I’m curious to hear everyone’s thoughts on these theories. I am studying these theories in my theory of knowledge class and I am more persuaded by the coherentist position. How can we have any non-inferentially justified beliefs when every “self-presenting” experience we have must be based on some further beliefs about our current state of consciousness, etc? I think our belief system is just a web of beliefs stemming off of these basic beliefs about our current states of mind, and even these beliefs must be justified by further beliefs. This poses the question however that if none of our beliefs are non-inferentially justified, how can we have any justified beliefs at all?
I would say that each system has its own uses…
could you be more specific?
The problem with coherence theory is that it limits justification to only beliefs. Beliefs are justified only by other beliefs. And those beliefs by other beliefs, and so forth. It has no room for experience. I can have a perfectly coherent theory about people existing on mars; you know, their culture, what they breathe, eat, their religion, morals, etc, but one would be hesitant to say I’m justified in believing there are people on mars. Also, another problem with coherence theory is that it transmits error throughout the system. If for example my current belief about my ex being a crazy bitch turns out to be a bad one, then my whole system of beliefs inherits this dent, and that just doesn’t seem right. It doesn’t seem right to say that my belief about something existing is less justified just because I also believe that my ex was a crazy bitch, yet this is exactly what is implied by coherence theory.
Husserl would argue that the mode of presentation, that is, the current state of consiousness (dreaming, reflecting, remembering, percieving) does not affect the content that is fullfilled in the act* of meaning-fullfillment**. *Act means intentional experience. **Meaning-fullfillment is best illustrated by an example: I intend to get my keys in the drawer. I go home and find my keys in the drawer. Finding my keys is the moment of meaning-fulllfillment, by constrast, intending to find my keys is the moment of meaning-intention. This example can be abstracted to acts in consciousness with regard to all conscious acts.
So this means that I can study an object given to me in any mode of presentation, the blue-chicken given to me under the mode of percieving, and the blue chicken given to me under the mode of hallucination. Which mode is given to me at any given time is only known through reflection – not during the actual presentation.
I’ll try to explain what i meant but i am not very familiar with the terms.
If foundationalism is based on “basic beliefs” then you could say that foundationalism is a way to standardize facts. ideally this would aid us in communicating and collaborating and allow us to come to the same conclusions. though the inherent flaw is that basic beliefs are constantly changing and up for debate.
Coherence theory doesn’t set out to standardize beliefs, but instead standardize a way of validating and categorizing beliefs.
Foundationalism is good for people entering into fields of knowledge where it is safe to assume certain facts true, like the force of gravity on earth is 9.81 m/s ^2, or that certain things are poisonous… mind you there’s always the possibility that some or all of the basic beliefs are wrong…
Coherence theory is good for charting new territory. presumably people would be able to chart the same territory you did in the same way, but there runs a risk of conflicting conclusions if people operate with a different set of beliefs…
Each method has disadvantages and advantages, and certain uses. It seems both are simply tactics for discovering new facts easily. for that reason they both fall under the category of logical skills, to be employed when needed.
limiting yourself to one “theory” (i call them ideas) is in my opinion not the most logical path to knowledge, whatever that is…
Yes but doesn’t a problem appear when we realize that sometimes our concious states are indistinguishable from each other, even after reflection? Even upon reflection, we can’t always distinguish what happened in our dreams and what we remember really happened during a state of being awake. This is especially true when one is relying on memory to remember a certain event. What happens when a person’s belief is based on experience but the belief is being had in one state of consciousness but is justified by an experience one had in a different state of consciousness that is not easily distinguishable or distinguishable at all to the perceiver. This demands that we need some beliefs about one’s own state of consciousness in order to justify another belief, and these beliefs about our own states of consciousness must also in turn be justified by some other beliefs.
I am open, however, to the idea that justification does not require a belief, but what then does it require?
I don’t think your belief about your ex being a crazy bitch impacts any other beliefs than those that use this belief to justify them. If it’s not directly or closely connected to a belief somewhere within the web then it could still put a dent on your system of beliefs, and maybe the “overall” dent it could put on your system of beliefs is a reflection of your judgment about certain situations or perceived evidence. The coherence theory i think accounts for evidence but this evidence is not non-inferential, rather it consists of beliefs based on what you believe you have experienced.
Yes, actually coherence theory implies exactly that one belief has an impact on all other beliefs. A problem that arises from this is that a flaw in a single belief impacts the justification-prowers of the whole system. The whole point of coherence theory is that one belief is justified by the system as a whole, not by a single other belief; that’d make it foundationalism. Coherence theory implies that one belief would, in a manner of speaking, link to all other beliefs for it’s justification.
In essence, the system of coherent beliefs becomes a sort of basic belief in of itself, into which newer beliefs have to fit coherently. If one were so inclined, one could make the case that coherence theory and foundationalism aren’t all that different.
And it doesn’t matter how one came about acquiring their beliefs. It could be experience, it could be testimony, it could be whatever. Coherence theory deals with what comes next. It deals with the relations of beliefs once you have them, and this is where a problem arises with the theory. A coherent system of beliefs warrants justification regardless of whether experience collaborates these beliefs.
If one of your beliefs isn’t justified, such as the belief you have about your ex-gf, i will agree that your web of beliefs will inherit the dent. However, the consequences of that dent are really not that significant. If this one belief is unjustified then obviously it could not be used to justify a belief stemming from that one. If it is indeed used in the attempt to justify a futher belief then I would not be ready to say that further belief is not justified, provided it has other justified beliefs in support of it. In Goldman’s Causal Theory of knowledge, he presents the idea that if a belief is inferred from 4 (or any other number 3 or above) other beliefs, and one of those 4 beliefs is unjustified, is that belief even truly necessary to justify a given belief? Sometimes yes, but I would argue that there are certainly cases where that belief only helps out in the justification of a belief but if one could not use it, all would not be lost. Since this is a web of beliefs we are speaking about, i would say that there is a cenral part of the web that other beliefs come out of and there are many routes one could take to justify a belief on the outer edges of the web going back towards these central beliefs. These central beliefs, one could argue, would have to end in some non-inferential beliefs but could the center be an infinitely small structure of sub-basic beliefs made up of experiences that are used to justify our most basic beliefs? I think so. Your web of beliefs would be dented so to speak but in the model of this web of beliefs I am thinking of, it has few to no consequences that would affect your ability to justify new or existing beliefs.
Hey philmaj,
Please parden my delayed response, very busy with school work this semester.
Then this particular belief does not satisfy the rigor of phenomenological scrutiny. Though not all beliefs will run into this problem.
“This demands that we need some beliefs about one’s own state of consciousness in order to justify another belief, […]” yes, and these beliefs are seen through phenomenological reflection on our mode of consciousness. Once a belief has been justified on the basis of experience, coherency takes effect.
“I am open, however, to the idea that justification does not require a belief, but what then does it require?”
For Husserl, through the phenomenological epoche, one aquires self-evident, clear and distinct, intuitions into essences, proposions, parts of “real” objects, and the treasure at the top of the mountain, as if getting out of the box of consciousness were not enough, ideal objects/unities (species).
You have a penetrating mind philmaj, keep it up kid.