Justification for Foundational Belief

[genkaus]

You earlier argued thusly:

Our emotions and feelings are not tools of cognition. They do not provide us knowledge. Any beliefs gained by pursuing emotional goals would, by their nature, be unreliable...

I don't care whether you call them feelings or emotions, the question I was addressing was whether or not feelings or other non-rational cognitions can be foundational or not. Which is why I brought up Dr. Burton and Capgras delusion and the like. You're making an argument for a difference that makes no difference. Moreover, you're arbitrarily distinguishing one form of qualitative experience from another purely qualitative experience is purely arbitrary. Because the biology of emotions doesn't support such distinctions as qualitatively justifiable. You're making an arbitrary distinction, not supported biologically, to do what exactly?

How does your foundationalism require us to make a distinction between typically labeled emotions such as anger or desire, from other non-rational states such as hunger or thirst? Does it become more acceptable as a premise if I just limit the states to those traditionally labeled as emotions? Fine. Then I'm expanding the argument to say that emotions and other non-rational experiential states can be foundational. Is that acceptable to you, or do you reject non-rational subjective states or phenomena as being potentially foundational?

I thought the distinction between them was obvious and no, I do not consider physical sensations such as hunger and thirst to be non-rational experiential states any more than sight or sound. Basically, those sensations inform us of the state of reality outside our own consciousness. The same way our five senses inform us of reality outside our body, these sensations inform us of details inside our body but separate form our consciousness. Since I accept the percepts such as these to be both rational and potentially foundational, clearly ny argument does not address these.

No, what you're doing is making pointless and irrelevant objections. The point of an objection is either to advance your argument or to defuse a counter-argument. Adding "your objection" doesn't change the logical conclusion of my argument that foundationalism is invalid. The only possible effect that this "objection" would have is to strengthen my counter-argument. And while I would appreciate your charity — if indeed it were charity — I don't think it was intentional. I think you were just confused, or more likely, grasping at straws.

How is the argument that your starting point itself is invalid irrelevant? You said, "If foundationalism is true, the statement "there are foundational truth" has determinate truth value". This statement is not true and therefore, the following argument does not apply either.

Again, this doesn't help you, as this was the core of the counter-argument. There are two cases here. Even given this definition of 'a' foundationalism, if proposition P is derivable from foundational axioms, then it is true by definition. If it is itself a foundational axiom then it is also true by definition. (Unless you've included false axioms in your foundational axioms, which is absurd and makes your axiom of derivability demonstrably false.)

Again, you're trying to assert differences that make no difference, which leads me to the inescapable conclusion that you don't know what you are doing, nor how to demonstrate the validity of foundationalism.

I'm not trying to demonstrate the validity of foundationalism here - Ive made my arguments regarding it in the prior posts. I'm simply arguing against your arguments against foundationalism. And what you have wrong here is your statement "If P is a foundational axiom then it is true by definition", since that statement assumes that axioms can be classified as true or false.

Well, first of all, Russell's teapot seems to satisfy. On the other hand, it's not clear that classical logic can be asserted without contradiction. And we know that, given things like Godel's incompleteness theorem, for certain mathematics, there are truths and falsehoods for which it may not be possible to determine whether they yield a contradiction or not within that system. It's actually here where your earlier objection regarding indeterminacy comes back to bite you. At minimum, it has to be a basic, foundational truth that, in the language or system in which our propositions are defined, all axioms or propositions that yield a contradiction can be determined to yield a contradiction. If not, none, some, or all axioms may not be identifiable as axioms. Anyway, it's your foundationalism, you fill in this blank for me.

However, that's not really my main concern. My concerns are twofold. First, why does this yield axioms which are a) foundational, and b) true. Unless your criterion satisfies both goals, it's not a complete description of the generative principles of your foundationalism.

What is it about non-contradiction that makes something foundational? (I had something else, but it keeps slipping away. And rereading, I need to look into the classical reason for this criterion; it resembles something Kantian, but I'd have to research it, and I don't intend to do so immediately.)

For a proposition to qualify as axiomatic, it must remain true under all circumstances, i.e. no statement derived form them should contradict them. It'd be impossible to validate it in its entirety -but we can say that if its negations is always false, then the statement itself is always true. Thus, if the negation is self-refuting or always leads to a contradiction, then it is indicative that the statement would likely be always true.

I included the possibility of multiple criterion. Regardless, what might be a possible foundationalism is of no interest to me. You have asserted that proposition P has the characteristics of a foundational concept / whatever. I'm not interested in what "might be" — I want you to demonstrate the foundationalism which you claimed knowledge of by asserting that proposition P appeared foundational. Any number of things "might be true," such empty speculation does not serve the ends of this discussion, unless, something that "might be true" makes my argument invalid or a premise unsound. Empty possibilities have no relevance unless the possibility undermines my demonstration. The "possibilities" you have mentioned do not. Moreover, I think it's reasonable to expect the refutation of my very real premises and argument will only be demonstrated to be invalid with real, specific objections which change the conclusion of my argument, and preferably, an actual foundationalism. I tire of arguing about what shade of pink the Invisible Pink Unicorn might be.

How do the possibilities I've mentioned "do not"?

Because without some form of logical deduction, no truths are derivable from the basic concepts, and the truth of forms of logical deduction is not a percept (unless you're broadening 'percept' to include anything that enters consciousness.)

Isn't that included by definitions?

Considering you started this thread naively asserting the correspondance theory of truth as the objective measure of truth, I find this objection a bit disingenuous. Regardless, I'm not asserting anything about falsity. The sole epistemological plank I need is that if something is not true, then it is not true. If you are discussing foundationalism in the context of an epistemology in which things can be true, then my minimum is satisfied, because all that I am arguing is that foundationalism is not true. If you can't demonstrate that within an epistemology that contains the concept of true, then I have no need of further argument. If you are attempting to drag us off into an epistemology without the concept of true, you've basically shot yourself in the foot, as you certainly cannot demonstrate foundationalism is true in an epistemology with no concept of truth.

Again, you're making objections that have no merit. Please try to be germane and relevant in your objections.

Different theories of epistemology have different concepts regarding truth and as you point out, I subscribe to correspondence theory and you apparently do not. So, basically, we are talking about two different things when talking about "truth" and therefore, given the absence of common ground, your statement regarding "truth" of foundationalism is meaningless to me, since you do not mean the same thing as I do. Now if you were to tell me what you meant by the "truth" of foundationalism and what's your criteria for accepting that - in short, your accepted epistemological theory, then maybe we can converse on common ground.