No Good Reason To Be An Atheist: Part II - Foundationalism

In part II of this series, we continue our discussion of reasons why the various brands of atheism are bankrupt from an epistemological standpoint. In part one we already noted that historically, there has always been a search for certainty in philosophy but the route of epistemological relativism is a self-refuting dead-end. So, let’s turn our attention to part deux of this series and look at another atheistic attempt at finding epistemic certainty, foundationalism.

Foundationalism

In the history of Western philosophy perhaps the most common way of finding certainty is what we call foundationalism. Foundationalism is a theory of knowledge that maintains that in order to be sure of our propositions (i.e., our premises), we need to make sure that they are based on adequate and proper foundations for knowledge. Foundationalism aims to obtain cognitive certainty beyond psychological assurance by anchoring one’s belief in some kind of secure basis; namely certain unassailable propositions. And from that foundation we can conduct intellectual inquiries according to strict and reliable methods of reasoning, admitting to our system of thought no propositions which cannot certified by the foundation or by other foundationally certified beliefs and thereby guaranteeing ourselves an accurate depiction of the world. Now this approach to knowledge has enjoyed numerous devotees through history such as Aristotle, Decartes, the logical positivists of the 20^th century and many more. Indeed, foundationalism might be considered “the great banner of Western Enlightenment.” The basic idea with foundationalism is that reason must be given its secure starting point so that knowledge may be gained in the absence of any form of cognitive imperialism. Cognitive imperialism exists in different forms: take arrogance for instance. This would be the person who says, “I know that its true and I don’t have to give an argument for it.” Or dogmatism, the view that “well God said it to me and I know that it’s true” or fideism the view that “well everybody has to start somewhere and this is just where I begin.”

Critical skepticism is not answered by any of these approaches and so the foundationalist wants to assure that not all convictions have an equal claim to acceptance. Not all convictions have an equal claim to acceptance. If you are a relativist, and that leads to skepticism, then it turns out that a person saying “I believe that today is Saturday” and a person who says “I believe the Great Polyglook will come next October” . . . these two propositions are on equal epistemic footing. One is as rational or irrational as the other. And so, foundationalists don’t like that. Of course, none of us really does. Foundationalists in particular don’t like that and they say, “The way you distinguish between reason and unreason is by looking at propositions and seeing whether they are founded.” Ok? So, if I can relate the proposition about this being Saturday to a secure foundation for knowledge, then it counts. But if the Great Polyglook theory cannot be so related to the foundation then it doesn’t count as knowledge. Can anybody tell me what the next question is going to become then if you’re a foundationalist? WHAT’S THE FOUNDATION FOR FOUNDATIONALISM? Right! (i.e., what’s the foundation for foundationalism?)

Its one thing to say that your theory of knowledge has that kind of weblike structure – that everything has to be related to foundations, but then what is the foundation going to be? Here’s some possibilities:

(1) Common Sense Foundationalism. Common sense foundationalism can be found in the 20^th century in the writings of G.E. Moore and Ludwig Wittgenstein and to some degree in Norman Malcolm’s book Knowledge and Certainty. The position is that certain universal and compulsively held beliefs about readily observable public facts are basic and presupposed by all other beliefs. What kind of belief would that be? Here’s one: “There are other people. Yeah, I believe there are other people.” Now that would be considered a universal, compulsively held belief about a readily observable public fact which is basic and presupposed by all my other beliefs. Now as the final courts of appeal in all inquiries and disputes, these common sense beliefs are logically (now notice that), they are logically beyond the possibility of correction. See if I get down to the foundation, there’s nothing more foundational than the foundation or else we’re not really at the foundation. So logically I can’t correct such beliefs if they are in the foundation. However, such beliefs we must recognize, offer a jeopardized and thus unsuccessful candidate for foundational beliefs. They do not provide infallible knowledge but only what is known in philosophy incorrigible[1] knowledge. As unavoidably imposed as common sense beliefs may be, there is no guarantee that things actually are as they seem to us to be. You see, somebody might say, “My beliefs that there are other people is incorrigible. In other words, I believe that my belief could not be corrected, I could not give up that belief.” But you see, that’s a psychological fact that “I can’t give up that belief”. The fact that I can’t give it up doesn’t tell me anything about reality. A person who is suffering from DTs can’t give up his belief that there are snakes on the bed either! Its incorrigible for him, he sees them, but that doesn’t mean that there are snakes on the bed. In addition to this phenomenological weakness, this version of foundationalism suffers great embarrassment by the faulty and conflicting ways in which common sense beliefs are identified and enumerated by people. That is to say if you were to go to any local university this afternoon and just take any random one-hundred people and say “Tell me what your common sense beliefs are, the one’s that you just can’t give up. . .” its going to be interesting to see the great diversity and in some cases conflict between these allegedly common sense beliefs. They’re not so “common-sense” after all.

And so then we look at another possibility which is, I think a very big one in Christian apologetical circles today: (2) Perceptual Foundationalism – Perceptual foundationalism says that infallible basic propositions which transcend beliefs imposed on us and which give an objective depiction of things are found in sincere, first-person, present-tense reports of a perceptual experience. Example: “I now seem to be seeing a yellow pencil.” O.k. So there’s a first-person, present-tense perceptual experience. Those who hold this view believe that the absence of any mediating agency between the knowing person and the private psychological state of which he is aware of guarantees that misinterpretation of his sensory experiences are precluded and therefore one cannot be mislead by those experiences. That is to say, the strength of a perceptual foundation is its non-inferential character. I’m not drawing any inference when I say, “I see white chalk” or so it’s said. I’m not sure that I hold to that view but that is the claim being made. The weakness of depending upon these allegedly non-inferential certitudes however is far more compelling to me.

Let me tell you a few of these weaknesses. Perceptual foundations for knowledge are not universal because some people don’t have perceptions, right? There’s some people that are blind for instance. And, even forgetting that, not every use of perception turns out to be veridical. Even people who can see are subject to optical illusions. And our perceptions are not defeasible[2] by reference for instance to a “normal perceiver under normal circumstances.” That is, somebody says, “Now wait a minute, what I mean is: perceptions are foundational when a normal perceiver under normal circumstances sees things.” But then what you have to go back and do is define what a normal perceiver is, and what normal circumstances are, and you have to be able to determine that you are a normal perceiver under such normal circumstances. But what is it that makes circumstances abnormal? How many factors are there that affect the supposed normality of our perceptions? Does anybody in the room know? I don’t know and I don’t think any epistemologist knows! The more we learn about the use of the human eye, the more we learn about psychology . . . we learn all the time, these factors. For me to say for absolutely certainty that I am a normal perceiver under normal circumstances, I have to be able to check off all the invalidating circumstances and say, “none of them apply to me so now I am in fact seeing white chalk.” Now do I know right now that I’m not dreaming this lecture? I mean, I had to prepare the lecture. Maybe it’s really Friday night and I’m dreaming that I’m giving this lecture and perceiving the chalk!

Now there are ways to check that right? O.k., let’s say that I’ve checked that one and I can get rid of it but now how many others factors might there be? Maybe something I’ve ate for lunch has affected my field of vision, maybe I hit my head getting out of my car, maybe I’ve got a tumor pressing on a particular portion of my brain causing hallucinations and on, and on, and on it goes. Perceptual foundations just aren’t the sorts of things that qualify as foundations, even if you do generally trust your senses. And then the problems of illusion and delusion preclude our certainty that some external object which is appearing to us in the way that we are perceiving is in fact external.

O.k., here’s an example: If I were to have everybody stare at the lights in this room for 30 seconds without looking away and then we turn off the lights do you know what happens? You’re going to see a red afterglow. Does that mean that there’s something red in the ceiling? No, it means that chemical reactions are taking place in your eyeball and brain where you have this sensory impression. So it goes to show that our perceptions are not always veridical anyway.

Of course, to speak counter-factually, even if pure and infallible perceptual foundations could be acquired, what would be the secure or reliable method of reasoning by which we could build a system of thought outward from the foundations? Assume again, contrary to everything I’ve told you that we can get perceptual foundations. O.k., this is a foundation . . . one perception: this is white chalk. Are you going to be able to live with that one foundation so as to construct a valid workable worldview? The perception of white chalk isn’t much to base a life and worldview on. Most people are going want to take a few of these foundational perceptions and build a system outward until you get something a little more interesting. You know like, “I love you.” It’d be nice to get from “this is white chalk” to “I love you” someday . . . and other things in between like “What is justice?” and “What is man?” and all the other key things that keep Western culture moving right along. How do I move from “This is white chalk and that is white chalk” to other more important premises? Somebody says, “Well, we use deduction right?” But deduction will not allow us to accept the most elementary, universal propositions about physical objects based on the simple basis of particular perceptions.

You see if I’m going to use deduction in an attempt to develop certainty about my perceptions, then we can show that this is impossible using the standard example of deductive reasoning:

P1 – All men are mortal.

P2 – Socrates is a man,

C – Therefore, Socrates is a mortal.

Now in order to do this one simple transaction in deduction though I’d have to know what? Answer: that all men are mortal. Now how would I know that all men are mortal? You’d say, “Well I’ve seen a man die” and I’d say, “Yeah, well so, one man died.” “But I’ve seen ten men, I’ve seen a hundred, I’ve seen a thousand men die.” Does that mean that all men are mortal? You see, we’re being tied down to the foundation of our perceptions. I don’t for a moment doubt that all men are mortal but when somebody says “I’m a perceptual foundationalist” I then say, “Well have you perceived that all men are mortal?” Now what if everybody in the whole world died except that one man who is the perceptual foundationalist? Could he then say “all men are mortal”? No, he couldn’t then say all men are mortal until he died. But then you see he wouldn’t be there to say it!

And so, you have problems with perceptual foundationalism because deduction is not possible. Somebody says, “O.k., we won’t use deduction, we’ll use induction, what’s often called probabilistic reasoning.” Allright. [example of induction to follow] “Every crow that I’ve seen so far is black. And therefore very probably the next crow that I see will be black.” That’s probabalism, or what’s called inductive reasoning. The difficulty with probabalism or inductive reasoning, is that it cannot show that’s its required assumption is known with certainty nor that it is even probably true. What’s the required assumption with probabalism? The required assumption is that there’s uniformity in experience and nature. If there is no uniformity in the world then it doesn’t make any sense to extrapolate from past instances to future instances. Take the example I just gave, “Past crows have been black, the next crow, the future crow will be black as well.” That doesn’t make a bit of sense, unless of course, nature is uniform. Now, if you’re a perceptual foundationalist how can you know that all of nature is uniform? So, the foundation of induction and therefore, of science has been lost as well. Historically, this problem has been called by philosophers The Problem of Induction.

Foundationalism is basically on the downward slide modern epistemology. Those people who think you find certainty by relating your propositions to a secure foundation have not been able to carry out the task and you have a lot of people moving back in the direction of epistemological relativism. However, another approach that has been attempted in the 20^th century and that is pragmatism.

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[1] Incorrigible means “incapable of being corrected or amended; not reformable.” http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/incorrigible

[2] Defeasible means “capable of being annulled or made void - a defeasible claim. http://www.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?va=defeasible