Antifoundationalism

Two. Foundationalism in Plato?

Two Foundationalism in Plato? RONALD POLANSKY The several forms of foundationalist theories of knowledge aim to avoid infinite regresses of justifications through locating principles that stop the regress and justify whatever else is known. Strong forms of foundationalism require that these principles be in some sense self-certifying, for example, by direct presentation through sense perception or immediate intuition of the mind. Weaker forms of foundational ism allow that principles might merely be acceptable in some seIlse, for example, that they be prima facie acceptable or acceptable beyond a reasonable doubt.' These various versions of foundationalism are not new. They have been around as long as philosophers have worried about the possibility of knowledge, Roderick Chisholm states, "Most of the problems and issues of the 'theory of knowledge' were discussed in detail by Plato and Aristotle and by the Greek skeptics. There is some justification, I am afraid, for saying that the subject has made very little progress in the past two thousand years." 2 It should hardly be inappropriate, therefore, to reconsider the contribution to debates about foundationalism that may come from antiquity.' This essay focuses upon Plato's thoughts about the prospects of the positions that converge under the label "foundationalism." It seems especially appropriate to reconsider Plato in this light because his school was closely conn.ected with the formalization of geometry, the result of which was Euclid's work. In this enterprise and the reflection upon it, axiomatization was not only highly developed and implemented but also projected as the paradigm for all knowledge. Hence, Aristotle's treatment of knowledge in the RONALD POLANSKY Posterior Analytics is generally supposed linked with the formalization of geometry. The ideal of knowledge grounded in pellucid principles inspired by geometry often returns in the history of philosophy; it became quite strong in our own modern period of philosophy. The Cartesian project, for example, might seem to be rather Platonic in its search for certain principles from which could be spun out all else, as if a universal mathematical understanding of the world were possible. Given the continuing fascination of the foundationalist project, particularly in its geometrical version , it may be quite useful to return to the period in which our fundamental conceptions of knowledge were formulated. Foundationalism in Plato may enter into the practiceof argumentation in the dialogues or the occasional discussions of the theory of that practice or the theory of inquiry generally. To trace Plato's views, we shall have to consider what takes place in the dialogues as well as explicit thematization of foundationalist positions. Let us start with the actual method of investigation in the dialogues. I Most prominent in Socratic practice in the so-called early dialogues is Socratic elenchus or cross-examination. Socrates in these dialogues first elicits an answer from an interlocutor about what some moral concept is. The underlying assumption here is that if someone knows something, such as a moral concept, he ought to be able to give an account of what he knows, even if only to state what it is that is known (see, e.g., Laches 190C, Charmides 159a). Receiving the answer, Socrates refutes it, usually by calling upon some further beliefs of the interlocutor that conflict with the initial answer. Presumably, the refutation succeeds because the interlocutor holds more strongly to the beliefs in terms of which Socrates produces the refutation than he holds to the original answer.' But what sort of justification is there for the beliefs Socrates uses? One possibility is that they are endoxic beliefs, that is, opinions that are reputable because held by everyone or by the wise." Another is that as part of the belief set of the interlocutor they are acceptable to him and so in need of no further justification. Another is that they are also part of Socrates' belief set, built up over time through much experience of elenctic confrontations, and thus inductively Foundationalism in Plato? 43 established. Whichever way it is that the beliefs Socrates uses in the elenchus are supposed justified, it seems clear that they hardly have the status of self-certainty and no appeal is made to such status. Consequently, at play here could only be some weak form of foundationalism. Yet even this is suspect when Socrates' general project is considered. The Socratic elenchus is on "the way to, not from" first principles ." When Socrates asks the farnous "What is x?" question regarding some moral notion, he seeks the first principle in terms of...