First
Principles and Proper Basicality
An
Analysis of Alvin Plantinga’s Epistemic Relationship to Thomas Reid
Alvin
Plantinga, in his article Belief Without
Argument, seems to echo much of Thomas Reid’s thought concerning first
principles, i.e. that they originally arise from the constitution of our
nature, and we are rational in believing them without argument. Furthermore, Reformed epistemologists,
such as Plantinga, have been associated with Reid’s epistemology, and
specifically with the discussion of first principles. I will argue that although a similar conclusion is
presented, Reid’s epistemology is far superior in protecting itself against
adopting any belief as properly basic, or as a first principle.
Plantinga, quoting Calvin’s Institutes
of the Christian Religion, claims that we have a natural tendency or
inclination to believe in God, the sensus
divinitatis, and it is therefore “not a doctrine that must first be learned
in school, but one of which each of us is master from his mother’s womb and
which nature itself permits no one to
forget” (Plantinga 219[1]). This innate tendency, according to
Plantinga and Calvin, is suppressed by human sin, but nonetheless universally
present. They account for the
absence of universal agreement by appealing to the effects of sin, and thus
belief in God must have a “trigger” like Kant’s attraction to the starry
heavens above and the moral law within, the reading of sacred scripture, and so
forth. Furthermore, Plantinga
claims that man is “entirely within his epistemic rights…in accepting belief in
God in the utter absence of any argument, deductive or inductive.” (220). Therefore, man knows God exists, i.e. has knowledge of the existence of God,
independent of any argument. Thus
in the light of this innate knowledge, many followers of this tradition have
developed a dim view of natural theology, given that it is utterly unnecessary
for justification of one’s belief.
Therefore, if no justification must be given for belief in God, this
belief is and ought to be taken as basic.
Plantinga
then turns his attention to an analysis of foundationalism and its relationship
to the “Reformed”, i.e. Calvinistic, objection to natural theology. In taking the existence of God as an
object of knowledge given to us by the constitution of our nature, Plantinga
observes the stark contrast between Reformed and traditional epistemology and moreover,
the outright rejection of traditional epistemology, or as he calls it, classic foundationalism, by Reformed
epistemologists. He first observes
that classic foundationalism is a
normative view given that “it aims to lay down conditions that must be met by anyone whose system of
beliefs is rational” (221). He then goes on to introduce the term
“noetic structure” as “the set of propositions (one) believes together with
certain epistemic relations that hold among him and these propositions” (222). Within this set of relations, some
beliefs may be based upon others, e.g. P on
the basis of S. For instance, Plantinga’s example states:
“I believe that 72 x 71 = 5112.
This belief is based upon several other beliefs I hold—such as beliefs
as that 1 x 72 =72; 7 x 2 = 14; 7 x 7 = 49…” (222). However, the proposition 2 + 1 = 3 is basic, i.e. accepted independently
of other beliefs. Classic
foundationalism, says Plantinga, is a “thesis about rational noetic
structures”, and a rational noetic structure, according to this system,
requires the subject, above all, “to do the right thing with respect to one’s
beliefs” (223).
For
the classical foundationalist, beliefs ought not to be accepted
arbitrarily. A rational person
will believe what follows from deductive entailment, or probability. However, for this to hold, there must be a basis for these beliefs to
even be possible, and these are called foundations,
for “If every belief in a rational noetic structure were based upon other
beliefs, the structure in question would contain infinitely many beliefs. However…human beings aren’t capable of
believing infinitely many propositions...” given that “one presumably doesn’t
believe a proposition one has never heard of, and no one has had time, these
busy days, to have heard of infinitely many propositions.” (223). Therefore, every rational noetic
structure must and does have a foundation on which its reasonings are
based. Plantinga goes on to
clarify that weak foundationalism claims, “every rational
noetic structure has a foundation, and in a rational noetic structure,
non-basic belief is proportional in strength to support from the foundations.”
(223). This, however, is not the
view the Reformed epistemologist wishes to dismiss. The view that they take issue with is the tendency of
classical foundationalists to “lay down certain conditions of proper or
rational basicality.” (224). That
is to say, the classical foundationalist claims that a proper foundational belief,
or first principle, must meet certain conditions that we can determine by
appealing to the senses, such as “I am sitting in the chair.”, or for more
cautious Cartesians, “I seem to be sitting in a chair.”
Thus,
we have seen that Calvin and Plantinga believe that belief in God is basic, and
since it is basic, it is rational. But one further observation must be
considered to understand the strength of their claim. For some, a proposition having proper basicality suggests
not that it can be known, but only
that it can be rationally believed, e.g.
Kant’s view regarding free will functions in the same fashion. However, the Reformed epistemologist
does not accept this. He claims
that we can claim knowledge of
propositions that have proper basicality and are accepted. Therefore, if I believe that God
exists, and believe that this proposition has proper basicality, I know God
exists.
Reid,
like Plantinga, believes that God exists.
However, he does not share Calvin’s aversion of natural theology. Furthermore, in the Essays on the
Intellectual Powers of Man, Reid gives both a first principle and an
argument for the existence of God. First principles of common sense, again, are to be understood
as principles given to us by the constitution of our nature, or naturally, and principles we are rationally
justified in believing without argument.
Reid’s final first principle of necessary truth states, “That design,
and intelligence in the cause, may be inferred, with certainty, from marks or
signs of it in the effect.” (Brookes 503). He argues that since this principle is basic, it could not therefore
be established by reason or experience.
First, reason fails to provide an adequate ground for this principle
because it is “too universal to be the effect of reasoning.” (504). Secondly, not many find the need to argue for it, e.g. Cicero and
John Tillotson. Therefore,
Reid feels entitled to conclude that not only has it not been argued for, it cannot be argued for, for if it could be
established by reason, it could not be a first principle. Experience, likewise, cannot provide
adequate verification of this principle.
Primarily, experience fails because of Reid’s insistence of the
necessity of the principle. And
since experience cannot deductively prove anything, it consequently fails to
prove the necessity of the proposition, i.e. the impossibility of its failing
to be true. As Reid puts it, “As
we cannot learn from experience that twice three must necessarily make six, so
neither can we learn from experience that certain effects must proceed from a
designing and intelligent cause.” (507).
And finally, experience cannot prove Reid’s principle because experience
can only deal with what is experienced.
It is possible to know the connection between a cause and an effect if
one experiences both things. But if one only experiences the cause or the effect, the principle cannot
hold, e.g. the mind-body problem.
Therefore, if one only experiences the effect, one can say nothing about
the cause, or, “experience can never shew its connection with the thing
signified.” (508). Thus, Reid
feels entitled to conclude that, “from certain signs or indications in the
effect, we may infer, that there must have been intelligence, wisdom, or other
intellectual or moral qualities in the cause…” is a first principle, and
consequently cannot be proved by reason or experience. It is a small step from here to the
“Argument to Design”. For, if this
can be established as a first principle of common sense, then it inevitably
holds for all things that admit of design. And if one can prove the marks of intelligence in the world,
one may, by Reid’s account, conclude the existence of an intelligent designer[2]. Reid observes that many have been quick
to accept this principle when dealing with, in Humean terms, artifacts, but have
been less hasty to accept the principle as it stands in regards to natural
objects such as the objects that make up the world, or the world itself. Reid, however, concludes that the
“works of Nature are indeed the effects of a wise and intelligent cause.”
despite Hume’s objection that we cannot establish probability from experience
of just one world (510). He
presents a reductio ad absurdum
argument to show that, by Hume’s reasoning, we “have no evidence of mind or
design in any of our fellow-men.” (511).
But Reid believes that this is absurd, and therefore feels entitled to
dismiss his skeptical argument and retain his first principle[3].
Both
of these systems prompt a popular objection. For Plantinga, it is referred to as the “Great Pumpkin
Objection”. This problem is as
follows: “If belief in God is properly basic, why can’t just any belief be
properly basic…what about the belief that the Great Pumpkin returns every
Halloween? Could I properly take that
as basic?” (Plantinga 226). Some
have felt inclined to dismiss this problem by appealing to the slippery slope
fallacy, but Plantinga, Reid, and others have nonetheless felt the need to
address this problem. Plantinga
admits that the Reformers’ distaste for setting up criteria for proper
basicality does prompt one to
entertain this thought, but he ultimately claims that this is not a necessary
conclusion, but why? To be sure,
Reformed epistemologists do agree that criteria for proper basicality should be
“tested by a relevant set of examples”, but the content of the examples is an
important detail for advocates of this position (226). Plantinga argues, “The Christian will
of course suppose that belief in God is entirely proper and rational; if he
doesn’t accept this belief on the basis of other propositions, he will conclude
that it is basic for him and quite properly so.” (226) But, the crux of the
response depends on Plantinga’s statement that each community, in particular,
the Christian community, “is responsible to its (own) set of examples…” and
therefore, not for other communities, e.g the Atheistic community. Therefore, according to Plantinga, the
Reformed epistemologist may take belief in God as properly basic without taking
belief in the Great Pumpkin as properly basic, even without criteria of proper basicality. Thus, for the Reformed epistemologist, belief in God may be basic, but it
does not necessarily suggest the universality of the alleged basicality.
Although Reid allegedly establishes the
necessity of his first principle, which suggests the existence of God, he also
discusses what to do in the case of disagreement between first principles.
Since Reid claims accepting the first principles of common sense without
argument is entirely rational, the Reidian version of Plantinga’s ‘Great
Pumpkin Objection’ can be naturally raised. In Reid’s terms, “Is it not possible, that men who really
love truth, and are open to conviction, may differ about first principles?”
(258). That is to say, can one
take just anything as a first principle?
According to Reid, no. But, his solution to the problem differs greatly
from Plantinga and the Reformed epistemologists’ solution. Reasoning and arguing between first
principles isn’t necessarily helpful for obvious reasons, i.e. if an argument
cannot be given to establish the principles in the first place, one cannot be
given to show its superiority to another. Furthermore, he thinks that it is
likely that one’s first principles will be perverted, especially by education,
given that humans, according to Reid, are naturally inclined to believe rather
than doubt. But Reid adamantly
states that nature has not left us destitute concerning the veracity of first
principles of common sense. Moreover,
unlike the Reformed epistemologists, Reid has no reservations in setting up criteria for accepting a first
principle’s veracity. These
criteria are as follows.
First and foremost, “every man is
(naturally) a competent judge” of first principles (Reid 259). That is to say, that every man will
agree on first principles, given that his common sense is not perverted or abandoned. Secondly, Reid claims that opinions
that contradict first principles are different from other errors. They are not solely false, they are absurd: “Nature hath given us a
particular emotion…which seems intended for this very purpose of putting out of
countenance what is absurd, either in opinion or practice.” (259). Therefore, thirdly, there are certain
ways to correctly reason about first principles “by which those that are just
and solid may be confirmed and those that are false may be detected.” (260). For example, a proper way of reasoning
concerning first principle is by way of ad
hominem arguments, i.e. classifying one as inconsistent when one refuses to
accept the necessary consequences of his arguments. A first principle may also be examined by ad absurdum arguments. That is to say, if the necessary
conclusion of an argument is absurd or contradictory, we may conclude that the
premises are unsound as well, thus making the opposite true. Reid also appeals to the “consent of
ages and nations, of the learned and unlearned…” (261). Namely, if one’s first principle is, or
leads to a proposition that is contrary to common understanding, one ought to
have a reason why most men are mistaken, seeing that every man is a competent
judge of first principles (see criterion 1). Reid believes that every first principle must, and does,
meet these criteria, and he is therefore protected from the necessity of
accepting any first principle as veridical.
Given this analysis, it is clear that
although both Reid and Plantinga both believe that it is rational to accept some
propositions without argument, their systems differ greatly. First and foremost, the Reformed
epistemologist must reject Reid’s system seeing that Reid does not take belief
in God as properly basic, i.e. as a first principle. It is, however, (according to Reid) a necessary consequence
of a first principle, but that does not fall within Reformed epistemology’s
demand for the basicality of the belief itself. Likewise, while the Reformed epistemologist denies the
necessity for establishing a criterion for proper basicality, Reid
wholeheartedly accepts this and does so.
Therefore, unlike the Reformed epistemologist, Reid establishes an
element of universality concerning first principles. That is to say, upon disagreement, one principle can
allegedly be shown to fall within the realm of common sense (or not) objectively, whereas the Reformed
epistemologist must appeal to a set of examples relevant only to his/her
community. Therefore the Reformed epistemologist cannot go any farther than saying 'I am rational', but this results in a relativistic rationality seeing that a member of a community that holds the opposite belief must also be considered rational given that he/she has responsibly set his/her own examples. Thus, I believe that Reid’s
criterion’s established universality and necessity concerning first principles
is a superior solution to Plantinga’s defense against the ‘Great Pumpkin
Objection’.
“...such judgments are common to the
whole human race that are endowed with understanding; and that they are
absolutely necessary in the conduct of life.” (Brookes 504)
[1]
Alvin Plantinga, “Belief Without Argument,” Exploring
the Philosophy of Religion: 218-227
[2]
Hume, however, thoroughly argues this point in his Dialogues Concerning
Natural Religion.
[3]
I believe this in an interesting discussion, but it is not terribly relevant to
the topic of the paper. Therefore,
I only provided a surface level account.
