Foundationalism and Swinburne's Principle of Credulity
Richard Swinburne defends what he calls the principle of credulity.(PC), according to which "what seems to us to be so probably is so, that our apparent experiences are probably real experiences" [1]. More precisely, Swinburne says that the PC is "a fundamental a priori epistemic principle...that any basic belief (that is, the content of that basic belief, the proposition believed) is probably true (that is, it is more probable than not that the belief is true) on the believers evidence that he believes it -- in the absence of evidence in the form of other basic beliefs of that believer which makes it probable that he is mistaken" [2]. For example, let 'Fᵢ' be a basic/foundational belief, and 'Pᵢ' be a non-basic/non-foundational proposition believed on the basis of a basic one. Jones acquires the following belief:
F₁: there appears to be a table in front of me (or, 'I am appeared to tablely, to use the adverbial theory)
According to the PC, Jones is justified in believing that
P₁: there is a table in front of me
simply in virtue of having belief F₁ (so long as the requisite conditions are met). That is, having F₁ (or being inclined to believe P₁) is evidence itself that P₁ is probably true [3]. In summary, the principle of credulity concerns basic beliefs rather than derived/inferred beliefs, and only holds so long as contrary evidence of a basic sort does not make it likely that the basic belief is mistaken. In what follows, I will argue that Swinburne's defense of the principle of credulity faces a few challenges.
First, Swinburne motivates the PC by presenting what appears to be a false dilemma. Like a typical foundationalist, he thinks a person's inferred beliefs must terminate in a set of basic beliefs. However, he sees the move from basic beliefs to the next tier of beliefs (i.e., beliefs about the content of one's basic beliefs, like, 'there is a table in front of me') as requiring the PC. He states the following dilemma: "Either we must be very skeptical, and think that almost all our ordinary beliefs are not probably true, or we must endorse the principle of credulity" [3]. Making a Moorian shift, Swinburne argues that, since "most of what we seem to experience, we really do experience" [4], skepticism is not plausible, and, hence, the second disjunct of the dilemma is left standing -- we must endorse the principle of credulity. However, Swinburne says nothing about other attempts to organize and justify our belief structures and avoid skepticism (e.g., foundationalism and coherentism), or why these attempts should require the PC. Other foundationalists, for example, will deny that Swinburne has given us a real dilemma. They might argue that justificatory resources of an explanationist type justify an ascent to realism, without the initial need for the PC [5]. Swinburne says nothing about these alternative attempts to justify belief in the content of basic beliefs, leaving his endorsement of the PC under-motivated.
Secondly, Swinburne rightly thinks not all basic beliefs are reliable as foundations for further inference, but he doesn't adequately motivate his criterion for determining when the PC should apply to one one basic belief rather than another, making it difficult to see how the PC can be applied in a non-arbitrary way or in a way that isn't merely pragmatic. He writes, "[T]here doesn't seem to be any very good reason for excluding any class of basic beliefs except on the basis of evidence that most beliefs of that class turn out to be false. That's why we don't think that anyone should believe basic beliefs arising from palmistry or crystal-ball gazing -- experience shows that most such beliefs are false" [6]. However, recall from above that the contrary evidence mentioned in the PC has to come in the form of other basic beliefs. So the claim that "experience shows that most such beliefs are false" must mean (to be consistent with the criteria for applying the PC) that 'there is some basic memory belief (or some other kind of basic belief) inclining me to believe that crystal ball gazing has not been reliable in the past.' That is, such beliefs are accepted as false because other basic beliefs are, via the PC, accepted as probably true. Now, imagine I acquire a basis belief, F₂, about a crystal-ball prediction. Moreover, I have a basic memory belief, F₃, about a sample of crystal-ball predictions, the content of such belief being that n/m crystal-ball predictions have turned out false, where n/m ≈ 1. Why should I take F₃ as reason for disbelieving the prediction expressed by F₂? Along Swinburnian lines, I could apply the principle of credulity to F₃, giving myself reason to reject F₂. But what reason could justify my extension of the PC to F₃ rather than F₂? To make the question more general, why extend the principle of credulity to one basic belief F* rather than another basic belief F**, where F* and F** have a strong negative probabilistic relationship (more on what this means, below)?
In Epistemic Justification, Swinburne maintains that we make the cut among competing foundational beliefs by comparing their varying strengths, where the strength of our basic beliefs are determined by "the extent to which they are apparently forced upon us by the world" (p. 142). The stronger F* is, the less likely it is that it will be eliminated; and if F* is stronger than F**, F** will likely be eliminated. Say I believe proposition P₁ in virtue of basic belief F*, and I am considering belief in P₂ in virtue of F**. Let it be that P₁ and P₂ have a negative probabilistic relationship with one another, meaning that Pr(P₂|P₁) << Pr(P₂), and Pr(P₁|P₂) << Pr(P₁). Also, let it be that my strength of belief in P₁ is much greater than my strength of belief in P₂ (F* "forces" itself on me more strongly than F**). On Swinburne's view, I should eliminate P₂, rather than P₁. Swinburne writes, "I believe that I am seeing a desk, but, in the light of my stronger belief that there are many holograms around, I cease to believe that I am seeing a desk" (p. 142). However, I can't seem to find any place where he explains why strength of belief of this sort is truth-tropic, and, hence, why the above criteria is truth-tropic. Why think the strength with which a belief is 'forced' upon a person (whatever this means) is relevant to whether that belief is probable or not? Without adequately answering this question, applying the PC to cases of negative probabilistic relationships between basic beliefs (or relations of logical incompatibility) lacks justification.
In conclusion, the PC seems under-motivated and, in my opinion, asks us to assume, without argument, precisely what is up for question -- namely, that the way things appear is reflective of how things probably are. It seems to me that if Swinburne is going to resolve some of the above issues, he should approach a foundationalist ascent to realism via explanatory resources [7]; the principle of credulity doesn't seem to cut it.
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footnotes:
[1] Mind, Brain, and Free Will (2013), p. 42.
[2] Ibid., p. 42.
[3] See Epistemic Justification (2001), p. 144.
[4] Mind, Brian, and Free Will, p. 44.
[5] For a defense of this approach, see Timothy McGrew, The Foundations of Knowledge (1995).
[6] Mind, Brian, and Free Will, p. 44.
[7] A classic realist approach (perhaps starting with Locke) takes certain features of sensory experience -- involuntariness and apparent regularity -- as being best explained by the realist story. For more on this approach, see Laurence Bonjour, Epistemology: Classic Problems and Contemporary Responses (2009). Perhaps Swinburne could throw in strength of belief, but then the PC wouldn't be all that relevant.
F₁: there appears to be a table in front of me (or, 'I am appeared to tablely, to use the adverbial theory)
According to the PC, Jones is justified in believing that
P₁: there is a table in front of me
simply in virtue of having belief F₁ (so long as the requisite conditions are met). That is, having F₁ (or being inclined to believe P₁) is evidence itself that P₁ is probably true [3]. In summary, the principle of credulity concerns basic beliefs rather than derived/inferred beliefs, and only holds so long as contrary evidence of a basic sort does not make it likely that the basic belief is mistaken. In what follows, I will argue that Swinburne's defense of the principle of credulity faces a few challenges.
First, Swinburne motivates the PC by presenting what appears to be a false dilemma. Like a typical foundationalist, he thinks a person's inferred beliefs must terminate in a set of basic beliefs. However, he sees the move from basic beliefs to the next tier of beliefs (i.e., beliefs about the content of one's basic beliefs, like, 'there is a table in front of me') as requiring the PC. He states the following dilemma: "Either we must be very skeptical, and think that almost all our ordinary beliefs are not probably true, or we must endorse the principle of credulity" [3]. Making a Moorian shift, Swinburne argues that, since "most of what we seem to experience, we really do experience" [4], skepticism is not plausible, and, hence, the second disjunct of the dilemma is left standing -- we must endorse the principle of credulity. However, Swinburne says nothing about other attempts to organize and justify our belief structures and avoid skepticism (e.g., foundationalism and coherentism), or why these attempts should require the PC. Other foundationalists, for example, will deny that Swinburne has given us a real dilemma. They might argue that justificatory resources of an explanationist type justify an ascent to realism, without the initial need for the PC [5]. Swinburne says nothing about these alternative attempts to justify belief in the content of basic beliefs, leaving his endorsement of the PC under-motivated.
Secondly, Swinburne rightly thinks not all basic beliefs are reliable as foundations for further inference, but he doesn't adequately motivate his criterion for determining when the PC should apply to one one basic belief rather than another, making it difficult to see how the PC can be applied in a non-arbitrary way or in a way that isn't merely pragmatic. He writes, "[T]here doesn't seem to be any very good reason for excluding any class of basic beliefs except on the basis of evidence that most beliefs of that class turn out to be false. That's why we don't think that anyone should believe basic beliefs arising from palmistry or crystal-ball gazing -- experience shows that most such beliefs are false" [6]. However, recall from above that the contrary evidence mentioned in the PC has to come in the form of other basic beliefs. So the claim that "experience shows that most such beliefs are false" must mean (to be consistent with the criteria for applying the PC) that 'there is some basic memory belief (or some other kind of basic belief) inclining me to believe that crystal ball gazing has not been reliable in the past.' That is, such beliefs are accepted as false because other basic beliefs are, via the PC, accepted as probably true. Now, imagine I acquire a basis belief, F₂, about a crystal-ball prediction. Moreover, I have a basic memory belief, F₃, about a sample of crystal-ball predictions, the content of such belief being that n/m crystal-ball predictions have turned out false, where n/m ≈ 1. Why should I take F₃ as reason for disbelieving the prediction expressed by F₂? Along Swinburnian lines, I could apply the principle of credulity to F₃, giving myself reason to reject F₂. But what reason could justify my extension of the PC to F₃ rather than F₂? To make the question more general, why extend the principle of credulity to one basic belief F* rather than another basic belief F**, where F* and F** have a strong negative probabilistic relationship (more on what this means, below)?
In Epistemic Justification, Swinburne maintains that we make the cut among competing foundational beliefs by comparing their varying strengths, where the strength of our basic beliefs are determined by "the extent to which they are apparently forced upon us by the world" (p. 142). The stronger F* is, the less likely it is that it will be eliminated; and if F* is stronger than F**, F** will likely be eliminated. Say I believe proposition P₁ in virtue of basic belief F*, and I am considering belief in P₂ in virtue of F**. Let it be that P₁ and P₂ have a negative probabilistic relationship with one another, meaning that Pr(P₂|P₁) << Pr(P₂), and Pr(P₁|P₂) << Pr(P₁). Also, let it be that my strength of belief in P₁ is much greater than my strength of belief in P₂ (F* "forces" itself on me more strongly than F**). On Swinburne's view, I should eliminate P₂, rather than P₁. Swinburne writes, "I believe that I am seeing a desk, but, in the light of my stronger belief that there are many holograms around, I cease to believe that I am seeing a desk" (p. 142). However, I can't seem to find any place where he explains why strength of belief of this sort is truth-tropic, and, hence, why the above criteria is truth-tropic. Why think the strength with which a belief is 'forced' upon a person (whatever this means) is relevant to whether that belief is probable or not? Without adequately answering this question, applying the PC to cases of negative probabilistic relationships between basic beliefs (or relations of logical incompatibility) lacks justification.
In conclusion, the PC seems under-motivated and, in my opinion, asks us to assume, without argument, precisely what is up for question -- namely, that the way things appear is reflective of how things probably are. It seems to me that if Swinburne is going to resolve some of the above issues, he should approach a foundationalist ascent to realism via explanatory resources [7]; the principle of credulity doesn't seem to cut it.
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footnotes:
[1] Mind, Brain, and Free Will (2013), p. 42.
[2] Ibid., p. 42.
[3] See Epistemic Justification (2001), p. 144.
[4] Mind, Brian, and Free Will, p. 44.
[5] For a defense of this approach, see Timothy McGrew, The Foundations of Knowledge (1995).
[6] Mind, Brian, and Free Will, p. 44.
[7] A classic realist approach (perhaps starting with Locke) takes certain features of sensory experience -- involuntariness and apparent regularity -- as being best explained by the realist story. For more on this approach, see Laurence Bonjour, Epistemology: Classic Problems and Contemporary Responses (2009). Perhaps Swinburne could throw in strength of belief, but then the PC wouldn't be all that relevant.
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