Review of Bonjour

Review: Empiricism, Rationalism and the Limits of Justification Reviewed Work(s): In Defense of Pure Reason by Laurence Bonjour Tamar Szabó Gendler Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 63, No. 3. (Nov., 2001), pp. 641-648. Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0031-8205%28200111%2963%3A3%3C641%3AERATLO%3E2.0.CO%3B2-P Philosophy and Phenomenological Research is currently published by International Phenomenological Society.

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Philosophy and Phenomenological Research Vol. LXIII, No. 3, November 2001

Empiricism, Rationalism and the Limits of Justification TAMAR S Z A B ~GENDLER

Syracuse University

Bodour's intricately argued and provocative book raises a fundamental challenge for the empiricist: if we lack the capacity for direct apprehension of necessary truths, how do we know so much? How do we know about logic and mathematics and other apparently a priori subjects? How do we know about generalities, about the past and the future, about objects that are not present? How do we know about the relations that hold between premises and conclusions? If the first half of Bodour's book is right, the empiricist is unable to answer these questions, for she is unable to explain how our beliefs in such things are justified. Lacking such an explanation, the empiricist would be committed to an extreme and unacceptable form of skepticism-all this the indispensability argument. The rationalist, by contrast, has an answer to these questions, and if the second half of Bodour's book is right, the answer is both epistemologically and metaphysically unobjectionablecall this the possibility argument. I will use my limited space to challenge the first of these arguments by exploring a version of empiricism which is, I think, immune to some of BonJour's powerful challenges. On a picture of the sort I will sketch, the empiricist begins not with a few "foundational" beliefs from which she attempts inductively to justify the rest (cf. IDPR, p. 4), but rather with a network of hypotheses on the basis of which she makes predictions about the world that she tests against experience. On such a view-all it holistic hypothetico-deductivism-the empiricist can meet many of BonJour's initial challenges concerning justification. Nonetheless, my empiricist lacks the ability to answer apparently legitimate meta-questions: she cannot fully explain in virtue of what features about

'

Many of the central ideas in this response are the result of conversations with Ted Sider, Brian Weatherson and--especially-John Hawthorne. For comments and suggestions concerning previous drafts, I am grateful to Bill Alston, John Hawthorne, Teresa Robertson, Ted Sider, Jason Stanley and Zoltan Gendler Szab6. SYMPOSIUM

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the world her methodology leads to truth. The rationalist initially appears to have the upper hand in this regard. On his view, our experience-transcendent knowledge is justified on the basis of rational insight, and the explanation for its success lies in certain metaphysical facts about the relations between universals and human thought. On reflection, however, this apparent advantage is as great as BonJour takes it to be: in the end, both the empiricist and the rationalist must concede that there are only two sorts of replies to the question of why it is that their favored form of seemings confer justification: one quietist, the other externalist. Such answers will satisfy only those with epistemic standards less exacting than BonJour's (cf. IDPR, p. 1, fn. 1); these weaker outcomes, however, may be all that we can reasonably aim for.

2. BonJour's Challenge and the Empiricist's Reply 2.1 BonJour's Challenge In the opening pages of his book, BonJour articulates three reasons for taking a priori justification seriously (IDPR, pp. 2-6):

(1) It is indispensable in the justification of our knowledge of paradigmatically a priori truths. (2) It is indispensable in the justification of our knowledge of experience-transcendent truths. (3) It is indispensable in the justification of reasoning itself. If these indispensability claims are correct, BonJour continues, then the rejection of a priori justification has grievous implications: not only, following (I), are we forced into uncertainty about logic, mathematics and metaphysics, but, following (2), we are led to "a skepticism of the most radical kind.. .perhaps even solipsism of the present moment" (IDPR, pp. 3-4), and even, following (3), "to the repudiation of argument or reasoning generally, thus amounting, in effect, to intellectual suicide" (IDPR, p. 5 ) . These are dreadful consequences indeed. But is the empiricist really in such a dire dialectical position? 2.2 The Holistic Hypothetico-Deductivist Picture

Remembering that the issue we are concerned with is justification, let us provide our empiricist with the following general picture: S is justified in believing that P iff P is part of some well-confirmed, well-entrenched theory (perhaps satisfying further restrictions) that has been useful thus far in enabling her to navigate the world.* (Since justification concerns the basis on This is an extremely rough characterization; I mean only to be suggesting a general attitude that contrasts with BonJour's inductivist picture (IDPR, 4).

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which beliefs are retained, how S came to acquire P is immaterial.) How does S confirm P? By standard empiricist techniques: She generates and tests hypotheses on P's basis, and determines whether (in conjunction with other parts of the theory) it entails predictions that match experience. If so, it is provisionally justified; if not, it is not, and some modification to the theory as a whole is called for. This raises a host of complicated issues that BonJour rightly presses the empiricist to clarify, and I have little to say here other than that the precise content of the modification will be determined by a complex set of constraints that take into consideration desiderata such as simplicity, scope, fecundity, explanatory adequacy, and conservatis-hemselves justified by being part of a well-confirmed, well-entrenched metatheory concerning theory choice, and so on, in familiar fashion. I note only that the hypothetico-deductivist is certainly better off than the inductivist in this realm as well. Setting aside for a minute the question of whether the notion of justification here employed is properly truth-conducive, let's begin by seeing whether-if successful-such a picture could account for our knowledge of the three sorts with which Bodour is concerned. 2.3 The Justification of Beliefs

It is important to remember that the issue at hand concerns the justification of beliefs, and not their acquisition. So the question the holistic-hypotheticodeductivist faces concerning the first class of beliefs, is this: given the belief that, for instance, "2 + 2 = 4," "nothing could be red all over and green all over at the same time," or "a physical object cannot be in two places at the same time" (cf. IDPR, p. 2), can that belief be justified by means available to her? Assuming these beliefs are true, and that the theory as a whole is wellconfirmed and well-entrenched, there is no reason to think not; it seems likely that hypotheses generated on their basis will entail (in conjunction with other parts of the theory) predictions that match experience,' and that the beliefs will be thereby justified. So the empiricist can escape acute skeptical worries concerning the first class of beliefs. This answer feels unsatisfying for two reasons, but neither, I think, is felling. First, nothing has been said about why the justification criterion is truth-conducive; I will return to this issue in section 3 below, arguing that the rationalist is no better off in this regard. But second, it seems obvious that such hypotheses entail predictions that outrun experiential confirmation, and, correlatively, that predictions that match experience equally well could be generated by restricted or exaggerated versions (formed, say, by affixing "in this part of the universe.. ." or "there are invisible goblins in the cellar and.. ." Cf. Bodour: there is "no reason to rule out that at least some necessary propositions might be justified via empirical survey or investigation" (IDPR, p. 15).

to each of the above). So the empiricist's justificatory test seems insufficiently discriminatory, in ways that its rationalist counterpart is not. This is a serious issue, but it is not an issue about justification per se. That someone else could satisfy my job-description as well as I do does not show that I am not doing my job (though it may make it seem that I was an arbitrary choice for the position). That the empiricist criterion of justification does not do double-duty as a criterion of belief selection (in the way that rational insight does) is a fatal problem for the sort of (inductive) empiricism BonJour describes at IDPR, 4. But it does not show that empiricism as such is unable to offer justification for beliefs of the first class," and parallel arguments will presumably apply to those in the second. 2.4 The Justification of Reasoning

Let's move, now, to the third class of cases: the justification of argument. BonJour writes (I will make use of the inserted letters in the next paragraph): Could an argument of any sort be entirely justified on empirical grounds? It seems that the answer to this question is 'no.' (a) Any purely empirical ingredient can, after all, be formulated as an additional empirical premise. When all such premises have been explicitly formulated, either (b) the intended conclusion will be explicitly included among them, or (c) it will not. In the former case, (b) no argument or inference is necessary, while in the latter case, ( c ) the needed inference clearly goes beyond what can be derived directly from experience (IDPR, p. 5).

I find these remarks somewhat perplexing. Let's consider an example of the sort of case BonJour presumably has in mind: PI: If it's raining, then the ground is getting wet.

P2: It's raining. C: The ground is getting wet.

Assuming that the answer given in the previous section was satisfactory, both parties have justified true beliefs in P1 and P2. The question is how each justifies the move from P1 and P2 to C. One answer, implicit in BonJour's suggestion that the empiricist requires "an additional empirical premise," is by means of something such as

P3: If (if it's raining and the ground is getting wet) and (it's raining) then the ground is getting wet. Explanation of the apparent modal status of the first class of beliefs will need to make appeal to whatever general account of modality the empiricist employs. (Thanks to John Hawthorne and ZoltAn Gendler SzaM for soundly refuting the unsatisfactory proposal that once stood where this parenthetical remark does.)

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But surely this is not what Bodour means to propose. Whether P3 is justified empirically or a priori, introducing it into the argument inaugurates a Carrollian regress; we are no closer to C with P1-P3 than we were with P1P2 alone.' So the issue must not be whether P3 can be introduced as a justified premise (this is neither difficult nor helpful for either side), but whether the belief that P3 is true can be justified. Viewed from this perspective, however, the passage quoted above is bewildering. Why should we think (a) (see quotation in the first paragraph of 2.4), that "any purely empirical ingredient can ...be formulated as an additional empirical premise"? If the "ingredient" in question is the practice of inferring S from (R and (R + S)), then neither the empiricist nor the rationalist gains anything from describing it in premise form, for the reasons just discussed. If the idea is (b), that accepting the practice of inferring S from (R and (R + S)) is tantamount to accepting that S is to be included among the premises of the argument, then again the rationalist and empiricist seem to be on equal footing; it is hard to see how the question of how the practice is justified could make the difference here. And if the idea is (c), that if S is not included among the premises of the argument, then somehow the move from R and (R + S) to S involves going "beyond" what was already there, then once again there seems to be no asymmetry; again, it is hard to see how the question of how the practice (of moving from R and (R + S) to S) is justified is going to make the crucial difference. It is true that the "needed inference.. .goes beyond what can be derived entirely from experience" (IDPR, p. 5 ) , but on the sense of "derivation" in question here, it goes beyond what can derived entirely from reason too. In both cases, the practice is presupposed by the very notion of justification; neither (i) my apparent rational insight that P3 is true nor (ii) the fact that the truth of P3 is presupposed by the well-confirmed well-entrenched theory that serves as the standard for empiricist justification can justify my taking (i) or (ii) to render my belief in P3 (and my practical application of it in this case) to be justified. The wony here is not that one or the other party lacks metajustification for its justificatory principles (cf. IDPR, pp. 14247), but that justification--of any kindpresupposes certain fundamental argumentative practices which cannot be justified without employing those very practices. In this regard, the rationalist has no advantage over the (non-inductive) empiricist (though BonJour is surely correct that the inductivist is in an inferior po~ition).~ For the time being, then, the dreadful specter of skepticism seems to have receded; the holistic hypothetico-deductivisthas a least prima facie responses to each of Bodour's specific challenges. Cf. Lewis Carroll, "What the Tortoise said to Achilles," Mind, 4 (1899), pp. 278-80. For

a similar criticism of BonJour's argument, see Nenad Miscevic, "The Rationalist and the

Tortoise," Philosophical Studies, 92: 1-2 (1998),pp. 175-79.

Thanks to Jason Stanley for pressing me to clarify the ideas in this paragraph.

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3. Deeper Problems By this point, those unsympathetic to empiricism must be getting impatient. 'The problem with such a view," they want to shout, "is that there is no connection between the notion of justification it employs-belonging to a theory that is well-confirmed and well-entrenched-and the notion of justification with which epistemologists are concerned-being so as 'to enhance, to an appropriate degree, the chances that the belief is true' (IDPR, p. I)." As BonJour asks bluntly: "What reason can be offered for thinking that a system of beliefs which is simpler, more conservative, explanatorily more adequate, etc. is thereby more likely to be true?" (IDPR, p. 91) It may well be fully adequate with regard to the empirical data points against which it tests hypotheses, but why should we expect it to do any better than chance with regard to claims that transcend experience? There are two questions hidden here: First, how can such a theory, by its own lights, claim to be providing a notion of justification that has anything to do with truth? Second, in virtue of what facts about the world should we expect such a theory to produce true beliefs? A partial answer to the first question is the following: the sorts of things about which BonJour is concerned are not without empirical implications. It's not that there is a realm of the a priori, wholly removed from the realm of the sensual; things that are necessarily true are true in this world as well (though this won't directly give us reason to ascribe to such claims a particular modal status). If nothing is red all over and green all over at the same time, then a theory which affirms this is-ceteris paribus-going to be better off than a theory which denies it. If 2 + 2 = 4, then a theory which obstinately holds that 2 + 2 = 5 will face a large quantity of recalcitrant data. If induction is a justified mode of reasoning, then--ceteris paribus-a theory that employs it will be more successful than one that does not. So such a theory will not be wildly false. And all we were looking for was truthconduciveness, not certainty. Retort: "That's evading the question. What is it about the internal standards of the theory that tells you to give up one commitment rather than another? After all, 'in any situation in which one possible revision of one's system of beliefs might seem to be more justified than another by appeal to such epistemic standards, one need apparently only revise or abandon the standards themselves to make the alternative revision at least as acceptable' (IDPR, p. 92). To resist this by appeal to the standards themselves is circular; to resist it by something that lies beyond them is to concede defeat. So not only is there no reason to think, from the outside, that such a theory is likely to be getting things right. There's no reason to think, from the inside, that anything like truth-tracking is going on when appeal is made to justification."

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At this point, the defender of empiricism must concede that her reasons for retaining certain epistemic and logical principles over others have only circular support. Nor will her story about how she came to have these principles as opposed to others (presumably, because of certain sorts of evolutionary pressures), fully satisfy her rationalist interlocutor. But to concede that her justification comes to an end at this point is a far cry from succumbing to "an almost total skepticism" (IDPR, p. 93). If, as both she and the rationalist maintain, there are experience-transcendent features of the world that participate in a network of causal and non-causal connections with those features that impinge on experience, and if, as both she and the rationalist maintain, these features are organized in ways that can be captured by laws that we find simple and comprehensible (for reasons evolutionary or metaphysical), then it would be a remarkable coincidence indeed for her theory to be correct with regard to all (or nearly all) of its empirically-verifiable commitments, yet misguided with regard to nearly all the rest. So we-and the empiricist along with us-have every reason to believe that her theory is by-and-large correct, which was, after all, what we were looking for in an account of justification. And in this regard, she seems not much worse off dialectically than her rationalist counterpart. The empiricist points out that theories that are wellconfirmed and well-entrenched tend to lead to true beliefs. In virtue of what sort of fact about the world does this contingent correlation obtain? The fact that human beings have evolved in such a way that such theories of this sort are likely to track reality. Her rationalist opponent contends that apparent rational insight tends to lead to true belief. In virtue of what sort of fact about the world does this contingent correlation obtain? The fact that (cf. IDPR, p. 183) human beings are constituted so that when a property occurs in esse intentionale in one of their heads, that person tends to form true beliefs about it. Empiricist: But why are the apparent cases of rational insight good indicators of the genuine cases? Rationalist: Well, that's just the way the world is set up. Empiricist: How do we know that the world is set up in this way? Rationalist: Um, well, we weren't trying to defeat that sort of skepticism. Empiricist: Are you saying you're just assuming that we're lucky? Rationalist: No, I'm saying that "the appeal to apparent rational insight is epistemologically so basic and fundamental as not to admit of any sort of independent justification" (IDPR, p.148). Empiricist: You mean (quietist answer): "that's just what we mean by calling something 'justified."' Rationalist: Well (externalist answer), and that-as a matter of fact-rational insight tends to get things right. Empiricist: Well-confirmed well-entrenched theories get things right too; after all, with the exception of some fussy metaphysical claims, you and I don't disagree about which of our beliefs are true, we just disagree about what sorts of evidence there is for those beliefs. Rationalist: That's right: on my view, we have evidence; on your view, we don't. SYMPOSIUM

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Empiricist: How about this: Beliefs that are well-confirmed and wellentrenched tend to be true. Rationalist: But why do beliefs that are well-confirmed and well entrenched tend to be true? Empiricist: Well, that's just the way the world is set up. (For continuation of this conversation, see previous paragraph, mutatis rnutandis, ad infiniturn.)

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