An Internal Connection between Logic and Rhetoric, and a Legitimate Foundation for Knowledge

"It's not what you know, but who you know."

—Traditional

It has often been argued that a theory that tries to justify itself fully is either viciously circular or produces an infinite regress of justifications. Thinking that tries to establish ultimate foundations for itself seems in the end to base itself on nothing but its own insistence that it is right.¹ As a result it offers no real knowledge. As Robert Almeder notes, for example, a strong appeal attaches to arguments such as that "there is no non-question-begging way to answer questions such as 'Are you justified in believing your definition of justification?'" (1993, 470).

Since this is true of thinking that tries to justify itself most fully or rigorously, one reaction to this kind of argument is to think that we cannot regard any level of thinking as giving us knowledge. Another reaction has been to abandon the idea of epistemological foundations altogether, regarding foundations as unnecessary to knowledge. The argument goes that since such foundations have always been an illusion, we have in fact always gotten along perfectly well without them. And by recognizing the illusion, we no longer mislead ourselves or waste time and effort in pursuing it.²

I shall argue, however, that there is a genuinely epistemological solution to the problem of circular or infinitely regressive foundations, as opposed to simply eliminating the problem on the grounds that it rests on an illusion of what is conceivable and necessary. In fact, as will become clear, this solution also endorses and incorporates the reasons for dismissing the problem of foundations. It should therefore have something to recommend it to antifoundationalists as well.

Ultimate circularity and infinite regress express equivalent problems with respect to providing foundations for knowledge. In the case of circularity, the same claim is repeated in place of contributing something new that might therefore offer support for it. In the case of infinite regress, the same form of justification is repeated in place of contributing something new that might therefore justify that form of justification. The Almeder quote above illustrates this equivalence. In the argument that follows, the same considerations therefore apply to both, and for the sake of convenience I shall discuss the problem only with respect to vicious circularity.

I want to approach the problem of circularity by combining it with another, possibly equally serious difficulty. On the basis of this combination, I shall argue that rigorous thought is in fact viciously circular, but that this circularity has peculiar rhetorical properties that allow it to offer genuine knowledge. In other words, I shall argue that it is possible to establish truth not only despite, but because of, the problem of ultimate circularity. This claim clearly involves a contradiction. I shall argue in the later sections of this paper that this kind of contradiction is logically admissible. I shall also argue that, despite being a contradiction, it does not work just as much against as for the success of the solution. It is this contradiction that also allows the proposed solution to combine, as I noted, both foundationalist and antifoundationalist thinking.

1. Overview: The Usefully Contradictory Connection of Logic and Rhetoric

The second difficulty is this. As Henry Johnstone has argued, a philosophical position is necessarily contradictory (1978, e.g., 116–19). On the one hand, as a logical condition of its existence, it must recognize positions opposed to it. The

philosopher's position . . . does not arise in a vacuum. It . . . arises in the attempt to combat an alien view. . . . If I cannot conceive any alternative to my view, then my view, like a logical tautology, conveys no information . . . If my view is to be true in a nontrivial way, then at least one alternative to it must be conceivable.

(117)

But, on the other hand, it is logically impossible for a philosophical position even to conceive positions opposed to it. Because a philosophical position is or involves a conception of reality in general, "each position claims possession of the only universe of discourse in which comparison can be made at...