What is more, even foundationalists are not so sure which beliefs are basic. Some say that those which are the effect of perceptual processes (as said above), some that simple induction and some that analytic beliefs are what should be considered as basic beliefs (Morton 1997: 96). Simple induction involves observing patterns in surrounding world. If we saw a creature that has a tail, four legs and it was called “a dog” by our friend we would most likely call a dog any similar creature we see later. Some philosophers would then say that reasoning like this make us available to aquire basic beliefs (a dog is a creature that…). However, it is not so obvious how are they formed and which assumptions enables us to predict the conclusion of induction (it may seem that four legs, ears and so on, are not enough for us to define what a dog is). Therefore, basic belief that is a result of induction remains a rather cloudy term. Analytic beliefs, however, mean beliefs that can be made a priori (with no reference to external world). Those are the beliefs that explain themselves. For example, ‘a square has four sides’ would be such a belief because having four sides is in definition of being a square. ‘All bachelors are unmarried’ is also a belief like this. Some philosophers consider these beliefs as basic. Nevertheless, they do not seem to be basic at all. Claiming that a dog has four legs involves seeing a dog before or imagining it, so we have to know what a dog is before we can say that dog has four legs or imagine it. Because of this, we have to have a belief of what a dog is before we could form this belief. The basic belief would not need to be supported by anything like that. Basically, basic beliefs seem to be self-refutable because there is no way of having a belief like this without having a belief that creates it. The same applies to the perceptual process argument and it has already been said so. We have to believe that the barking we hear is indeed the barking to assume that we hear a dog . Moreover, we have to have an idea of how bark sounds like to believe that we heard a similar sound and so on (Swinburne 2001: 26).
The next problem with the basic beliefs idea is this. They do not seem to be of any use.. Some foundationalists agree they do not need to be true because being justified does not entail being true. One can be justified in believing something without being right about what they believe (Morton 1997: 7-8). If basic beliefs had to be true, they would be even harder to hold. It would be rather impossible to claim that basic beliefs, which are an effect of the perceptual process, are always true because it is obvious our senses can be easily mistaken. Their usefulness is then minimized.
What is more, the fact that non-basic beliefs are to be inferable from the basic beliefs appears to be self-refuting. No matter how basic beliefs are acquired, they, in every case, are created in the internal world and every attempt to share them with others makes them non-basic (the second person must believe that what we say is true). It is then impossible to make relative beliefs the basis of all the beliefs of external world.
Many people would argue now that if every belief should have a justification and there are no basic beliefs then it is unavoidable to make circles. Indeed, that can be one of the basic ideas of the opposite answer to regress argument – coherentism. It involves beliefs being justifiable by each other. Firstly the idea was that A justifies B, B justifies C and so on to the point that for example G justifies A. However, that view has been revised (because of the argument that A justifies itself) and new view of coherentism has developed. It involved a belief being believed by other beliefs in its group (Pollock and Cruz 1999: 75). For example, S is justified to believe that it is sunny today (A) because she has seen a weather forecast (B), has a friend that was outside and said so (C) and it is bright in the room (D). It can be seen here that A is justified by B,C and D and perhaps many other beliefs. It is only the example of different answer to regress argument and it has been presented as the example of the theory that does not need unclear basic beliefs theory. However, fundationalists also argued that if perceptual process cannot give justification because it is not justified itself (as mentioned before), neither can the fact that beliefs are coherent (Steup 1998: 144).
There are several problem with the basic beliefs. They do not have the needed justifying power, are not clearly justified by anything or self-justified, can be different things (memory, perceptual process, induction etc.) (which makes it hard to precise what they are), are not likely to justify non-beliefs, do not have to be true (which makes them useless) and have more convincing alternative. That makes them a very weak possibility indeed. Although the radical foundationalism (the one involving incorrigible basic beliefs) has been refuted and only few of the contemporary philosophers hold that stance, the notion of basic belief still remains as the example of the rather empty term that has been coined to solve the problem which eventually is not even closer to being solved. Foundationalists seem to have forgot the Occam’s razor that “entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity”.
Bibliography
Landesman, C. 1997. ‘Beyond Basic Belief’, pp. 123-59, An Introduction to Epistemology. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd.
Morton, A. 1997. A Guide Through the Theory of Knowledge. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd.
Pollock, J.L. and Cruz, J. 1999. ‘Coherence Theories’, pp. 66-88 in P.K. Moser (ed.), Contemporary Theories of Knowledge. Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield, Inc.
Steup, M. 1998. ‘The Debate Over Foundationalism and Coherentism’, pp. 140-59, An Introduction to Contemporary Epistemology. Upper Saddle River: Prentice-Hall, Inc.
Swinburne, R. 2001. ‘Theories of Synchronic Justification’, pp. 9-32, Epistemic Jusification. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
