Bonjour, L. (2002). "The Structure of Empirical Knowledge" In M. Huemer (Ed.), Epistemology: Contemporary Readings, pp. 387-394. New York: Routledge. (Original work published in 1983).
Bonjour argues that foundationalism is indefensible as an account of the justification of empirical knowledge, and argues against the foundationalist structure of knowledge. Instead, he defends a view commonly referred to as a coherence theory of empirical justification = coherentism
Schematically, the coherentist maintains that the structure of empirical justification is not linear but circular. This view entails that no beliefs are basic in the foundationalist sense.
“Beliefs are justified by being inferentially related to other beliefs in the overall context of a coherent system.”
Bonjour against moderate foundationalism
Bonjour’s point is that we want justified beliefs because we want true beliefs; the role of justification is simply a means to an end. Justification must give us a good reason to think a belief is true; this is sometimes called the true-conduciveness requirement of justification.
Bonjour notes that for basic beliefs, the thing that justifies them must also satisfy the requirement that it must give good reason to think the belief is true.
Bonjour’s argument is a reduction ad absurdum argument = begins with a supposition that leads logically to a contradiction, and that the supposition must therefore be false
- suppose that the belief B is a basic empirical belief
- Therefore, there must be a good reason for thinking that B is likely to be true
- For a belief to be justified for the person that holds it, the person must have cognitive possession of such a reason
- The only way to be in possession of such a reason is to believe, with justification, the premises from which it follows that the belief is likely to be true
- the premise for such a justifying argument cannot be entirely a priori THEREFORE, B’s justification depends on at least one further empirical belief
In simpler words, For a basic empirical belief to really count as justified, it has to come with some reason for thinking it’s true. The only way the believer could have a reason for thinking a belief is true if the believer has other justified empirical beliefs that support it. However, appealing to these other justified empirical beliefs means that B is no longer a basic belief. Hence, the conclusion contradicts the supposition (premise 1) that B is a basic belief.
Bonjour suggests that a believer must have cognitive possession of the reasons why the belief is likely to be true in the form of further beliefs, and so Bonjour’s argument relies on an internalist conception of justification.
Coherentism
Coherentism is the view that the structure of justified empirical belief isn’t linear, and is instead, schematically at least, a kind of “circular structure”.
For Bonjour, justification is not a one-way linear arrow that leads to a set of basic beliefs. Instead, there are reciprocal relations of mutual support among various beliefs that inhabit a justified belief structure.
A problem that arises with circular justification is that if belief A’s justification ends up circling back upon itself, then in some sense we have to be using A as a justifier of itself.
Bonjour’s answer to this is that circulatory problem only arises when we think of it in a linear way that foundationalist think. In fact, according to Bonjour, the circular diagram used to illustrate the coherentism view1 is misleadingly linear, as there are only linear connections between the beliefs.
Bonjour presents a holistic view of justification =
“But what is the alternative? What might a non-linear conception of justification amount to? As suggested briefly earlier, the main idea is that inferential justification, despite linear appearance, is essentially systematic or holistic in character: beliefs are justified by being related to other beliefs in the overall context of a given system.”
Bonjour points out that our preference for linear kinds of justification systems occur when we look at justifications at local levels, e.g. justifying arguments in support of particular beliefs. However, concentrating locally tends to make us lose sight of the fact that reasoning in local contexts takes place against the background of a global system of coherent beliefs.
“It is at the local level of justification that inferential justification seems linear … At the global level, however, the previously harmless illusion of linearity becomes a serious mistake. According to the envisaged coherence theory, the relation between the various beliefs is correctly to be conceived not as one of linear dependence, but rather as one of mutual or reciprocal support.”
“And hence, a coherence theory will claim, the apparent circle of justification is not in fact vicious because it is not genuinely a circle: the justification of a particular empirical belief depends, not on other particular empirical beliefs as the linear conception of justification would have it, but instead on the overall system and its coherence.”
Coherentism view on perceptual beliefs
Bonjour uses “putative observational knowledge” as the term for perceptual beliefs.
Bonjour describes the way we get perceptual beliefs as “cognitively spontaneous”, meaning we get the belief independently of other beliefs, or on the basis of some kind of reasoning process.
As a coherentist, he argues that despite the belief’s cognitive spontaneity, the justification requires inference from other beliefs. He is making a distinction between the acquiring of the beliefs, and the justification of the belief that while we acquire perceptual beliefs independently of other beliefs, they do require further beliefs for justification.
Bonjour outlines the further beliefs needed to justify a perceptual belief =
- the perceptual belief P is cognitively spontaneous
- the standard perceptual conditions are good
- beliefs of type in are reliable (and likely to be true) Therefore, the belief P is likely to be true.
graph LR A --> B B --> C C --> A ```
Footnotes
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traditional view of coherentism ↩