How Can Knowledge Be Justified?
Foundationalism and Coherentism
Questions about Knowledge

Epistemologists ask two basic questions:

The Source question:
What gives us confidence in our claims to
knowledge?

The Justification question:
Why should these sources of confidence be
trusted?
Class Exercise (individual):

Write down five statements that you
believe are true.

Try to vary the subject matter of these
statements

Rank these statements from most to
least certain
Class Exercise (small group):

Compare and Discuss Your Selections

Is there general agreement about the
statements?

Why is there agreement or
disagreement? That is, on what criteria
do you base your views?
Class Exercise (small group):

Expand Your Discussion

For any one belief you accept, what
evidence would persuade you that it
isn’t true?

Formulate the principles or criteria you
have used to make these decisions.
Knowledge v. Belief
Common Sense: Claims to knowledge
must be supported by something –
usually, by evidence or logic.
“Today is Tuesday.”
Evidence: checking a calendar, the date on
a newspaper, etc.
Logic: remembering that yesterday was
Monday and inferring that today is Tuesday.
Foundationalism
Ultimately, claims to knowledge must rest
on something that is “self-evidently”
true.
For “evidence” – How do you know the
calendar is correct?
For “logic” – how do you know
yesterday was Monday?
Foundationalism
Without a stopping place, we would be
involved in an “infinite regress.”
This would mean that our claims to
knowledge could never be supported:
we could always wonder if our support
was reliable/acceptable.
Foundationalism
There is a Basis for Knowledge
that We Can Trust Implicitly
Foundationalism
Thus, the Foundationalist argues that
some beliefs are known to be true “selfevidently”
1. Certain kinds of perceptual
experiences
2. Certain basic logical principles
Problems with Foundationalism
1. People argue over supposedly “selfevident” things.
Example: The Principle of Sufficient
Reason
2. Foundationalism seems to apply to basic
beliefs better than to complex beliefs and
knowledge-building practices.
Transition to Coherentism
Suppose there is no “self-evident” foundation for
our beliefs.
R (It’s raining):
1. Justified by S (I see the rain):
2. Justified by T (sight gives me truth):
3. Justified by ?
If the foundation is uncertain, everything built on
the foundation is uncertain.
Interregnum
Consider the question of whether or not to
consider a person “trustworthy.”
There is no direct empirical confirmation of
“trustworthiness.”
We are aware of degrees of
“trustworthiness.”
How do we come to our decision about the
trustworthiness of a person?
Coherentist Considerations
“Deliverances” that might support the belief that a
person is trustworthy:
Others attest to this.
There are physical records or known data
attesting to this (loans paid back on time;
work produced as promised, keeping
confidences).
Apparent anomalies can be explained (an
unpaid loan forgiven by the lender).
Coherentist Considerations
“Deliverances” that might support the belief that a
person is trustworthy:
Others attest to this
this.– personal testimony
There are physical records attesting to this
(loans paid back on time; work produced as
promised).– objective evidence
promised)
Apparent anomalies can be explained.
explained –
reference to other things we know
The Coherentist View
We Rightly Trust Multiple, Supportive
Systems of Statements to Produce
Beliefs on which We Can Rely.
Basic Principle of Coherentism
“The acceptability of individual
sentences…is derivative,
stemming from their role in a
tenable system.” (p. 35)
Working Model of Coherentism
The stolen Latin book.
Three individually unreliable and
unrelated students testify that they saw a
young man with green spiked hair in the
hallway at the time of the theft.
“…the fact that the three reports provide
the same antecedently improbable
description inclines us to believe it.” (p. 36)
Coherence Among Beliefs Means…
Individual beliefs do support one another and
(importantly) don’t conflict with one another –
at least in ways that we cannot explain.
The aging geometry teacher’s testimony
that she saw a young man in a green hat.
The teacher is too old to even imagine that
someone might have green hair.
Our Model, Revisited
“Object-level deliverances” = immediate data and
beliefs relevant to the case at hand.
The various testimonies, including the
aging teacher’s
“Contravening considerations” = data/beliefs
that threaten the consensus of beliefs.
The aging teacher’s claim that the green
stuff was a hat, not hair.
Dealing with Conflicting Claims/Data
“Higher-order commitments” = the rules and
methods developed over time to help us sort
through immediate data and beliefs (or objectlevel deliverances).
The conditions under which contravening
considerations can be dismissed.
When otherwise unreliable deliverances
can be accepted, etc.
Belief and Practice
Coherence provides the “internal justification”
for accepting a belief or claim.
Successful actions based on those beliefs
provide “external justification” for accepting a
belief or claim. (p. 41)
On the arrest and questioning of the
green-haired young man, he confesses.
One Important Qualification
Elgin is supporting coherentism as a
theory of justification, not a theory of
truth.
She is describing the grounds on which we
must, and can, accept claims as our
“working truths,” even if those grounds
don’t establish that they are in fact true
(beyond doubt).