1 DEFENDING THE CLASSICAL PACKAGE: A MODEST REPLY TO PLANTINGA Central to the development of Alvin Plantinga’s reformed model of epistemology is a rejection of what he terms the ‘classical package,’ a program that seems to commit the devastating error of selfreferential incoherence. If Plantinga’s critique is on target, then his model gains more credibility as an alternative epistemological system. On the other hand, if there are any shortcomings in Plantinga’s analysis, then there is some reason to remain skeptical of his overall program. This essay will pursue the latter approach, and will suggest that Plantinga’s work, while brilliant and supremely important, is based on a rather narrow and outdated understanding of the classical package. Indeed, it is possible to interpret the package in a manner that is both faithful to its fundamental principles and which avoids the charge of self-referential incoherence. I. But first, we must seek to grasp the nature of the classical package (hereafter CP) as Plantinga describes it, and then understand what he finds so problematic about it. In his most important work, Warranted Christian Belief, Plantinga finds the roots of CP in the thought of John Locke and outlines three philosophical commitments that his writings promote: evidentialism, foundationalism, and deontologism. Regarding the first, evidentialism, Plantinga describes it as the view that “belief in God [or any non-basic belief] is rationally justifiable or acceptable only if there is good evidence for it, where good evidence would be arguments from other propositions one knows.”1 Plantinga goes on to explain that the kind of evidence that Locke’s system requires is that which makes a proposition either itself certain, or probable with respect to other propositions that are certain. Next, Plantinga explains the foundationalist principle, which offers a model for how these justified beliefs should be structured. The basic idea is that a justified belief is conferred this status either because its justification is non-inferential and it therefore belongs in the foundations, or because it is justified by some other belief, which itself is foundational. Not every non-inferentially formed belief 1
Alvin Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 70.
2 belongs in the foundations, however, and classical forms of foundationalism typically limit membership in this club to three kinds of beliefs. According to Plantinga, these beliefs must either be self-evident, incorrigible, or evident to the senses. It is these kinds of beliefs, perhaps, that Locke has in mind when he demands certainty in his theory of justification. Finally, with respect to deontologism, Plantinga reveals that “It is Locke’s idea that we have a duty, and obligation to regulate opinion in the way he suggests. We enjoy high standing as rational creatures, creatures capable of belief and knowledge.”2 As such, we must be careful to construct our beliefs in light of the appropriate evidence. Indeed, to do otherwise is to fail to fulfill one’s epistemic duties, for we are not acting in accordance with our nature as rational beings. To sum up, then, we have an epistemic obligation to proportion our beliefs to the evidence, and this evidence must result in our beliefs being certain or probable with respect to other beliefs which are certain. Or to bring in the foundationalist element, our beliefs, if they are to be justified, must either be justified non-inferentially, in which case they are properly basic beliefs, or they must be involved in an evidence chain which terminates with some belief that enjoys such status. Plantinga makes it very clear that, in his estimation, these three commitments are part and parcel of CP, and that contemporary forms of CP derive their identity largely from this perspective. As he states, “Locke’s thought initiates the classical package: evidentialism, deontologism, and classical foundationalism. It is according to the first two that Christian belief requires evidence...It is according to the third that the evidence must trace back, finally, to what is certain for them: what is self-evident, or incorrigible, or evident to the senses.”3 Along similar lines, elsewhere Plantinga writes that “Locke’s classical evidentialism is one element of a larger whole that also includes classical foundationalism and classical deontologism. This connected complex of theses and attitudes has been enormously influential in epistemology since the Enlightenment, and enormously influential especially with respect to our
2
Plantinga, p. 86.
3
Plantinga, p. 89
3 question, the question of the rational justifiability of religious belief: call it the classical package.�4 II. But now the question begs to be answered: what exactly is the problem with CP? For one thing, according to Plantinga, if we take it seriously then almost none of our everyday beliefs will be justified, and so most of us will not be fulfilling our duty with respect to these beliefs. One possibility to avoid this dilemma is simply to abstain from forming beliefs unless they can be justified according to Locke's criteria. But clearly that won't do, for there are some kinds of beliefs that we cannot help but hold, such as standard perceptual beliefs, or belief in the existence of other minds, and so on. Indeed, it would seem that we are destined to be involved in some kind of transgression here, as we will inevitably fail to act according to our rational nature in these cases. So clearly, thinks Plantinga, there is something fundamentally wrong with the insistence that we should regulate our beliefs in this manner. In short, it sets up too extreme of a standard. But, as a matter of fact, this is not even the most serious problem with CP, according to Plantinga. As one looks closely into the matter, it becomes obvious that classical foundationalism (hereafter CF), is involved in a most egregious error, that of self-referential incoherence. The argument goes something like this: According to CF, a person S is justified in accepting a belief p if and only if (1) p is properly basic for S, that is, self-evident, incorrigible, or evident to the senses for S, or (2) S believes p on the evidential basis of propositions that are properly basic and that evidentially support p. But herein lies the problem for CF, as Plantinga explains: Now consider (CF) itself. First, it isn't properly basic according to CF's lights. To be properly basic, it would have to be self-evident, incorrigible, or Lockean evident to the senses‌Clearly (CF) isn't like that at all; for example I understand it, and I don't see that it is true‌Second, it isn't about anyone's mental states and therefore isn't incorrigible for the foundationalist (or any of the rest of us). And third, it obviously isn't evident to the senses.5 So it follows that for belief in CF to be justified, this status must rest upon the evidential basis of other propositions which are self-evident, incorrigible, or evident to the senses. And as Plantinga 4
Plantinga, p. 82.
5
Plantinga, p. 94
4 concludes, no one has yet produced an argument to that effect. Thus, by CF's own standards if it is true then we are not justified in believing it. As a result, it would seem to fail the all-important test of internal coherence. And more importantly, for Plantinga’s purposes, this provides an opening for other kinds of beliefs, such as belief in God, to be considered properly basic. Now it is clear that Plantinga's argument has some plausibility. Given the way CF is construed, it does appear self-referentially incoherent. And the argument, in turn, calls into question the entire classical package. As such, those who hold to some form of CP have only a couple options: they can admit defeat and surrender, and look to other epistemological models; they can dig in and fight, claiming that Plantinga's critique is just wrong;6 or they can take a mediated approach, granting that Plantinga's analysis is generally on target, but that it criticizes non-essential elements of CP. Many philosophers have taken the first approach, a few have taken the second angle, and to my knowledge, almost no one has considered the last option. But given the diversity of beliefs among those who adhere to some form of CP, it is surprising that more philosophers haven’t explicitly criticized Plantinga on the basis that his analysis of foundationalism, evidentialism, and deontologism is too broad. McGrew has made this same point, with respect to foundationalism, in which he states: Since versions of foundationalism may vary widely, reports that foundationalism has been refuted should always be met with a certain amount of healthy doubt. Many of these ‘refutations’ turn on arguments against some inessential premise of one type of foundationalism, and would therefore have little impact on foundationalist theories of justification per se even if they were locally successful.7
Along similar lines, the remainder of the essay will argue that Plantinga’s treatment of CP focuses on nonessential elements of the package, and will assess whether it is possible to construe CP in a way that avoids the thrust of Plantinga's critique. In the end, no doubt Plantinga would still maintain that no element of CP must be satisfied for our beliefs to be warranted or justified. But that is merely 6
See Philip Quinn, “In Search of the Foundations of Theism,” Faith and Philosophy 2:4 (October 1985), p. 469-85.
7
Timothy McGrew, The Foundations of Knowledge (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 1995), p. 45.
5 because he finds justification to be primarily an external matter and that so long as our beliefs satisfy the relevant external criteria, then they are justified or warranted. And Plantinga is certainly free to hold whatever theory of epistemic justification he prefers. But the important point, for our purposes, is that if it is possible to construe CP in a more modest tone, then the real issue becomes whether internalism or externalism is a better theory of justification. At the very least, we might confidently conclude that if some kind of internalism, such as evidentialism, is flawed in a significant way, it is not by virtue of any arguments Plantinga proposes in his writings. III. First, is it possible to be an evidentialist without accepting Locke's rather extreme perspective? Plantinga is certainly right that Locke requires too much in insisting that we regulate our opinions such that our beliefs either be certain, or probable with respect to other beliefs that are certain. If this criterion were axiomatic, then we could hardly believe anything that would seem intuitively correct, for barely anyone would regulate their beliefs according to such standards. But perhaps there is another way of looking at this matter that makes more sense. What if belief in the existence of other minds, for instance, was probable with respect to other beliefs that are certain, but that we did not know that this was the case? As long as we were generally performing our duty and seeking evidence for our beliefs, then perhaps this is sufficient to satisfy the evidentialist requirement. One might object by pointing out that, in such a case, we would not actually know whether our belief was justified or not. But why should that be problematic? Plantinga already maintains that evidential certainty is not necessary for justification. According to this approach, we could agree that it is not necessary for us to know that a belief satisfies Locke’s criteria, but rather that it must be the case that it does satisfy the criteria. In this scenario, if a person has done their duty and has considered the relevant evidence for the belief, and if it’s the case that the belief is certain or probable with respect to that which is certain, then even if that person is unaware that the belief satisfies this criteria, the belief is justified. What is attractive in this approach is that it maintains the general evidentialist principle that our beliefs
6 should be proportioned to the evidence, but it rejects the unrealistic requirement regarding our understanding of the efficacy of that evidence. Furthermore, this moderate form of evidentialism coheres more closely with how we typically form beliefs, which rarely involves a rigorous process of determining probability and deciding whether our beliefs are connected to other beliefs that are certain. Indeed, given the absence of this methodology being practiced in the real world, we might even wonder if Locke himself held such a view in the first place. But alas, Plantinga assures us that Locke’s theory does involve the recognition that the criteria be satisfied: Locke doesn’t, so far as I know, explicitly raise the question whether I must know or believe that the belief is thus probable, if it is to be acceptable for me; I think he assumes that it must be. He thinks of the matter in terms of applying a test: a certain belief p comes within your purview; you are to determine whether it is probable with respect to what is certain for you in order to determine whether it is acceptable for you. But then you will accept the belief only if you see or believe that it does pass this test.8 Whether Plantinga is right about this is open for debate. The more important point, however, is that this strict standard need not be viewed as an essential element of an evidentialist theory of justification. In fact, it very much seems like a liability for any such theory, primarily because it is unrealistic to expect anyone to adhere to that kind of rigorous methodology. For one thing, even if it were possible for people to regulate their opinions according to Locke’s criteria, almost no one besides the professional scholars would have the time or energy to conduct themselves in this manner. And yet it seems plausible that non-scholars do have many justified beliefs, despite not having scrutinized their beliefs along these lines. Secondly, one might even reject the claim that it is epistemically possible to show that a belief is certain, or probable with respect to that which is certain. Indeed, it is difficult to even imagine what would be involved in such an evidence chain, and at what point it would be recognized that the chain had terminated with a belief that was certain. The fact of the matter is that while certainty may be an objective feature of some belief, our understanding of that belief’s being certain is an entirely subjective enterprise. 8
Plantinga, p. 82
7 Referring to a caveat in Locke’s evidentialism, Plantinga writes that "Someone who does seek the truth in this way, even if he should happen to miss it[emphasis mine], still may have the satisfaction in doing his duty as a rational creature. You govern your assent 'right,' he says, and you place it as you 'should' if you believe or disbelieve as reason directs you‌One who governs his own opinion thus is acting in accord with duty, is within his rights, is flouting no obligation, is not blameworthy, is, in a word, justified."9 So the fact that we may fail to demonstrate a belief’s being certain or its relationship to other beliefs that are thus, in no way impugns the general claim that we have an obligation to regulate our beliefs according to the evidence. Indeed, to admit that we will often fail to show the certainty of our beliefs, or to simply lack the ability to do so, is simply to grant that we are human and therefore limited in our cognitive abilities. Now if a certain belief does happen to be certain, or probable with respect to some other belief that is certain, and if we can actually show that such is the case, then all the better for the belief in question. I suppose this would simply entail that the belief is more justified than others, assuming it is appropriate to refer to levels of justification. At any rate, this need not entail that other beliefs which don't enjoy this status are thereby not justified. The key in this moderate approach to evidentialism is not the kind of beliefs we form, or how much justification they end up enjoying, but rather the process involved in our consideration of the evidence. If we have done our duty and our beliefs do fit the evidence, then that is sufficient, whatever the results may be. Indeed, even if a particular belief is not in fact certain or probable with respect to that which is certain, we might still confer a kind of weak justification on that belief, which would simply mean that given what the agent knows, or is justified in claiming to know, she is within her rights in holding the belief. What I am suggesting here, for the purposes of CP, is a tri-level model of epistemic justification: 1) weak justification obtains when the agent has fulfilled her duty and considered the available evidence, but it is not the case that the belief is certain or probable with respect to what is certain; 2) strong
9
Plantinga, p. 87
8 justification obtains when the agent has fulfilled her duty; it is the case that the belief is certain or probable with respect to what is certain; but she is unaware of this fact; 3) ultimate justification obtains when the agent has fulfilled her duty; the belief is certain or probable with respect to what is certain; and she knows this to be the case. And surely this is a commonsensical approach to belief formation, for it implicitly admits that there are certain factors beyond our internal access that are relevant to justification. With respect to strong justification, in some cases I may not have internal access to the fact that my belief is certain or probable with respect to that which is certain. But my belief is still justified, provided that I have done my duty and assuming that my evidence chain terminates with a certain belief. We find a similar phenomenon regarding genuine knowledge of a given belief. Certainly I do not have internal access to the truth of that belief, or to the belief’s being produced by a reliable process, or its not being subject to Gettier counterexamples. But if my belief is true, and if it is produced by a reliable process, and if it does survive Gettier scrutiny, then it would seem that I do have knowledge. So just as there are external factors at work when it comes to knowledge, there are similar factors at play in regards to justification. And the need is that we recognize this distinction and develop a model of justification that is realistic and takes both into account, and thereby makes room for justification to obtain with very minimal epistemic requirements. IV. It seems to me that, with respect to evidentialism, it only becomes extreme when it is understood in relation to classical foundationalism. In other words, when the foundationalist principle that requires an evidence chain terminating with properly basic beliefs impedes on the general rule that one ought to proportion their beliefs to the evidence, then we have a theory with inherent problems. It becomes problematic because, then, that rule itself needs to be justified in some Lockean sense, by appealing to notions of certainty and probability with respect to certainty. But why is it required for anyone to regulate their beliefs in this manner? Surely the average person may satisfy the general rule here, and thus fulfill their duty, without also being required to satisfy this more extreme Lockean criteria as well.
9 As for Plantinga’s depiction of CF, surely he does justice to this theory as it has been historically held and interpreted. But again, is it possible to hold a general theory of foundationalism without being required to accept the form that Plantinga critiques, and the consequences that follow? To answer this question we must consider what kind of theory foundationalism is, and what specific problem it aims to solve in its formulation. For starters, it should be emphasized that foundationalism is not primarily a theory of justification; in its general form it does not lay out guidelines for how our beliefs should be justified, or what kinds of beliefs are justified. Instead, it is fair to interpret foundationalism as a theory for how our beliefs should relate to each other in our noetic structure. Again, the basic idea is that we have some beliefs which are inferentially formed, and some which are non-inferentially formed; the latter may be termed foundational or basic beliefs, and some of these inferentially formed beliefs may terminate with a foundational or basic belief. But it is not required that this occur for a non-basic belief to be justified—it seems plausible that a person can be justified in holding a belief even if he cannot show that it terminates with a basic, or properly basic, belief. Indeed, even if the belief in fact doesn’t terminate with a properly basic belief, then the agent may still have some kind of weak justification. The reason it seems fair to make this admission is because, as just stated above, foundationalism is not primarily a theory of justification. Then what is it exactly? Perhaps it is possible to construe foundationalism instead as a solution to a particular kind of skeptical challenge. For instance, the skeptic asks, how do you know that A? And you will respond that you know A because you know that B. Naturally, the skeptic will press the matter and will ask how you know that B. And you will assert that it’s on the basis of C that you know B, and so on. What I want to focus on in this skeptical challenge is not the claim that, unless you can terminate the evidence chain with a basic belief, then you lack knowledge or your belief is unjustified. On the contrary, I want to focus on what an infinite evidence chain means for our noetic structure, and explain how CF solves the relevant problem. It seems to me that the serious problem revealed in the above dialogue is that unless I can end the regress I seem to have
10 an infinite number of beliefs in my noetic structure. And this, of course, seems obviously counterintuitive—something is very wrong with things if it comes to be that, in theory, I can keep offering reasons for my reasons, ad infinitum. As Louis Pojman has explained, How could the finite human mind contain such an infinite set of beliefs? We have no evidence that we have (or could have) an infinite set of beliefs. Furthermore, if all our beliefs are justified by appeal to other mediate beliefs, we never arrive at what is required for justification, a nonmediate belief. The notion of an infinite set…has little to commend it. No one has given a good argument in support of the infinite regress chain, though it hasn’t been disproved either.10 Now, admittedly, this is not how the skeptical challenge is normally construed. Typically the claim is that, unless we can demonstrate an end to the regress, then we have no guarantee that we have genuine knowledge, or even justification for the belief in question. But why should that claim bother anyone? We can surely admit that most of our beliefs will not be known with certainty, or be probable with respect to other beliefs that are certain, without also admitting that it follows that we have no knowledge or justification for our beliefs. The skeptic, of course, will insist that this problem is more serious than we care to admit. In fact, he may make the following argument, regarding our beliefs about the external world, to support his case: 1. Any beliefs about the external world could be mistaken 2. If a belief could be mistaken, then it is not knowledge 3. Therefore, no belief about the external world is knowledge11 But surely the conclusion here is a non-sequitor, for the mere possibility that I may be mistaken about my beliefs doesn’t represent a good defeater for those beliefs. Indeed, we need a good reason to think we are mistaken for this to cause our beliefs about the external world to be unjustified. As Richard Feldman and Earl Conee have explained, “Reason to think, or proof, that a [skeptical] hypothesis is possible, while things are introspectively the same, is not a reason to think that a [skeptical] hypothesis is true…Only evidence that supports the actual truth of some contrary proposition, or some undercutting proposition, defeats the justification. In skeptical scenarios, experiential evidence is misleading. But the 10 Louis P. Pojman, What Can We Know? 2nd ed. (Belmont: Wadsworth, 2001), p. 106. 11 See Richard Feldman and Earl Conee, Evidentialism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), p. 277-78.
11 fact that such deception is possible does not constitute a reason to think that the evidence actually misleads.”12 So given that we do not need CF to adequately respond to this traditional skeptical challenge, we can instead utilize a generic theory of foundationalism to address the problem of an infinite set of beliefs in our noetic structure. Perhaps the only important point is that the regress ends with some basic belief, so that the infinite regress finally comes to a stop. But why should we be required to show that the regress ends with a properly basic belief, or why should we be required to demonstrate that the regress even ends with a basic belief at all? No doubt it would be good news if this obtained, and the regress did, in fact, come to an end. And it would be even better news if we could demonstrate that such is the case. But to respond to the skeptical challenge, as I have construed it, merely requires the possibility that an end to the regress exists, and not our ability to necessarily prove this. This generic version of foundationalism merely represents a model for how the skeptical challenge may be answered; it does not necessarily presume that one can actually trace their non-basic beliefs back to properly basic beliefs, or even that these non-basic beliefs do trace back to properly basic beliefs. Taken as such, foundationalism is merely a theory for how to understand the relationship between our various beliefs, and not necessarily a robust theory of justification. To think otherwise is to commit a similar error that occurred with respect to evidentialism—to interpret it in light of another theory rather than taking a moderate approach and allowing it to stand on its own. In the case of evidentialism, Plantinga insists on interpreting it in light of CF. That much is clear in Plantinga’s explication of Locke’s theory that our beliefs must be certain or probable with respect to that which is certain. This theory, as stated by Plantinga, indeed carries heavy foundationalist baggage, as a certain belief is obviously akin to a properly basic or non-inferential belief. Similarly, in the case of CF, he wrongly insists on viewing it in light of evidentialism. But since foundationalism may be construed as not a theory of justification, but rather a theory for how our noetic structure should be
12 Feldman and Conee, p. 299.
12 formed, then evidentialism has little relevance here. As such, it is not required that I know, in a Lockean sense, that my belief in a generic foundationalism is justified or warranted. For I never claimed that any belief ought to be justified in this manner. So there is no self-referential incoherence to speak of in this case. A generic form of foundationalism is only claiming that our beliefs must, in theory, be capable of being traced back to a basic belief. But it doesn’t insist that a belief be traced back to a properly basic belief, or a belief that is certain, or that it be probable with respect to a belief that is certain. To assume that is to introduce a Lockean evidentialist principle of justification to the theory, which is a foreign and unnecessary concept. It may be the case that this minimalist approach to foundationalism, as I have described it, is justified in a Lockean sense. If such is the case, then so much the better for this version of foundationalism. But there is no compelling reason to require this strict standard in the first place; it need only be prima facie justified for me to be fulfilling my duty in believing it. And that is really the point, not that I can show that this generic version is justified in a Lockean sense, but that I am merely doing my duty in assenting to it. And the conviction that a belief chain ought to terminate with a noninferential belief, to avoid an infinite regress and an infinite number of beliefs in our noetic structure, does have prima facie plausibility. And so, it seems, I have done my duty in believing it. Throughout this discussion, I have assumed that cognitive agents do have a duty or obligation to form their beliefs in a responsible manner. As such, I find the general emphasis on deontologism rather appropriate, when it comes to matters epistemic. After all, human beings are rational creatures, and therefore ought to be manifesting this inner “form� in their daily activities. However, it seems this commonsensical requirement can easily become distorted when interpreted through the lens of CP. That is, when we allow the classical account of evidentialism and foundationalism to inform our endorsement of deontologism, then extreme consequences necessarily follow. On the contrary, there is a modest form of deontologism which highlights not the beliefs which result from, for example, responsible evidence gathering, but rather attitudes and practices that virtuous
13 cognitive agents manifest when they’re motivated to believe the truth. Along these lines, to some degree it doesn’t even matter if the agent’s commitment to her epistemic duty results in a set of beliefs which are certain or probable with respect to that which is certain. Indeed, all that matters is that the agent practices rationality in her believing, and that her beliefs are rooted in the intellectual virtues, or those character traits which, in normal worlds, tend to produce true beliefs. V. Plantinga’s argument does seem to rely on a certain understanding of foundationalism as it relates to evidentialism, and evidentialism as it relates to foundationalism. And it also interprets deontologism according to the lights of these two theories. I am surely not blaming him for this—indeed, he is merely outlining CP as it has historically been understood, and then responding appropriately. But it seems one can construe CP in a way that allows for foundationalism, evidentialism, and deontologism to be more independent theories that do not rely upon one another in the manner that Plantinga depicts. And in so doing, we are capable of avoiding the subsequent criticisms that Plantinga outlines in his book. Indeed, until someone can compellingly demonstrate that these theories are necessarily connected in this manner, then this more moderate approach seems like a plausible path for defending these models. Finally, since we are capable of constructing an account which avoids Platinga’s criticisms, we now have one less reason to accept his model of reformed epistemology, although it is clear that it represents a model worthy of our serious attention and respect.