structure-of-knowledge

Knowledge is a structured system of justified beliefs. This applies to not just theoretical beliefs grounded in more basic experiential beliefs, but also to our personal knowledge.

Knowledge has a structure, because justification has a structure. The very idea of justification is in a sense a notion of epistemic dependency which means that a belief’s justification depends on something else (Belief A is justified because of B, and B is justified because of C)

Two plausible possibilities of how knowledge (i.e. justification) is structured:

1. structure of knowledge is linear The simplistic version would be $\text{belief }D\to C\to B...$ Even a branching order of dependencies (for any belief in the structure, there are several other beliefs that go into that belief’s justification) would count as a linear justification structure.
2. structure of knowledge is circular = coherentism the initial belief (e.g. A) circles back upon itself as one of the belief’s that goes into the justification of A is itself dependent on A.

	graph LR
	A --> B
	B --> C
	C --> A
	

Foundationalism

The linear conception of epistemic structure leads to foundationalism = the view that in any justificatory hierarchy of beliefs, there must be certain basic beliefs that don’t require justification from further beliefs. In other words, there is a subset of beliefs at the base of the justificatory structure (the chain ends).

A basic belief is a justified belief but a belief whose justification doesn’t require the support of any other beliefs. See foundational justification

One argument for why there must be beliefs is the regress argument =

1. if justification is linear and there are no basic beliefs, then the justification of a given belief B will require an infinite series of justifying beliefs in order to serve as premises
2. a finite mind cannot entertain nor appeal to an infinite series of justifying beliefs
3. if justification actually did require infinite series of justifying beliefs, then we would never be able to accomplish any justification for any belief Hence, there must be some subset of our beliefs that are epistemically basic in order to stop the infinite regress.

This conclusion, however, doesn’t necessarily follow from the premises, because a skeptic can agree that both, justification is linear, and justification involves infinite sequence of beliefs, as it shows that knowledge is impossible.

what counts as a basic belief =

• Certain a priori beliefs can account as basic beliefs. However, since a priori are beliefs that if justified, are not justified by appeal to experience (mathematical principles, logic principles, etc.) them a priori beliefs tells us nothing about the world around us. Hence, there must be something more than a priori beliefs in our foundational beliefs.
• In some versions of foundationalism, beliefs about our own sense-data (“I see a cat on the mat”) have been considered as basic beliefs, e.g. logical-empiricism adopts this. However, the critiques applicable to logical empiricism can be applied to this, that it is overly restrictive to limit basic beliefs to only sense-data reports.
• A broader idea for empiricists is that perceptual beliefs (“there is a cat on the mat”) could count as basic beliefs.

what characteristics must a belief have to count as basic =

• minimal Foundationalism = a belief’s justification must not depend on any further beliefs
• strong foundationalism = in addition to a belief being epistemically independent of other beliefs, a belief must have some epistemic characteristic that makes it especially secure (the belief has to be indubitable; or infallible; or have the property of incorrigibility; or must be self-justifying

Alston-and-Will-Foundationalism-vs-coherentism

foundationalism on perceptual beliefs

Perceptual beliefs are derived from observational experience in a direct way, and provide a basis for our broader theories; empirical scientific theories must be based on kinds of perceptual beliefs.

There are different ways philosophers identify perceptual beliefs as

• beliefs about our own sense-data (and possibly about our other mental states)
• beliefs about what we perceive in our perceptual environment

The special status of perceptual beliefs is one factor that has traditionally led philosophers to favor foundationalism because perceptual beliefs are good candidates for qualifying as basic beliefs.