The causal-doxastic theory of the basing relation

Canadian Journal of Philosophy

Volumn 30, Issue 4, 2000, Pages 525-550

  Korcz, Keith Allen ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF LOUISIANA AT LAFAYETTE   (United States)

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EID: 61149091560     PISSN: 00455091     EISSN: 19110820     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/00455091.2000.10717542     Document Type: Note

References (38)

1. Pollock, J., 1986. Contemporary Theories of Knowledge 81Savage, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.
2. American Philosophical Quarterly, 171 For a survey of various causal theories of the basing relation, see K. Korcz, ‘Recent Work on the Basing Relation,’ 34 (1997,–91
3. I explain the additional conditions required for a meta-belief to be appropriate below.
4. Of course, the account of the basing relation I offer does not presuppose that a deontological account of justification is correct.
5. Lehrer, K., 1971. ‘How Reasons Give Us Knowledge, Or the Case of the Gypsy Lawyer,’. The Journal of Philosophy, 68: 311–13. J. Pollock and J. Cruz, Contemporary Theories of Knowledge, 2nd ed. (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield 1999), 79, offer a similar interpretation of Lehrer's example.
6. Goldman, A., 1979. “ ‘What is Justified Belief?’ in G. Pappas ”. In Justification and Knowledge Dordrecht: D. Reidel. E.g., (and R. Audi, ‘The Causal Structure of Indirect Justification’ in R. Audi, The Structure of Justification (New York: Cambridge University Press 1993) and R. Audi, ‘Belief, Reason and Inference’ in The Structure of Justification.
7. 1990. Justification and Knowledge Other versions of this objection appear in G. Pappas, ‘Basing Relations,’ in G. Pappas, 51–63, at 57–8; and K. Lehrer, Theory of Knowledge Boulder, CO: Westview at 169–70.
8. This is a point in which the case of the persistent lawyer differs significantly from Lehrer's original example. The point of this alteration is to help avoid the objection that the lawyer is merely using the complicated line of reasoning to rationalize his belief that his client is innocent. I discuss this point in detail in text, below.
9. My aim here is to merely provide motivation for the lawyer to search for an additional reason so as to establish the point of the example. I do not mean to suggest that there is anything epistemically wrong with the lawyer's acceptance of the card reading.
10. Audi, R., “ ‘Rationalization and Rationality,’ in ”. In The Structure of Justification 429
11. The Southern Journal of Philosophy, 307 Others have also questioned causal analyses of rationalization. See, for instance, A.J. Jacobson, ‘A Problem for Causal Theories of Reasons and Rationalizations,’ 31 (1993,–21
12. Alston, W., 1989. Epistemic Justification: Essays in the Theory of Knowledge 82–3. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
13. Swain points out that there is still a pseudo-overdetermination relation from reason to belief in such cases, and I agree. However, I do not include this as an additional condition for showing a belief to be justified because (a) I am not sure how to adequately explicate the notion of pseudo-overdetermination and (b) it seems to me that the five conditions I present are in fact sufficient for showing a belief to be justified.
14. Tolliver, J., 1982. ‘Basing Beliefs on Reasons,’. Grazer Philosophische Studien, 15: 149–61. Audi holds a similar view with regard to beliefs based on other beliefs, but not perceptual states (‘Belief, Reason and Inference’). Richard Fumerton may seem to hold the view that the basing relation consists of (a) the reason's causing the belief and (b) having the appropriate meta-belief that the reason confirms the belief (R. Fumerton, Metaphysical and Epistemological Problems of Perception [Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press 1985], 51–2). However, he merely intends to require the meta-belief as a necessary condition of the belief's being justified, not of the belief's being based on the reason (personal conversation). All make additional stipulations as to what counts as an appropriate meta-belief.
15. Note that r need not actually be a good reason to believe p. Appropriate meta-beliefs can be mistaken as to the actual quality of the reason r, and yet establish a basing relation. Thus, appropriate meta-beliefs can establish basing relations upon bad reasons and leave the belief so based unjustified.
16. Let me emphasize that (SCD) is just a sketch of the causal-doxastic theory, and that I lack the space to address other important issues relevant to the formulation of it.
17. r being a member of the set of reasons R, having one or more members, and consisting of all the reason(s) upon which S's belief that p is based. Thus, a belief may be based on several reasons.
18. Note that this ‘or’ is exclusive. This also follows from condition (b)(i).
19. S's meta-belief must be functionally equivalent to the belief that r is a good reason to believe that p, but need not have this exact content. For example, the meta-belief could be that if r is true, then p is, or that r entails p, or that r makes p very likely, etc.
20. Lewy, K., ed. 1983. Contemporary Theories of Knowledge 201–20. Similar examples occur in Pollock, (37) and B. Winters, ‘Inferring,’ Philosophical Studies44 at 203. Earlier examples occur in G.E. Moore's discussion of inference in his notebooks written in 1919, but not published until 1962: Commonplace Book 1919–1953 (London: George Allen and Unwin 1962), 7.
21. Plantinga, A., 1993. Warrant: The Current Debate 69Oxford: Oxford University Press. n8. An evidential basis relation is a basing relation where one's reason is itself a belief (70).
22. Alston, W., “ ‘An Internalist Externalism,’ in ”. In Epistemic Justification 228
23. I take the phrase ‘causal chains of events’ as primitive.
24. 1973. Belief, Truth and Knowledge 83Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. This is the same sort of reply D.M. Armstrong makes to a different objection. See D.M. Armstrong
25. Deutscher, M., 1969. “ ‘A Causal Account of Inferring,’ in ”. In Contemporary Philosophy in Australia 112London: George Allen. !Brown and Rollins
26. 1973. Essays on Actions and Events 79Oxford: Oxford University Press. Davidson provides another example involving a belief causing an individual to become unnerved and his becoming unnerved then causes an action. See D. Davidson, ‘Freedom to Act,’ in Plantinga's example of Sylvia, discussed above, contains a similar element.
27. It may be objected that we do talk of justificatory reasons for emotions. But, in reply, this is not epistemic justification, it is some other kind of justification.
28. I should emphasize that this is a fictional example and is not meant to characterize dogs in general as being violent. I encourage you to support your local humane society.
29. One possible objection to this handling of the Red Santa example is to argue that seeing the red house and believing that the dog attacked the doll are a conjunctive cause of the belief that the dog is violent. If so, then wouldn't seeing the red house be a reason for which I believe that the dog is violent. One difficulty with this objection is that it seems clear that this is not what happens: the causal chain is clearly linear. Another difficulty is that attributing such a conjunctive cause to someone attributes to them an incoherent complex reason state.
30. r being a member of the set of reasons R, having one or more members, and consisting of all the reason(s) upon which S's belief that p is based. Thus, a belief may be based on several reasons.
31. r being a member of the set of reasons R, having one or more members, and consisting of all the reason(s) upon which S's belief that p is based. Thus, a belief may be based on several reasons.
32. Note that this ‘or’ is exclusive. This also follows from condition (b)(i).
33. S's meta-belief must be functionally equivalent to the belief that r is a good reason to believe that p, but need not have this exact content. For example, the meta-belief could be that if r is true, then p is, or that r entails p, or that r makes p very likely, etc.
34. Note that this leaves open the possibility that a basing relation could be established between some reason and the meta-belief described in (ii) by some second meta-belief satisfying condition (b). However, no such additional meta-belief is required by CD.
35. I plan to pursue this possibility in future work.
36. Philosophical Topics, I develop this point in greater detail in my paper ‘An Objection to Process Reliabilism,’ in which I argue that counter-examples such as the case of the persistent lawyer are far more decisive than the standard objections to process reliabilism, which leave the door open for successful revisions of the process reliabilist theme. For a recent example of such a defense against the generality problem, see W. Alston, ‘How to Think About Relativity,’ 23 (1995.
37. 1989. The Current State of the Coherence Theory 57–8. Dordrecht: Kluwer. For a discussion of holistic coherentism and the basing relation, see J. Bender and W. Davis, ‘Fundamental Troubles With the Coherence Theory,’ in J. Bender, and Lehrer's reply in the same volume (272).
38. 1996. The Epistemic Basing Relation Currently, the most extensive bibliography of works regarding the basing relation is to be found in K. Korcz, PhD Dissertation, Ohio State University,I would like to thank Marshall Swain, George Pappas, Bernard Rosen, those who commented on a portion of this paper read at the 1996 Annual Meeting of the Minnesota Philosophical Society, and three anonymous referees of the Canadian Journal of Philosophy for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper (or portions thereof).