Abstract
According to the bootstrapping problem, any view that allows for basic knowledge (knowledge obtained from a reliable source prior to one’s knowing that that source is reliable) is forced to accept that one can utilize a track-record argument to acquire justification for believing that one’s belief source is reliable; yet, we tend to think that acquiring justification in this way is too easy. In this paper I argue, first, that those who respond to the bootstrapping problem by denying basic knowledge succumb to over-intellectualizing epistemology, and secondly, reliabilist views avoid over-intellectualization only at the expense of sanctioning bootstrapping as a benign procedure. Both of these outcomes are difficult to bear. To ward off each of these unsavory outcomes, I propose an alternative solution that draws on a distinction between two separate epistemic concepts: entitlement and justification.
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Notes
Track-record arguments were first discussed in Alston (1996).
Epistemologists sometimes emphasize the distinction between one’s having justification for a belief and one’s being justified in holding a belief. I will gloss over this distinction and use the expressions interchangeably. For the purposes of this paper, I will understand having justification, or warrant, as follows: When r is a justification (warrant) that one has to believe that p, were one to believe that p on the basis of r, one would be justified (warranted) in holding r. The precise nature of the “basis relation” between a justification (warrant) and corresponding belief has proven difficult to characterize (Cf. Audi 1993); because the primary topic of this paper does not depend on any particular conception of a belief’s being “based on” something else, I will not pursue this issue any further.
The term ‘already’ here signifies epistemic priority, rather than temporal priority. Thus, following Pryor (2000, p. 525), one has justification for belief B without already having justification for belief B* just in case one’s justification for B does not rest or depend on one’s justification for B*. I assume that epistemic priority is an asymmetric relation, such that the justification for B is prior to the justification for B* only if the justification for B* is not prior to the justification for B.
Vogel (2008), however, has recently argued that bootstrapping is impermissible by internalist’s lights. Vogel characterizes internalism as the view that knowledge requires justification, and justification requires evidence (p. 520). As I interpret Vogel, internalism about knowledge implies evidentialism about justification.
While, according to the Davidsonian, a state’s having propositional structure is a necessary condition for being of the sort that qualifies as an epistemic justifier, the condition is not sufficient. For this reason, we need not concern ourselves with other sorts of propositionally structured mental states (e.g. intentions and desires) within this discussion.
Cf. Goldman (1979)
Bergmann’s (2004; 2006, Ch. 7) claim is that the reason we tend to have such an unsettling reaction toward track-record arguments is that we often fail to distinguish between the epistemic success of following such arguments from its dialectical efficacy, where the former falls within an “unquestioned context” and the latter a “questioned context.” (2004, p. 718) While it may be that track-record arguments are ill-equipped to change the mind of one who is uncertain of the reliability of a source, this does not speak to the question of whether one may utilize a track-record argument to acquire justification for thinking that that source is reliable. See Vogel (2008, appendix) for an argument against Bergmann’s proposal.
It is controversial whether the relation between B4 and B5 is deductive rather than inductive. The answer hinges on how best to understand the concept of reliability. On a rather crude interpretation, reliable processes are those that are, as a matter of fact, generally accurate on most occasions. On such an interpretation, B4 would logically imply B5. Others, however, claim that reliability is a modal concept, such that a reliable process is one that yields mostly true beliefs in a range of nearby possible worlds (Vogel 2008, p. 521). On this interpretation, B5 would not deductively follow from B4, and moreover one would be unable to appeal to CPJ to establish that B5 is a justified belief. Indeed, Vogel (2008, Section 4) capitalizes on this modal component to stop what he calls a “rollback” of unjustified belief in the track-record argument. Specifically, Vogel’s claim is that whereas Reggie is justified in holding (or knows, in keeping with Vogel’s writing) B4, he would not be justified in holding B5. Because B4 does not logically imply B5 (as Vogel assumes), Vogel is able to maintain this position without standing in violation of closure. Of course, even if a deductive closure principle is unbroken here, it seems that Vogel still would be forced to reject the following plausible-sounding, albeit stronger, principle: “If S is justified in believing that p, and S knows that p strongly inductively implies q, and S inductively infers q on the basis of p, then S is justified in believing that q.” As it will turn out, nothing concerning what I say in later sections hinges on how we understand the relation between B4 and B5. Therefore, I will proceed along the assumption that the relation is deductive.
The sort of internalism I have in mind should be understood as what Conee and Feldman (2001) call accessibilism. This is to be contrasted with mentalism, according to which the justificational status of a subject’s beliefs is determined by non-factive mental states, such as beliefs and experiences, and by relations between them. The view I am exploring in this paper is not meant to challenge mentalism. Mentalism, but not accessibilism, has been defended against reliabilism on the grounds that our mental twins in skeptical scenarios are massively unreliable, yet they are no less justified in their beliefs as we are. For a defense of reliabilism against this charge, see Altschul (2011).
As I say, perceptual belief is the paradigmatic class of non-inferential belief to which we possess entitlements. There is a further question as to which type of warrant gets attached to other belief classes. Do we, for instance, have entitlements to our memorial beliefs, testimonial beliefs (cf. Burge 1993), a priori beliefs (cf. Peacocke 2004, Ch. 6), beliefs about our own mental states (cf. Burge 1996)? This is an interesting and important question, but providing an answer goes beyond the scope of this work. For our purposes, we will focus our attention specifically on perceptual entitlement.
Burge 2003, p. 504–5.
For Burge, the “normal environment” is not to be understood as the actual environment or the environment in which the organism usually resides, nor—as Goldman (1986) describes—as an environment that is relevantly similar to the actual world. Rather, it is the environment that determines the perceptual representational capacities of the organism (Burge 2005, p. 4) For more on how the normal environment is characterized, see Majors and Sawyer (2005).
To say that a perceptual state represents a as being F does not imply that the content is composed of concepts (e.g. the concept of an a and the concept of F-ness). Indeed, Burge holds that perception has nonpropositional content, given that nonlinguistic animals, lacking conceptual abilities, as well as humans are capable of perceptual representation. (Cf. Burge 2003, Section 2 and p. 525; 2010, ch. 9) According to Burge’s theory of perception, a perceptual content contains two separate, nonconceptual abilities (see his 2005, Section 2). The first is a general, repeatable ability to represent various types of objects and properties by way of exhibiting a sensitivity to various features in the environment (which Burge calls a pattern-based representation). The second component of a perceptual content involves an occurrence-based representational ability to apply the pattern-based representation to a singular, context-dependent element that makes demonstrative reference to a particular. This understanding of perceptual content has relevant parallels to Burge’s (1977) characterization of a de re belief.
According to Burge (2003, p. 511; 2005, Section 1; 2007, p. 203; 2010, ch. 3) there are alternative explanations, consistent with perceptual anti-individualism, that can determine the individuation of a given perceptual state. First, the subject’s representation can be a composite of percepts (e.g. a and F), the possessions of which are explained by her interactions with the referent of those percepts in isolation of the other (e.g. she has confronted a’s that were not F, like Ga’s, and F-ness that did not belong to a’s, like Fb’s and Fc’s). Secondly, the individuation of a state can be explained completely independently of the subject’s own personal history. It could be that the subject never interacted with Fa’s (nor with a’s nor with F-ness), but past members of the species of which the subject is herself a member have. A harmless distal stimulus may trigger an (inaccurate) predatory alert representation in a creature, yet the relevant content-individuating predators posed threats only to her ancestors, and died out well before the creature was born. This ability would be a trait passed down through the generations within the species. Finally, it could be that neither the subject nor her ancestors has ever confronted instances associated with a given representation-type at all. For example, I may (accurately or inaccurately) represent a shade of color with which I (or my ancestors) have never interacted. This last point does not undermine the claim that content individuation requires at least some successful interactions. Representing a never-before-seen color is possible only on the background condition that successful interactions have occurred between the perceptual system and instances within the more general category of property to which that never-before-seen color belongs. The relevant content-individuating properties out in the environment with which the perceptual system interacts need not be those which get represented, though commonly they are.
Burge (2005), p. 5 & 13-14
According to Burge, the nature of the perceptual system’s function is explained from both a philosophical and psychological perspective. On the one hand, he takes “it as obvious that it is known a priori that the central representational function of a perceptual system is to perceive. This function is a priori associated with a representational function (to represent veridically).” (2003, p. 508) On the other hand, he thinks “[t]he aim of the psychology of vision is to explain how the perceptual system normally gets things (approximately) right.” (2005, p. 14) The job of psychologists is to uncover the general principles governing the perceptual system, which explains how it is able to veridically represent the world. (2005, Section 3)
The account as I have described is, admittedly, a rather simplified one. To characterize all of the complexities surrounding Burge’s views on perceptual anti-individualism would go well beyond what can be accomplished here. For more on how Burge draws the connection between anti-individualism and the function of the perceptual system, see his (2003; 2005; 2007, Introduction; 2010 chs. 8 and 9) and also Silins (Forthcoming).
Burge (2003), p. 532
Whereas I have tried to offer a strict interpretation of Burge’s views on perceptual entitlement, the account of justification I am describing here is not necessarily Burge’s own, though it is inspired by some of the remarks he makes in his (2003).
One philosopher whose epistemological views subscribe to this constraint on justification is John McDowell, who says: “Active empirical thinking takes place under a standing obligation to reflect about the credentials of the putatively rational linkages that govern it. There must be a standing willingness to refashion concepts and conceptions if that is what reflection recommends.” (1994, p. 12-13)
Cf. Brewer (1999), p. 18-20 and p. 164-166. Brewer calls this constraint justification the recognition requirement.
This sort of worry has been raised against the reliabilist, as illustrated by Laurence Bonjour’s (1980) character Norman, a reliable clairvoyant who has no reason for thinking that he has clairvoyant powers.
Some nonconceptualists claim that all aspects of perception are nonpropositional (Evans 1982), while there are others who hold that perceptual states contain varying levels of complexity associated with their contents, some levels of which are nonpropositionally structured and others are propositionally structured (Peacocke 1992, Ch. 3). It is not vital that we settle on any specific view about the structure of perceptual content. Instead, our interests on this topic surround whether or not perceptual contents are fit to count as conceptually scrutinizable reasons, in the way that the Davidsonian demands. The point I am making is that they do not.
For more on the distinction between undermining and overriding defeaters, see Pollock and Cruz (1999).
Burge (2003), p. 529
See Burge (1996) on our putative entitlement to self-knowledge. Of course, I have not at all argued for the existence of entitlements to beliefs about our own mental states (see fn 13). For the sake of this discussion, I will assume that the warrant for B2, however it is acquired, is beyond dispute.
In light of the proposed distinction between entitlement and justification described in Section 2, I will now concentrate on warrant-transmission rather than justification-transmission.
Cf. Silins (2005)
One prominent advocate of this sort of move is Crispin Wright (2003, 2004), who holds that we have a non-evidential, unearned kind of warrant, called entitlement (where this is a type of warrant distinct from the one we have thus far been discussing), to what he calls cornerstone propositions: propositions whose warrant is a precondition for the possibility of there being warrant for a vast range of other beliefs. Some cornerstone propositions Wright cites are, “There is a material world,” “There are minds beside my own,” and “The world did not come into being today replete with apparent traces of a more extended history.” (2004, p. 170-71)
To be fair, Wright might object that his view does not preclude basic knowledge because the unearned warrants we have to cornerstone propositions—like the one expressed by B5—are not warrants to believe those propositions. Rather, they are warrants to presume or to rationally trust that they are true, which does not imply that they are known (Wright 2004, Section 2). In response, according to CPW, when one is warranted in believing that p, and one deduces q from p, what one has a warrant to do is believe that q. If Wright is unwilling to deny a principle like CPW, then it seems the cornerstone propositions to which we have these unearned warrants must not merely be trusted, but believed as well. Thanks to Jesper Kallestrup for making this point clear to me.
Kallestrup (2009), p. 165-66. As a terminological point it should be noted that Kallestrup uses “justification” instead of “warrant.”
Kallestrup (2009), p. 168
On this point see Kallestrup’s (2009) footnote 22.
To be sure, there may be circumstances wherein it is appropriate or even obligatory to reflect on the accuracy of one’s experiences. In cases such as these, one might come to doubt that they are accurate, in which case the justification for one’s belief, say, that the lights are off is defeated. It is important for us to recognize, however, that these will only be extraneous, abnormal circumstances.
Burge (1993, p. 466)
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Acknowledgments
For their help with earlier versions of this paper, I would like to thank the following: Kevin Falvey, Tony Brueckner, Michael Rescorla, Jesper Kallestrup, Ginger Hoffman, Joe Berendzen, Tyler Tritten, Ben Bayer, Huiyuhl Yi, Phil Atkins, Erik Olsson and the participants in the 2011 European Epistemology Network Meeting, and the participants of the Southern California Epistemology Workshop.
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Altschul, J. Entitlement, Justification, and the Bootstrapping Problem. Acta Anal 27, 345–366 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12136-011-0136-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12136-011-0136-y