Abstract
I criticize Richard Fumerton’s fallibilist acquaintance theory of noninferential justification.
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Notes
A common foil in Reid’s writings, the Skeptic, sounds downright Fumertonian at moments: “There is nothing so shameful in a philosopher as to be deceived and deluded; and therefore you ought to resolve firmly to withhold assent, and to throw off all this belief of external objects, which may be all delusion” (An Inquiry into the Human Mind on the Principles of Common Sense VI, xx). For more on Reid’s Skeptic, see Wolterstorff (2001, chapter VIII, esp. 185–192).
Some commentators have taken Fumerton to offer a necessary condition for justification—not merely a sufficient condition, as I’ve stated it. These commentators read the “if” as “only if” (see Plantinga (2001, p. 60)) or “if and only if” (see Poston (2006, p. 332)). Given that Fumerton notes that false beliefs can enjoy noninferential justification in many of the places he expounds his theory, however, a maximally charitable reading of his account’s first part will include only a sufficient condition—otherwise the admission of noninferentially justified false belief is a straightforward counterexample to his view. We can do better than to state Fumerton’s theory so that it faces a counterexample that’s due to his own handiwork. In email correspondence on 15 February 2008, Fumerton wrote to me that he has been “torn” on the issue of whether to include a necessary condition as well as a sufficient one; cf. Fumerton (2010, pp. 379–380) and Poston (2010, pp. 370–371). The arguments below do not hinge on the way I have stated the acquaintance theory.
Fumerton (1995, pp. 74–76).
Something in the neighbourhood of Fumerton’s claim has also been made by Laurence BonJour: “I want to [insist] that there is nevertheless a clear way in which an internalist approach…continues to have one fundamental kind of priority for epistemology as a whole. No matter how much work may be done in delineating externalist conceptions of knowledge or justification or reliability…there is an important way in which all such results are merely hypothetical or insecure as long as they cannot be arrived at from the resources available within a first-person epistemic perspective” (2002, p. 260).
It is worth noting that Fumerton won’t simply appeal to a universal like similarity—he favours nominalism (2001, p. 20, footnote 13)—though he may claim, along with some nominalists, that there are brute facts of similarity.
For example, it might be quite easy for mere humans to confuse two facts, whereas it might be difficult or impossible for highly intelligent aliens from Zeta Reticuli to confuse them.
Thanks to Michael Bergmann for pointing out that Bergmann (2006, p. 222–223, esp. footnote 11) sketches a similar argument.
In more words: “Why think I’m acquainted with the fact that P and the relation of correspondence between that fact and my belief in P, as opposed to a distinct but very similar fact (that doesn’t entail P) and a distinct but very similar correspondence relation?”
Though I offered one necessary condition to characterize assurance, in line with what Fumerton says (see Sect. 1), I’m not confident enough about the nature of assurance to say whether one can have it for a false belief. (“I’ve got assurance for the truth of P, but P might be false” may sound wrong in some ears.) Thanks to an anonymous referee for a helpful question on this matter.
Not all intense pains are searing: some are sharp or stabbing, tearing or throbbing, piercing or pounding. Fumerton’s point can be made by invoking any sort of intense pain.
So long as Paul also thinks he is acquainted with his belief that he’s in pain, and the relation between his belief and its truth-maker, he has come to think his case is good.
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Acknowledgements
For helpful comments, correspondence or conversation, I am grateful to Michael Bergmann, Kenny Boyce, Stew Cohen, Tom Crisp, Ian Evans, Richard Fumerton, Keith Lehrer, Alvin Plantinga, Josh Rasmussen, Benjamin Wilson, and two or three anonymous referees. I am especially grateful to E.J. Coffman and Alex Skiles for discussion. My work on this paper, which was first drafted during February and March 2008, was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
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Ballantyne, N. Acquaintance and assurance. Philos Stud 161, 421–431 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-011-9747-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-011-9747-9