In “The Raft and the Pyramid” Ernest Sosa presents an infinite regress against coherentism and now coherentists, at one time thinking that they were immune from any infinite regresses, have found themselves in philosophical crosshairs of one. I believe that Laurence BonJour offered a possible, though controversial, solution to Sosa’s regress that he entitled the doxastic presumption. It is my thesis to show how BonJour’s doxastic presumption is one possible solution to Sosa’s regress argument and to defend it against an objection made by Paul Moser.
Sosa’s Regress Argument
In order for a belief to be justified a coherence theory of justification requires the following:
C. For a subject S to have a justified belief B, B is justified if and only if B is a member of a coherent set of beliefs C and the likelihood of B being true is greater than the likelihood of B being false.
Sosa argues that a coherentist would likely accept the following:
A. “A belief B is foundationally justified for S in virtue of having property F only if S is justified in believe (1) that most at least of his beliefs with property F are true, and (2) that B has property F. But this means that belief B is not foundational after all, and indeed that the very notion of (empirical) foundational belief is incoherent.” (155)
Examining (A) we see that (C) satisfies its criteria; (A(1)) is satisfied since all the beliefs within a coherent system are likely to be true given that they possess property F and (A(2)) is satisfied because property F would be the property of B belonging to a coherent set of beliefs. However, Sosa states that if a coherentist accepts (A) then they seem bound to accept the following premise that he labels as A′:
A′. “A belief X is justified for S in virtue of membership in a coherent set only if S is justified in believing (1) that most at least of his beliefs with the property thus cohering are true, and (2) that X has that property.
…But A′ is a quicksand of endless depth” (155). Sosa’s reasoning is that now (A′(1)) needs to justified. Sosa’s regress argument specifically targets metabeliefs that are beliefs about the coherence and truth of one’s set of beliefs. However, as Sosa points out that for any such metabelief to be justified there will need to be a meta-metabelief to justify it, ad infinitum. To offer a solution to this problem I turn to BonJour’s doxastic presumption.
The Doxastic Presumption
In §5.4 of The Structure of Empirical Knowledge, Laurence BonJour developed a possible strategy to counter any possible regress by introducing the doxastic presumption in order to prevent an infinite regress of metabeliefs from starting. In the initial stages of constructing his coherence theory BonJour needed to establish how an individual is justified in believing that their beliefs are coherent and true. BonJour did accept (C) and given that beliefs are justified only by their coherence with other beliefs, “What we must now ask is whether and how the fact that a belief coheres in this way is cognitively accessible to the believer himself, so that it can give him a reason for accepting the belief” (BonJour, Structure 101). Given this internalist thesis it is reasonable to ask, ‘How are our metabeliefs (i.e., reasons) justified?’ We cannot appeal to any type coherence because any such appeal would be viciously circular; we cannot appeal to externalism because then the coherence theory could collapse into foundationalism; and we cannot appeal to further metabeliefs and thus fall into Sosa’s regress. Therefore, we need to establish how an individual can have a justified metabelief about the coherence and truth of their beliefs.
“…the primary justification issue is whether or not, under the presumption that I do indeed hold approximately the system of beliefs which I believe myself to hold, those beliefs are justified. And thus the suggested solution to the problem raised in this section is that the grasp of my system of beliefs which is required if I am to have cognitive access to the fact of coherence is dependent…on this Doxastic Presumption, as I will call it, rather than requiring further justification.” (BonJour, Structure 103)
The doxastic presumption is a transcendental argument because in BonJour’s theory it is not a premise but, “…a basis and unavoidable feature of cognitive practice” (Structure 104). If any type of justification is to begin then we must assume some necessary conditions, such as assuming that one’s beliefs are coherent and mostly true. Without the doxastic presumption it is difficult to see how any type of epistemic justification can begin because when we represent our beliefs via introspection we must presume that this representation is coherent and largely true. If we did not make this presumption then we would be trapped within a form of skepticism concerning the coherence and truth our own beliefs. If our justificatory starting point is a form of skepticism then it is difficult to see how any form of epistemic justification can begin.
“Thus the Doxastic Presumption does not, strictly speaking, function at all in the normal workings of the cognitive system. Rather it simply describes or formulates, from the outside, something that I unavoidably do: I assume that the beliefs constituting my overall grasp of my system of beliefs are, by and large, correct.” (BonJour, Structure 105)
Since the doxastic presumption is not a metabelief but a presumption that we, as cognitive individuals, necessarily utilize we are not caught in an infinite regress of metabeliefs. Now turning to Sosa’s regress argument; recalling (A′) , what led to the regress was (A′(1)); if we employ BonJour’s doxastic presumption, no further metabeliefs are necessary because part of our cognitive practice is to presume that our system of beliefs is coherent and largely true. Therefore, a coherentist can accept (C) as well as (A) and (A′) of Sosa’s argument but the doxastic presumption becomes the justificatory terminus thus preventing an infinite regress from starting.
Turning now to an objection, in “Internalism and Coherence: A Dilemma”, Paul Moser made several objections against BonJour but the objection I want to focus on is his argument that the doxastic presumption is ad hoc, “…because its sole purpose is to save BonJour's coherentism from the aforementioned infinite regress problem generated by its internalism” (Moser 163). BonJour replied to Moser’s objection in a subsequent article entitled “Reply to Moser”, and concerning this particular objection, BonJour states that reasonably one may ask, ‘Why the appeal to the doxastic presumption since it cannot prove that beliefs within a coherence system of beliefs are likely to be true?’ BonJour answers that if one were to reject the doxastic presumption or any type of background assumptions about the likelihood that one’s beliefs are true then, “…any epistemological view is inadequate when judged by such a standard” (“Reply” 165). If we recall BonJour’s argument that whenever we represent our beliefs via introspection, we make the presumption that that representation is true and coherent and from this initial presumption we begin our inquiry into whether or not our beliefs are justified. If we start our justificatory inquiry from a skeptical position (e.g., we are not justified in believing anything derived via introspection) then whether one is a coherentist or foundationalist, any form of epistemic justification is going to be elusive. The doxastic presumption is required for epistemic justification; therefore, the doxastic presumption is not ad hoc but necessary for epistemic justification.
Concluding Remarks
To recapitulate, Sosa’s regress argument against coherentism states that for any metabelief about the coherence and truth of one’s set of beliefs, that metabelief needs to be justified by a meta-metabelief but this justificatory chain goes ad infinitum. To address this BonJour introduced the doxastic presumption to stop this regress because the doxastic presumption is not a metabelief but a necessary presumption that an individual makes concerning the truth and coherence of their beliefs if any justification is to begin. If the doxastic presumption is rejected on the basis that it is ad hoc then any attempt to justify our beliefs is hindered because we would be trapped within skepticism.
Work Cited
BonJour, Laurence. “Reply to Moser.” Analysis 48.4 (1988):164-165. JSTOR. 21 Sept. 2009.
---. The Structure of Empirical Knowledge. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985.
Moser, Paul. “Internalism and Coherence: A Dilemma.” Analysis 48.4 (1988):161-163. JSTOR. 19 Sept. 2009.
Sosa, Ernest. “The Raft and the Pyramid.” Epistemology: An Anthology, 2nd Ed. 2000. Ed. Ernest Sosa, Jaegwon Kim, et al. Malden: Blackwell Publishing Company, 2008. 145-164.
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