusion I draw from thinking about this example is that you can be mistaken about your own state of mind. Question: did I have to resort to such an odd example to make this point? Aren’t there simpler examples of the same thing? Consider: I report that I like “stilton cheese”. My wife tells me that I hate it - it’s blue cheese. Or, being “smart” is a state of mind. Can’t one be wrong about that? Or about one’s motives for doing something? (What’s psychoanalysis about?)

c) Maybe the principles are best taken to be about some restricted class of mental states: current occurrences.

c) My conclusion is not that foundationalism is completely mistaken. Rather, it is that (CF2), and perhaps (CF1), weren’t formulated right. For one thing, it’s very hard to see what the connection between infallibility and justification actually is. Suppose we can’t be wrong about our mental states. If we don’t know that we can’t be wrong, then it’s less than clear that our infallibility is a justifying fact. Suppose you get some mathematical fact right by guessing. You can’t be wrong in believing that. But that doesn’t make your belief justified. So, infallibility does not seem to be sufficient for justification anyway.

e) Furthermore, the fact that you can be mistaken about your inner states in some settings, as when expectations throw you off, does not show that sometimes beliefs about them are not ever directly justified. Consider a case in which there is no such funny business. You touch something hot and believe that you have a sensation of heat. The foundationalist picture of basic beliefs seems not to be undermined by that sort of case.

5) It may be useful to contrast the following principles:

1. Nec., if S is in mental state M, then S believes that S is in mental state M.

2. Nec. if S is in mental state M, then S has a justified belief that S is in mental state M.

3. Nec., if S believes that S is in mental state M, then S is in mental state M.

4. Nec., if S is in mental state M, then S is justified in believing that S is in mental state M

(1) asserts that our beliefs always track our states. (2) strengthens this - we always have a justified belief (and, so knowledge) of our mental states. (3) asserts a kind of infallibility - we can’t go wrong on this topic. But (3) leaves open that we don’t form beliefs in all cases.

The Frying Pan example is intended to undermine (1) - (3). It does not undermine (4). The principle says that if you are appeared to a certain way, then it is evident that you are. He doesn’t say you can’t have mistaken beliefs about these matters.                                                       

6) But all of these are implausible if they are supposed to apply to all mental states. Some of your mental states can be hidden from you. Call this The Psychotherapy Objection: therapy can enable you to learn about some of your mental states. Some restriction is needed - perhaps current conscious mental states.

7) Here’s a version of a more restricted view. Consider “appearance propositions” - how things look or seem.

5. Nec., if you are appeared to in a certain way, then you are justified in believing that you are appeared to in that way.

Consider: if something looks like an elm tree, then it is evident to me that it looks like an elm tree. {In one kind of terminology: if I am appeared to elm-like, then it is evident to me that I am}. Is that true?

Maybe an even more restricted version of this is true: restricted to “sensory qualities”.

The Second Objection

8) The second objection to Cartesian Foundationalism is that we simply don’t ordinarily believe all these things about our own experiences. Perhaps it is true that the propositions about my own experiences are justified for me - they are propositions that I have good reason to believe. Perhaps I would be justified if I did believe them. Perhaps I would believe them if I were to think about these matters. But in the typical course of events I don’t first believe that I seem to see a table here and infer that I do see a table (or infer that there is a table here). I just think: there is a table there. And that belief is justified (according to the standard view). Cartesian Foundationalism seems to require that I do believe all this stuff. That seems bad for it. Tim McGrew has been arguing that we do believe all this stuff “unconsciously”. His view is briefly discussed in the text. Somehow, foundationalism has to deal with this matter, either by defending the idea that we do believe all this stuff or else by coming up with a new account of what’s basic.

The Third Objection

9) The final objection to Cartesian Foundationalism is decisive. There’s just no way we can deduce the rest of what we know from the propositions about our own minds that they take to be basic. They’ve got to loosen up. Everyone agrees to that.

10) The combined objections discussed in the text and in class seem to show serious problems for Cartesian Foundationalism. It may be possible to argue, as we discussed, that the objections showing our fallibility about our mental states don’t work. Some of the apparent errors may merely be linguistic errors. In some other cases it may be that we don’t actually have the beliefs about our own states that the objections require. But it is very hard to see how to avoid both the first objection (we’re not infallible) and the second (we don’t have enough of these beliefs about our inner states). The final objection (deduction is too high a standard for the connection between basic and non-basic beliefs) in the text seems to be right. So, there is room for a new version of foundationalism to be formulated, one that does not require so extensive a set of basic beliefs about our own inner states.