The Dialectical Illusion of a Vicious Bootstrap

Abstract

We can take it as given that at least one ineliminable goal of epistemic justification is the acquisition of true beliefs. From this it follows that no account of justification which fails to show that justification, as conceived in that account, conduces to truth, can properly be termed epistemic. Call this issue arising from the basic idea of what epistemic practice is all about `the truth conduciveness problem’. In this paper I will discuss Keith Lehrer’s approach to the truth conduciveness problem, in the context of his coherence theory of knowledge as undefeated justification. Lehrer’s coherentist approach centrally involves an appeal to our own self-trust, which self-trust is itself purportedly warranted in part by appeal to itself. I will, in due course, argue that Lehrer’s attempt to solve the truth conduciveness problem by appeal in this way to self-trust fails, leading to logical circles, abysses and blind alleys. But this failure is highly instructive. Self-trust is indeed crucial, not just to coherentist epistemology, but to epistemic practice as such. For this reason, self-trust I will suggest, neither can or need be argued for at all. Lehrer’s strategy fails, then, not by placing too much reliance on self-trust, but by seeing self-trust as a candidate for justification.

Thanks to Arthur Fine and Meredith Williams for especially valuable comments on earlier versions of this paper.