Cartesian Foundationalism

In my last post I discussed The Infinite Regress Argument which deals which amounts to only justified basic beliefs counting as knowledge. Here I will present to you the foundationalist response to that argument.

As established in Epistemology by Richard Feldman, Foundationalism can involves two claims:

1. There are justified basic beliefs.
2. All justified nonbasic beliefs are justified in virtue of their relation to justified basic beliefs.

These claims lead to the questions:

1. What are the kinds of things our justified basic beliefs are about?
2. How are these basic beliefs justified?
3. What sort of connections must a nonbasic belief have to basic beliefs in order to be justified?

Alrightie...now my man Descartes did begin his classic Meditations by doubting the existence of absolutely everything and then slowly began to justify the existence of things beginning with himself, "Cogito ergo sum." It is important to note Descartes was not a skeptic. Instead it is from his writings which this type of foundationalism is derived. Cartesian foundationalism claims all beliefs one holds about his own state of mind, feelings, thoughts, etcetera...to be basic. Cartesian foundationalism then answers the aforementioned questions, according to Feldman, as:

1. Beliefs about one's own inner states of mind and beliefs about elementary truths of logic are justified basic beliefs.
2. Justified basic beliefs are justified because we cannot be mistaken about them.
3. The rest of our justified beliefs, those about the external world, are justified because the are deduced from our own basic beliefs.

However, there are some problems with these answers. Granted, Descartes rejected the possibility of his senses deceiving him in his Meditations which was easily done back in 17th century France as he through a kind, merciful, undeceiving God into the equation to appease both his critics and the Inquisition. (Who would want to challenge the Inquisition?) Unfortunately that trick does not work quite so well anymore. Indeed, we are fallible about our own mental states which is evident in diagnosed mental illness and hypochondriac episodes just to offer a few examples. In both cases you have the sensation, a source of knowledge as mentioned in my first post, of something that is actually nonexistent or false.

Another objection to Cartesian Foundationalism stems from the rarity of beliefs about inner states. Now this objection I find to be a little ridiculous as Feldman explains people do not come to the belief there is a chair in the corner because they first said to themselves, "I see a chair looking object over in the corner." I actually think such as step does happen, but the steps are not broken down in our minds like that as identifying common things like chairs, tables,etcetera...is really common. However if you were to form the belief something you rarely come into contact with, if ever aside from pictures or descriptions, were in the corner of a room like an ancient Egyptian vase you would have to slow down the steps and say to yourself "Something that looks like the Egyptian vases I have seen in history books is in the corner of the room." Then you would infer, "There is an Egyptian vase over there." Thus, objection is not really much of lynch pin.

The final objection to Cartesian Foundationalism is the restrictiveness of deduction. (Don't tell Sherlock Holmes that!) As previously mentioned, Cartesian Foundationalists require that justified nonbasic beliefs be deduced from basic beliefs. Earlier, basic beliefs allowed us to deduce the existence of the Egyptian vase. Unfortunately Sherlock, it is not always so elementary. The external world is an imperfect place, we dream things, people lie, people misunderstand, things go unnoticed, etcetera...In short, there are no guarantees deduction will lead to knowledge.