(August 12, 2016 at 2:34 pm)SteveII Wrote:(August 12, 2016 at 2:26 pm)FatAndFaithless Wrote: Couldn't I just construct a belief that by definition has no external defeaters, and then call it 'properly basic'?
There are other conditions like properly functioning cognitive faculties, cognitive faculties are operating reliably aimed at truth, and formed in an appropriate epistemic environment (meaning you have, at the very least, internal reasons for the belief). I think these would preclude a belief constructed just to avoid defeaters.
But I could come up with something that fulfills those requirements. How is being 'properly basic' at all a guarantee that a belief has any relation to reality? I could believe my cognitive faculties are operating properly and aimed at truth, have internal reasons for a belief, and encounter no external defeaters...and the that says absolutely nothing about how that belief maps to reality - ie, if it's true or not.
In every country and every age, the priest had been hostile to Liberty.
- Thomas Jefferson
- Thomas Jefferson