Abstract
In this paper, I argue that what underlies internalism about justification is a rationalist conception of justification, not a deontological conception of justification, and I argue for the plausibility of this rationalist conception of justification. The rationalist conception of justification is the view that a justified belief is a belief that is held in a rational way; since we exercise our rationality through conscious deliberation, the rationalist conception holds that a belief is justified iff a relevant possible instance of conscious deliberation would endorse the belief. The importance of conscious deliberation stems from its role in guiding us in acquiring true beliefs: whereas the externalist holds that if we wish to acquire true beliefs, we have to begin by assuming that some of our usual methods of belief formation generally provide us with true beliefs, the internalist holds that if we form beliefs by conscious deliberation, we can be conscious of reasons for thinking that our beliefs are true. Conscious deliberation can make us conscious of reasons because it proceeds via rational intuitions. I argue that despite the fallibility of rational intuition, rational intuitions do enable us to become conscious of reasons for belief.
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Notes
Compare Fumerton (1988, p. 443), who suggests that “it is probably foolish to insist that there is only one ‘correct’ way to define the [internalism/externalism] distinction.”
The term “externalism” is first employed by Armstrong (1973, pp. 157–158) for the purpose of distinguishing causal and reliabilist theories of knowledge from other theories; he characterizes his own theory of knowledge as a form of reliabilism. Causal theories of knowledge have been in disfavor since the leading exponent of a causal theory (Goldman 1967) abandoned it for reliabilism (1976, 1979). BonJour adopts Armstrong’s use of the term “externalism”, but explicitly applies it to theories of justification (1978, pp. 6–8; 1980, pp. 55–57). He emphasizes that coherentism and traditional foundationalism are not externalist theories (1978, 1985); externalism is “of comparatively recent innovation” (1980, p. 55). Similarly, in introducing the term “internalist,” Goldman (1980, p. 32) notes that “traditional epistemology has not adopted this externalist perspective. It has been predominantly internalist, or egocentric.” In another early use of the term “internalist”, Nozick (1981, pp. 280–283) cites Goldman, and contrasts the internalism of traditional epistemology with the externalism of reliabilist accounts of justification.
Although reliabilism was originally introduced as a theory of knowledge that rejected the justification requirement for knowledge, reliabilism is now generally regarded as a theory of justification. Goldman is an instructive example in this regard. He first defended a reliabilist account in his 1976, presenting it as a theory of knowledge in opposition to those views that “combine a theory of knowledge with a theory of justification” (1976, p. 790). Whereas three years later, he defended his reliabilism as the correct theory of justification (1979).
Coherentism is the view that “a belief is justified by its coherence with other beliefs one holds” (Audi 1993, p. 269). According to Audi, “whatever coherence is, it is a cognitively internal relation, in the sense that it is a matter of how your beliefs (or other cognitive items) are related to one another, not to anything outside your system of beliefs, such as your perceptual experience” (p. 268). In contrast to the coherentist, the foundationalist holds that there are basic, or foundational, beliefs, beliefs that are justified in some other way than by their relations to other beliefs. Traditionally, foundationalists have also held the positive thesis that (empirical) basic beliefs are justified by sensory experience (Sosa 1997, pp. 278–279). More recently, some (and perhaps most) foundationalists have been reliabilists. Reliabilism holds that “a belief is justified if and only if it is ‘well-formed,’ i.e., it has an ancestry of reliable or conditionally reliable cognitive operations” (Goldman 1979, p. 14). For the view that reliabilism is a form of foundationalism, see BonJour (1980). When I use the term “foundationalism,” I will use it to refer solely to the traditional, internalist kind of foundationalism.
For some similar characterizations of internalism, see Fumerton’s discussion of “internal state” internalism (1995, pp. 60–62), Sosa’s discussion of “ontological internalism” (1999, p. 149), and Conee and Feldman’s discussion of “mentalism” (2004, pp. 54–58). Conee and Feldman explicitly endorse mentalism as the appropriate way to understand internalism.
See also Audi (1989, p. 309): “In its most general form, internalism is the view that what justifies a person’s belief, the ground of its justification, is something internal to that person. The ‘internal,’ in the relevant sense, is that to which one has introspective, thus, internal, access; it includes beliefs, visual and other sensory impressions, and thoughts.”
Sosa takes this characterization of internalism from Chisholm, who states that the “concept of epistemic justification ... is internal ... in that one can find out directly, by reflection, what one is justified in believing at any time” (Chisholm 1989, p. 7). See also BonJour (1985, Chap. 1), Plantinga (1993a, pp. 5–6), Fumerton (1995, p. 63), and Steup (1999, p. 373) for similar characterizations of internalism.
See also Alston’s distinction between higher and lower level internalist requirements (1989, pp. 195–196, 202–203, 220–221).
Both Plantinga (1993a, p. 15ff.) and Steup (1999, p. 375) explicitly argue that the internalist access requirement derives from the deontological conception of justification. Other epistemologists who note connections between internalism and the deontological conception of justification include BonJour (1980, p. 55; 1985, Chaps. 1 and 3), Alston (1989, pp. 196ff.), and Goldman (1999). BonJour (2001, pp. 51–53) has since rejected the view that the deontological conception of justification provides the rationale for internalism.
For similar arguments that the deontological conception of justification fails to rationalize the internalist access requirement, see Alston (1989, pp. 217ff.) and Goldman (1999, p. 277). Conee and Feldman (2004, pp. 61–64) have also recently argued against the view that the deontological conception of justification implies internalism.
The view that internalism is explained by a rationalist conception of justification has recently been defended by Wedgewood (2002). Wedgewood’s rationalist conception is nonetheless very different from my own, and I will not address his views at this time. Having recently rejected the deontological conception of justification (BonJour 2001), BonJour also now explicitly holds that internalism is motivated by a rationalist conception of justification (2003, pp. 174–177). I am unclear as to whether BonJour would be sympathetic with the way I develop this conception in the remainder of this paper.
Insofar as I explain how the rationalist conception of justification provides a rationale for internalism’s “mental state” requirement, I will also succeed in explaining how the rationalist conception of justification provides a rationale for internalism’s access requirement, for the “mental state” requirement implies the access requirement.
Foley (1993) is also concerned with the epistemological importance of rational belief, where one’s belief is rational if it is “able to stand up to ... [one’s] own critical reflection” (p. 96). But Foley is not an internalist, for he doubts that rational belief is necessary for knowledge (p. 57). He rejects internalism because he fails to find an appropriate connection between rational belief and truth (pp. 56–58). Whereas I shall argue in this paper that there is an appropriate connection between rational belief and truth: one who has a rational belief, in the sense of having formed his belief as the result of conscious deliberation (reflection), will be conscious of a reason for thinking his belief to be true.
Chisholm seems to be expressing this idea when he claims that “the concept of epistemic justification ... is internal ... in that one can find out directly, by reflection, what one is justified in believing at any time” (1989, p. 7, emphasis mine). In other words, for a subject’s belief to be justified it is not necessary that he actually engage in reflection, but it is necessary (1) that he could have engaged in reflection, and (2) that if he had engaged in reflection, he would have recognized the belief to be justified, that is, he would have endorsed the belief in question. I take it that Chisholm’s talk of reflection is equivalent to my talk of conscious deliberation; he seems to equate reflection with deliberation in his 1980, p. 546.
For a recent discussion of the act-object conception of consciousness, see Langsam (2002, especially section III).
In fact we should say something weaker here. For conscious deliberation to take place, it is sufficient for the subject to be in nonconscious mental states, provided that upon the commencement of deliberation, such mental states would enter consciousness, that is, such mental states would become conscious mental states in which the subject is conscious of the information that will be considered in the deliberation. So, for example, nonconscious beliefs can provide justification so long as they would become conscious beliefs “upon reflection.” I shall ignore this complication in what follows.
Of course it would also be appropriate to say that it is the information, rather than the consciousness of the information, that constitutes the reasons for the belief. But nothing is at stake in how we choose to use words such as “reason” and “justification” here. What is essential to the internalist position is that consciousness of the relevant information is required for the belief to be justified; it is irrelevant whether we in addition say that the consciousness is the justification for the belief, or whether we instead say that the information is the justification, but that we need to be conscious of the information in order for the belief to be justified. Nevertheless, for now I shall continue to employ the former way of talking, so as to connect my discussion with the standard formulations of internalist views such as foundationalism and coherentism (but see footnote 27).
The inputs to conscious deliberation must be the sorts of things that can stand in logical relations to the output. So a coherentist such as Davidson denies that experiences can justify beliefs because he denies that experiences can stand in logical relations to beliefs (1986, p. 311). Whereas contemporary philosophers such as McDowell and Brewer who hold that experiences can justify beliefs do so because they hold that experiences can stand in logical relations to beliefs (McDowell 1994, Lectures I and II; Brewer 1999, Chap. 5).
More precisely, he would allow for the possibility that conscious deliberation is a conditionally reliable process. See Goldman (1979, pp. 13–14).
We should understand the idea of a belief being formed in accordance with conscious deliberation to mean that either the belief is actually formed by a process of conscious deliberation, or that the belief is formed in some other way but would be endorsed by a possible instance of conscious deliberation (see Sect. 5). For ease of exposition, I shall sometimes simplify in what follows and write as if the internalist holds that a justified belief must actually be produced by a process of conscious deliberation.
Externalists who basically acknowledge this point include Goldman (1980, pp. 45–49), Kornblith (1988, pp. 322–323), and Alston (1993, Chap. 5). I am not aware of any externalists who deny it. Kornblith puts the point as follows: “The Quinean position I favor is just that inquiry cannot begin without taking all of our beliefs at face value; we begin by assuming that all of our beliefs are at least approximately correct.... The Presumption of Epistemic Access is the presumption that our cognitive faculties put us on the right track towards truth. The practical import of making this presumption is that it allows us to take the beliefs with which we begin inquiry at face value. Only against such a background can inquiry get off the ground” (id.).
Foley notes that it “is a familiar complaint about externalist accounts” that they fail to “provide us with useful guidance concerning the most basic matters of intellectual inquiry,” and then he goes on to observe that “it is insufficiently appreciated that internalist accounts of rational belief are unable to do any better” (2001, p. 22; see also Foley 1993, pp. 120–124). Obviously I am attempting to show that Foley is mistaken with regards to internalism.
A subject can be conscious of an apparent relation of logical support in the sense that he can be conscious of a relation of logical support that does not in fact obtain (just as he can be perceptually conscious of a dagger that does not in fact exist). In other words, it can seem to the subject that a relation of logical support obtains between the input and some proposition, when in fact no such relation of logical support obtains between them. In Sects. 8 and 9, I address the problem that such cases of “illusory” consciousness pose for internalism.
For recent discussions of rational intuition, see Bealer (1996a, pp. 123–124; 1996b, 168–169) and BonJour (1998, Chaps. 4 and 5). Bealer emphasizes that intuitions are not beliefs. He also suggests that intuitions are akin to perceptual experiences, in that he characterizes them as “a kind of seeming, namely intellectual seeming” (1996b, p. 168). See also Plantinga’s discussion of the phenomenology that accompanies a priori knowledge (1993b, pp. 103–108) and Fumerton’s discussion of states of direct acquaintance with logical relations (1995, Chap. 7).
This two-step characterization probably fits better with foundationalism than with coherentism. For the coherentist presumably holds that insofar as a subject is conscious of relevant logical relations (i.e., coherence relations) holding between propositions, the subject is already conscious of a reason for believing such propositions to be true. In other words, the coherentist would deny that the subject needs a reason for regarding his input as veridical (step 2) that is distinct from his reasons for believing that the relevant coherence relations obtain (step 1). Given that our concern in this paper will be with step 1, we can safely ignore this discrepancy between foundationalists and coherentists as to how best to regard conscious deliberation.
See Goldman’s recent discussion of the “guidance conception of justification” and its relation to internalism (1999, pp. 272–274).
How does my talk of reasons in this section relate to my talk of reasons in the previous section? In the previous section, I characterized the inputs to a process of conscious deliberation that produces or endorses a belief as the reasons for that belief. The idea was that, as a result of deliberation, the subject was able to reach the conclusion that the contents of that input provided rational (i.e., logical) support for the proposition believed, and therefore we could say that the input provided him with reasons for the belief. We now see that the subject is able to reach this conclusion because he becomes conscious of a relation of logical support between (the contents of) the input and the proposition believed. So it also seems appropriate to characterize this consciousness as a consciousness of reasons for the belief, for such consciousness enables the subject to recognize the input as providing logical support for the belief, and thereby to recognize the input as providing reasons for the belief.
See footnote 20.
Of course the externalist can say that we are conscious of reasons when we consciously deliberate, so long as he understands the notion of reasons in a reliabilist way. In other words, if the externalist stipulates that we are conscious of reasons for thinking propositions are true whenever we form beliefs by a reliable or conditionally reliable process, then the externalist can affirm that we are conscious of reasons when we consciously deliberate (assuming that conscious deliberation is a conditionally reliable process). What the externalist is denying is that conscious deliberation makes us conscious of reasons in the sense elucidated in Sect. 7. And the reason this denial is so important is because, as explained in the text, if we are conscious of reasons for thinking that our beliefs are true in this internalist sense, then we do not need to begin our inquiry by assuming that our beliefs are true. Whereas the externalist is committed to the view that we do need to begin our inquiry by assuming that our beliefs are true.
It may be thought that just as the externalist needs to challenge step 1 if he is going to defend the view that no instances of conscious deliberation involve consciousness of reasons for belief, similarly the internalist must defend step 2 if he is going to defend internalism, for if he is to defend internalism, he must defend the opposing absolute view that all instances of conscious deliberation can involve consciousness of reasons for belief. In fact, I do not think that an internalist needs to defend step 2 in order to defend internalism, although a full defense of this view is beyond the scope of this paper. In brief, suppose the internalist can defend step 1 (as I attempt to do in this paper) but not step 2. In other words, suppose it is true that to be conscious of a logical relation of support is to be conscious of a reason to believe that such logical relation obtains, but in fact one can never be conscious of a reason for thinking that the (empirical) input to a process of conscious deliberation is veridical, and therefore one can never be conscious of a reason for thinking that the propositions logically supported by this input are true. If such is the case, I submit that we should then be internalists regarding the requirements for justification, but acknowledge that such requirements are not met for empirical beliefs. In other words, we should be sceptics about empirical knowledge. The underlying idea here is that so long as there are at least some cases in which conscious deliberation involves consciousness of genuine reasons for belief, then conscious deliberation has the importance that the internalist thinks it has, and it should be a requirement for a belief to be justified that it can be endorsed by conscious deliberation (even if many beliefs can’t be, and will thus remain unjustified). I realize that many externalists would disagree with this view; Greco (2000), for example, explicitly argues that internalism is mistaken because it implies scepticism about large areas of empirical knowledge. Unfortunately, as I already noted, a defense of my view against Greco’s is beyond the scope of this paper, as it involves issues about the viability of scepticism that are not our immediate concern. But not only do I dispute Greco’s view that internalism is mistaken if it implies scepticism about large areas of empirical knowledge, I also dispute his claim that internalism does imply scepticism about large areas of empirical knowledge; see my (2006), where I defend an internalist response to external-world scepticism.
See, for example, Kornblith (1995), who argues that Goldman’s reliabilist externalism has “deep affinities with Quinean naturalism” (p. 241). See also Fumerton (1995), who claims that “the heart of the internalism/externalism controversy” has much to do with “the older issue of whether or not to ‘naturalize’ epistemology” (p. 66). Specifically, he “argue[s] that the best way to think of the common thread that runs through paradigm externalist accounts of knowledge and justification is their reliance on the reducibility of epistemic concepts to nomological concepts.” (id., emphasis in original).
This observation that rational intuitions are fallible plays a central role in Plantinga’s arguments against internalism. See, e.g., Plantinga (1993a, pp. 54–65; 1993b, p. 108); see also Sosa (1999, pp. 152–156). The point is also mentioned in what I believe is the very earliest argument against internalism so called; see Goldman (1980, sec. VII). The fallibility of rational intuitions has also been acknowledged by internalists; see BonJour (1998, Chaps. 4 and 5), but it is not clear to me that BonJour sufficiently appreciates the problem that such fallibility poses for his internalism.
Fumerton is an internalist who in effect insists that “being conscious of” is a genuine relation. Fumerton speaks of acquaintance where I speak of consciousness, but he holds that “acquaintance is a genuine relation that requires the existence of its relata” (1995, p. 76). Unfortunately Fumerton has nothing to say about how to understand the nature of those mental states which are our present concern: those mental states in which one seems to be conscious of (acquainted with) the obtaining of a logical relation, even though in fact no such logical relation obtains. Therefore Fumerton has no resources with which to address the problem that the fallibility of rational intuition poses for internalism.
Given that “being conscious of” is not a genuine relation, I will now begin to characterize the subject as being conscious as of a logical relation, as opposed to being conscious of a logical relation.
Langsam (2000) employs a similar idea to argue against intentionalism about perceptual experiences. Specifically, I argue that because of the phenomenal differences between perceptual experiences and conscious thoughts, qualia are needed to account for the phenomenal character of perceptual experiences.
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Acknowledgments
Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the University of Sheffield and the University of Virginia (Blandy Farm Conference); thanks to all those who participated on those occasions. Thanks especially to Geoff Anders, my commentator on the latter occasion.
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Langsam, H. Rationality, Justification, and the Internalism/Externalism Debate. Erkenn 68, 79–101 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-007-9059-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-007-9059-9