Book Review: Scripturalism and the Senses (Part 2)

Links to all parts may be found here. This part will contain a review and evaluation of Mr. Lazar's first chapter in his book, Scripturalism and the Senses.

Before proceeding, however, I want to reiterate what I mentioned in my first post: I believe "Scripturalism" is not Gordon Clark's brainchild. In fact, I cannot find a published instance in which Clark applied the term to his own views. Obviously, the shoe does fit, for I think anyone may be legitimately referred to as a "Scripturalist" whose "theory of knowledge ought to be founded upon the Bible as [the extant extent of] divine revelation." It is understandable that Clark, a prominent popularizer of Scripturalism as such, would be the lens through which Scripturalism is evaluated, so I will say little more about this matter as I proceed in reviewing Mr. Lazar's book. But I hope the reader understands that I do not consider a sound criticism of Clark to necessarily entail a sound criticism of Scripturalism.

Chapter 1: How to Evaluate a Worldview

In his Introduction, Mr. Lazar refers to “Clark’s distinct philosophy of Scripturalism.” Elsewhere, he lets the reader know of his intention to explore “why Scripturalism failed as a worldview.” As he is describing his own background, Mr. Lazar states that he “began to notice… problems with Clark’s apologetic,” so he “turned away from Scripturalism” until he rethought whether he could “improve Scripturalism” while being “faithful to the core of Clark’s apologetic.” The very subheading of the book itself is "Reviving Gordon Clark's Apologetic. Finally, Mr. Lazar will, in the chapters 2 and 3, refer to “Scripturalist epistemology” and Scripturalism as “Clark’s… theory of knowledge.” All emphases are mine.

In various parts of the book, Mr. Lazar refers to Scripturalism either as being or containing a philosophy, apologetic, worldview, and an epistemology. The reader should be careful when reading such statements, for while one might consider a “philosophy” or “worldview” to mean the same thing, an “epistemology” and an “apologetic” are narrower in focus and, at the same time, distinct from one another.

For example, Scripturalism considered as being a “philosophy” or “worldview” would contain an epistemology and apologetic, but it would also encompass a metaphysic and ethic. Mr. Lazar is mainly interested, it seems, in the epistemology and apologetic of Scripturalism – of course, there is nothing wrong with this interest.

It should be kept in mind, though, that when Mr. Lazar states in the introduction to this chapter that “Clark’s students pointed out some crucial flaws in his apologetic that Clark failed to answer to their satisfaction,” all this would mean is that Clark’s students weren’t satisfied with Clark’s defense (apologetic) to flaws in his defense (apologetic) [of Christianity]. When read in those terms, the indictment against Clark does not appear so bad.

Firstly, who can ensure that his critics will ever be satisfied? Is it not by the grace of God – divine action over which we have no control except in providing opportunity for it – that anyone accepts the truth? Secondly, if the flaws in Clark’s apologetic really are “crucial,” then his students were right to remain unsatisfied, and Mr. Lazar is right to mention them. But an apologetic failure is not necessarily an epistemic one. 

The Distinction Between Epistemology and Apologetics

It will be extremely important for the purposes of my review(s) to distinguish a Scripturalist epistemology (a Scripturalist’s theory of knowledge) will be distinct from his apologetic methodology (how one defends Scripturalism as a worldview, not just as an epistemology, and how one attacks other worldviews), Mr. Lazar’s book intends to criticize Clark on both accounts.

At the risk of anticipating too much discussion, to illustrate the difference between epistemology and apologetics, we might ask a Scripturalist how he knows how to defend his faith. If he wants to answer this question, the Scripturalist would presumably respond by offering an apologetic (he will make a defense). Particularly, he would endeavor to communicate how his apologetic method is deducible from his epistemic axiom. The Scripturalist’s apologetic method is – if it is something he wants to defend as knowable – derived from and subordinate to his epistemology.

Perhaps Clark’s students or others have criticized Clark’s apologetic because they regard it as unbiblical. If so, then while that would be a criticism against Clark’s apologetic, it would not necessarily entail a criticism against Clark’s epistemology. Rather, it would just mean that if the charge sticks, Clark would need to revise his apologetic to be internally consistent and in accordance with his theory of knowledge.

An apologetic failure does not necessarily indicate a failure in one’s epistemology, metaphysic, or ethic. We might say that many people aren’t well-equipped to defend their faith; we would not suggest that their faith be revised. Likewise, one might argue that if Scripturalism, as a philosophy or worldview encompassing these topics, only needs revision to its apologetic, this would be relatively less troubling than a needed revision to its epistemology. A revision to one’s epistemology could entail change to one’s apologetic. 

For example, if Clark’s theory of knowledge required revision in regards to source[s] of knowledge, scope of knowledge, means of knowledge-acquisition, etc., then the content of what Clark could know would change; thus, what he could defend as knowable would change. His apologetic methodology itself could require revision. This completes a second reason why Mr. Lazar's introductory indictment against Clark does not initially appear so bad.

Regardless, the primary point I wish to make is that a Scripturalist’s epistemology and a Scripturalist’s apologetic are distinct and must not be conflated. If one is to be consistent, his apologetic must conform to his theory of knowledge. The former depends on the latter, not vice versa. 

Defending this Distinction in Clark's Thought

Keeping this distinction in mind, Mr. Lazar raises two questions following the initial indictment against Clark: "what kind of flaws should you look for in an apologetic? And what methods can you use to discover those flaws?" My thought process was to immediately wonder whether Mr. Lazar would conflate flaws in an epistemology with flaws in an apologetic methodology, both of which are found in a worldview. This question was in my mind as I read the first sub-heading in Mr. Lazar's chapter, called "How to Choose a Worldview," where he attempts to begin to answer to the above questions by expositing Clark's thinking. 

The first paragraph is a fair summary. In particular, Mr. Lazar's first summary of Clark is correct: "he argued that you must choose your first principles, because if you could prove them to be true, the proof would rely on premises that were more basic that your first principles, indicating they were not first principles after all."  

As indicated in the above summary, however, in the middle of the paragraph, Mr. Lazar seems to switch from choosing worldviews (per the title of the section) to choosing first principles, since "all worldviews have first principles." The language of "first principles" is epistemic. There is a subtle shift from discussing worldviews, which are broad, to first principles, which are narrow. While the initial discussion surrounding this shift is fine, it is important to note, for starting in the second paragraph, Mr. Lazar cites the following statements by Clark:

1) "...our belief is a voluntary choice; but if one must choose without a strict proof, none the less it is possible to have sane reasons of some sort to justify the choice. Certainly there are sane reasons for rejecting some choices." (Clark, A Christian Philosophy of Education, 1988, pg. 41)

2) ...no philosopher is perfect, and no system can given man omniscience. But if one system can provide plausible solutions to many problems while another leaves too many questions unanswered, if one system tends less to skepticism and gives more meaning to life, if one worldview is consistent while others are self-contradictory, who can deny, since we must choose, the right to choose the more promising first principle? (A Christian View of Men and Things, 1998, pg. 16)

3) We can judge the acceptability of an axiom only by its success in producing a system. (An Introduction to Christian Philosophy, 1993, pgs. 59-60)

From these statements, Mr. Lazar concludes that Clark/Scripturalism suggests we first "identify a worldview to be tested," then "take the worldview as a conjecture of a hypothesis," and finally "evaluate the worldview" in order to "make a sane choice between worldviews." 

Without having read any further in the book, I suspected the direction in which Mr. Lazar's criticism of Clark might lead: that of Gordon R. Lewis in his book, Testing Christianity's Truth Claims, which I reviewed many years ago. In that review, I argued Lewis makes the very conflation between apologetics and epistemology that I think that Mr. Lazar has made in forming the above conclusion. It was no surprise to me that Lewis' criticisms later made an appearance in chapter 3.

Here is the question we must ask of Mr. Lazar: in the above contexts in which Clark cites persons having "sane reasons of some sort to justify the choice [of a first principle]," "judg[ing] the acceptability of an axiom only by its success in producing a system," and a "right to choose the more promising first principle," does he think Clark is speaking about epistemic justification or apologetic justification? 

If the former, does that mean he thinks Clark wants his readers, in these contexts, to reason towards a first principle from premises which are more basic (e.g. the four "tests" which are the subject matter of Mr. Lazar's next four chapters)? That would indeed undermine whatever so-called first principle or axiom Clark chose, for the first principle(s) would really be the tests. 

This understanding would also seem to agree with Mr. Lazar's citation of Ronald Nash in one of the footnotes, where Nash argues that a presuppositionalist is like a scientist who tries to test hypotheses to see whether or not his "world view can measure up to the standards and tests for trust" and "reflect reliability back upon its first principles." As Clark argued against the possibility of knowing scientific hypotheses by means of testing and inductive reasoning, it would be quite ironic (and damning) if Clark advocated epistemically justifying a first principle or worldview by the same reasoning.

If any of this is what Mr. Lazar would argue Clark believed, I would disagree. In addition to my above review of Lewis, see point 5 here, in which I defend Clark against a similar argument by Michael Butler. I think Clark need not be interpreted as being inconsistent.

Rather, I think Clark means that there are "sane reasons" by which one can defend the choice of his first principle, that no one with an inferior first principle may deny Christians the right to choose a superior one, and that one can therefore defend it to be a "success." In other words, I think the above contexts in which Clark speaks are meant to be apologetic.

Consider these paragraphs by Clark which immediately follow quote 1) cited above by Mr. Lazar:

Consistency extends further than a first principle narrowly considered, so that it can be shown to be self-contradictory in itself; it extends into the system deduced from the first principle or principles. The basic axiom or axioms must make possible a harmony or system in all our thoughts, words, and actions. Should someone say (misquoting by the omission of an adjective) that consistency is the mark of small minds, that he does not like systems, that he will act on one principle at one time and another at another, that he does not choose to be consistent, there would be no use arguing with him, for he repudiates the rules, the necessary rules of argumentation. Such a person cannot argue against theism, for he cannot argue at all... 

When now the theist speaks of theism as a practical postulate, he is not indulging in any "as-if" philosophy. He means that God exists and that one should conduct his daily life by that belief. It is called a postulate because it is an indemonstrable first principle and not a theorem derived from more ultimate premises (Clark, A Christian Philosophy of Education, 1988, pgs. 41-43)

The "sane reasons" for choosing our first principle are not "more ultimate premises." Rather, a worldview is apologetically tested or evaluated by methods which [ought or are purported to] come from the worldview itself which is in question. One can, for example, apply a test of reason to the axiom of Scripturalism because Scripture itself is and claims to be, as God's word, reasonable. On the other hand, there would be no reason in arguing with a person who chooses insanity or inconsistency. Of what use would it be to apply apologetic tests of sanity or consistency to a person self-admittedly doesn't want to defend his worldview as being so (and thus, logically, is prevented from attacking or "arguing against" other views such as theism)? One could, of course, do so for the benefit of third-parties; this would, I think, be more like an external critique rather than an internal one.

Side-note: Bahnsen, who makes a later appearance in Mr. Lazar's book, misinterpreted Clark in similar respects in his book, Presuppositional Apologetics: Stated and Defended, when the latter used language like the "hypothesis of divine omniscience." Clark does not mean divine omniscience is to be taken only "as if" it is true. He means it is an undemonstrated assumption, presupposition, axiom, or first principle:

When unbelievers object to Christianity on the basis that it views the world on the basis of undemonstrated hypotheses, the reply should plainly be made that everyone more or less consciously bases his conclusions on undemonstrated assumptions. There are no facts, no meaningful facts, apart from presuppositions. (The Bible Today, 42.4, 1948)

Likewise, in quote 2) above in which Clark asks, "who can deny, since we must choose, the right to choose the more promising first principle?" Clark is speaking rhetorically and against those with an inferior apologetic whom we will try to persuade, an idea he alludes to in a preceding paragraph:

...after the humanist or theist has worked out a consistent system by arranging all his propositions as theorems in a series of valid demonstrations, how is either of them to persuade the other to accept his unproved axioms? (A Christian View of Men and Things, 2005, pg. 26).

Persuasiveness is apologetic, not epistemic. And because the Christian is able to produce a better apologetic due to a better epistemology, it is true that non-Christians cannot deny our right to choose a more promising first principle – note that this does not mean Clark believes our first principle is premised on any apologetic test he mentions. On the contrary, as Clark says later in the same book: 

How then could God show to a man that it was God speaking? Suppose God should say, “I will make of you a great nation...and I will bless them that bless you and curse him that curses you.” Would God call the devil and ask Abraham to believe the devil’s corroborative statements? Is the devil’s word good evidence of God’s veracity? It would not seem so. Nor is the solution to be found in God’s appealing to another man in order to convince the doubter. Aside from the fact that this other man is no more of an authority than the devil, the main question reappears unanswered in this case also. What reasons can this man have to conclude that God is making a revelation to him? It is inherent in the very nature of the case that the best witness to God’s existence and revelation is God himself. There can be no higher source of truth. God may, to be sure, furnish “evidence” to man. He may send an earthquake, a fire, or still small voice; he may work spectacular miracles, or, as in the cases of Isaiah and Peter, he may produce inwardly an awful consciousness of sin, so that the recipient of the revelation is compelled to cry out, “Woe is me! For I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips.” But whether it be an external spectacle or an inward “horror or great darkness,” all of this is God’s witnessing to himself. (A Christian View of Men and Things, 2005, pgs. 182-183)

Finally, the above quote 3) refers to Clark's statement that "We can judge the acceptability of an axiom only by its success in producing a system." In the very next sentence, Clark reiterates: "Axioms, because they are axioms, cannot be deduced from or proved by previous theorems." The same thing is said in the previous paragraph, and note the conclusion:

...that revelation should be accepted without proofs or reasons, undeduced from something admittedly true, seems odd when first proposed. It will not seem so odd, however, when the nature of axioms is kept in mind. Axioms, whatever they may be and in whatever subject they are used, are never deduced from more original principles. They are always tested in another way... by the systems they produce, axioms must be judged. (Clark and His Critics, 2009, pg. 53)

Axioms are tested by evaluation of their resulting systems, but they are not known by those means. Some might say Clark would have agreed with John Robbins' implicit positism in defining knowledge as "giving reasons" (in which case, an axiom cannot be known because no reasons for it can be given). Others have thought Clark was a coherentist, thinking he could know his first principle by evaluation of the resultant system. I would disagree: Clark was a foundationalist (link; cf. point 5 again in the Butler link above), which buttresses my argument that he viewed a distinction between epistemology and apologetics.

Another aside: unless people are prepared to argue that Clark was a traditional coherentist, other forms of coherentism collapse into foundationalism. Among others, Ernest Sosa and Peter Klein have each noted that “emergent” coherentism, on which the justification for a proposition or belief emerges in virtue of its being a member of a coherent set, is a form of meta-justificatory foundationalism.

To return to Mr. Lazar conclusion, he believes that Clark/Scripturalism suggests we:

1) "identify a worldview to be tested," then 

2) "take the worldview as a conjecture of a hypothesis,"  

3) "evaluate the worldview" and finally, 

4) "make a sane choice between worldviews."

Is the outlined procedure here a reference to the epistemology of Scripturalism, to its apologetic, or both? And if it is a reference to the apologetic, does Mr. Lazar think Clark's epistemology is grounded on his apologetic or vice versa? It preliminarily appears as though Mr. Lazar makes Clark's apologetic the ground of his epistemology, since it looks like he is arguing that the choice of a worldview['s first principle] comes at then end of a process. Further evidence for this is found when he expounds on the second step:

Second, you take the worldview as a conjecture or a hypothesis. At this point, it's not important whether you already believe the worldview to be true or false. For the sake of the evaluations, you consider it on its own terms to test it for consistency. (emphasis mine)

One already believes a worldview to be true before he attempts to apply apologetic tests. This is inescapable: by the time a reader realizes that we all choose first principles, he has already implicitly chosen one. No one begins in an epistemically neutral position (link): 

...if one were ever truly thoroughly epistemically neutral, there would be by definition no criterial basis on which he could ever move to non-neutrality. The first step toward knowledge is not neutrality, it's committing to some criteria by which one can allegedly distinguish what is and isn't knowable.

On Clark's system, for example, I need to know another's first principle in order to show it to be self-defeating on its own grounds. But apagogic argumentation itself presupposes I hold to a worldview from which I am able to operate. To know how to undermine skepticism, for instance, I must first be able to know what skepticism is. But how? Certainly not on skeptical grounds, for skepticism is self-defeating. You can't really criticize another's worldview until you have - or, at least, think you have - one of your own. But then is it is clear that one can't criticize from a self-pronounced position of epistemic neutrality, for one cannot operate from a position whose sole requirement just is to abstain from all positions, including criteria for knowledge. That itself is self-defeating.

What, then, does Mr. Lazar believe was the criterial basis on which Clark believed by which he claimed to know anything? The three or four tests he mentions, or Scripture? It is one thing to say that the epistemic axiom ought to be self-consistent. It is another to suggest that we have no idea whether the worldview (and, thus, the epistemic axiom of that worldview) is true until we test it, or that the truth of the worldview is irrelevant. That line of thinking would lead to considering Clark's apologetic being the root of his epistemology and result viewing Clark as being a traditional coherentist who, for some reason, likes to talk about first principles.

I have mostly been offering a counter-exposition as to what I think Clark believed. If I were writing a book about Scripturalism, I would probably mention many other instances in Clark's writings from which I gather he is a foundationalist, why I think several writers are mistaken about whether or not he views Scripturalism as just one axiom among many others (any of which may be, antecedent to testing, possibly true), etc. 

I might also put forward for consideration that because, for Clark, it is by grace that we believe in the Scriptures, there is a further distinction at play which could be discussed: the distinction between a metaphysical, etiological explanation for a belief (e.g. the causation of the Holy Spirit) and epistemic justification (which itself can be categorized, broken down into further distinctions: inferential reasoning vs. self-authentication). 

But I hope it is clear that in my view, the apologetic of Clark proceeds from the epistemology of Clark, an order with which I agree (and perhaps Mr. Lazar does as well, in which case much of this is just discussion about what Clark actually believed). I think Clark is able to attack other worldviews and defend his own, not because he began with certain tests in mind, struck upon the idea of an epistemic axiom of revelation and, since it passed those tests, chose to accept it. Rather, he was able to test anything only because he first believed the axiom of revelation. The knowledge of the tests doesn't precede the axiom, they come from it (or, depending on the worldview in question, purport to). Epistemology grounds apologetics, not vice versa. I will mention this again at various points in the rest of the review at pertinent points.

Scripturalism's Two Tasks

Before Mr. Lazar turns to examine whether Scripturalism passes four tests, he describes Clark's apologetic as having "two tasks: negative and positive." I think Scripturalism itself has more tasks than that if one considers to to be a worldview, not just an apologetic. But Mr. Lazar is correct that the apologetic Scripturalism has these two tasks. 

Something that I think is missed in ensuing discussion, though, is that Clark did not think that the negative test of consistency was a sufficient one. Mr. Lazar concludes this section of exposition of Clark's thought by writing, "In sum, demonstrating the consistency of Christianity and the inconsistency of non-Christian worldviews is how you can make a sane choice between first principles." Yes, it is extremely useful to, where possible, show that a person contradicts himself and examine why. It is also useful to show, to as great an extent as possible, that Christians can be consistent. And indeed, apologetics is concerned with being useful, persuasive, and practical. With all of this, Clark would agree. But besides logical consistency, Clark was also clear that Scripture itself is also a test of truth (which would, of course, be in line with his epistemology):

The substantive point needing discussion is whether the law of contradiction is the one and only test of truth. 

Ideally or for God this seems to be the case. Since there is nothing independent of God, he does not conform truth to an alleged reality beyond truth and beyond him. Since there is no possibility of “vertical” (to use Carnell’s terminology) coherence, the “horizontal” test, or, better the horizontal characteristic of logical consistency seems the only possible one.
Weaver correctly notes that I do not claim for human beings the ability to apply this test universally. In this sense it is a “negative” or, better, an incomplete test. For this reason it must be supplemented some way or other... 

Undoubtedly I hold that truth is a consistent system of propositions. Most people would be willing to admit that two truths cannot be contradictories; and I would like to add that the complex of all truths cannot be a mere aggregate of unrelated assertions. Since God is rational, I do not see how any item of his knowledge can be unrelated to the rest. Weaver makes no comment on this fundamental characteristic of divine truth. 

Rather, he questions whether this characteristic is of practical value, and whether it must be supplemented in some way. It is most strange that Weaver here says, “I must agree with Carnell,” as if he had convicted me of disagreeing with Carnell by providing no supplementation whatever. Now, I may disagree with the last named gentleman on many points, but since it is abundantly clear that I “supplement” consistency by an appeal to the Scripture for the determination of particular truths, it is most strange that Weaver ignores my supplementation. (Clark and His Critics, 2009, pgs. 287, 290)

In addition to the tests of truth Mr. Lazar mentions, a further chapter on Scripture as a test of truth may have solved some of the problems he finds with Scripturalism. But I don't blame him for missing this, because despite earning the moniker of Scripturalism and advocating for Scripture as his epistemic axiom, it is remarkable how many people fail to mention that Clark thought Scripture itself is useful in apologetics. If we can know Scripture is true (and we can, axiomatically), then we can appeal to it when defending our faith. Now, it is a standard that some people reject. But just as there is use in mentioning to third parties that a person who chooses insanity or inconsistency fails the test of reason (an external critique), there is use in mentioning to third parties (e.g. Christians) that a person who chooses to reject the inerrancy of God's word has failed the test of Scripture.

My final comment on this chapter is about the following statement by Mr. Lazar: "As with all other worldview conjectures, Scripturalism can be falsified, but not verified." I would argue that Scripturalism cannot be falsified. It can be tested, but there is no possibility that a correct examination could lead to a conclusion that it fails. For something to be falsifiable means that it could be proven false. 

Suppose one regarded every worldview as falsifiable. Then everything is capable of being proved false... but how? If no test is exempted from being proved false, then how would you test whether something is false at all? And is the very meaning of true and false subject to falsifiability? Is a principle of falsifiability itself falsifiable? All of this is an indirect argument for infallibilist knowledge (link). Clark certainly didn't believe that his first principle was falsifiable. He thought, as a good foundationalist, it was self-authenticating and infallible:

This disjunct faces two replies. First, it assumes that a first principle cannot be self-authenticating. Yet every first principle must be. The first principle of Logical Positivism is that a sentence has no meaning unless it can be verified (in principle at least) by sensory experience. Yet no sensory experience can ever verify this principle. Anyone who wishes to adopt it must regard it as self-authenticating. So it is with all first principles. (Christian Philosophy, 2004, pgs. 46-47) 

Logically the infallibility of the Bible is not a theorem to be deduced from some prior axiom. The infallibility of the Bible is the axiom from which several doctrines are themselves deduced as theorems. Every religion and every philosophy must be based on some first principle. And since a first principle is first, it cannot be “proved” or “demonstrated” on the basis of anything prior. As the catechism question, quoted above, says, “The Word of God is the only rule to direct us how we may glorify Him.” (What Do Presbyterians Believe?, 1985, pg. 18) 

The only reason I can think of as to why one would think Clark believed or held beliefs which imply that Scripturalism is falsifiable is if he thought Clark appealed to various tests (reason, skepticism, explanatory power, etc.) in order to epistemically (rather than apologetically) justify his axiom. As I hope I have shown, this is not what Clark believed, nor should the reader.

In the next part of my review, I will turn to chapter 2, which concerns what Mr. Lazar calls the test of reason.

Infinitism: Transcriptions of Various Papers

Back when I was a public policy undergraduate and thought I might segue into a graduate program for philosophy, I was just beginning to learn the language of and popular topics in contemporary epistemology. I continued to use my free time (and probably time I ought to have been studying) researching and writing posts on this blog.

Typically, I would take on an annual "project," research whose content was more in depth and focused, and I've posted most of them. Some of these larger projects overlapped with my essay submissions for the annual TrinityFoundation contests. Others were various transcriptions, like a near comprehensive compilation of Gordon Clark's epistemological views from available publications at the time.

Another such project that I haven't posted until now was preparation for a literature review on infinitism that I thought could be used for a master's thesis and expanded, down the road, in a PhD dissertation. While I can't quite bring myself to call the university door entirely shut for me, I did apply once many years ago (using a polished edit of this post as my writing sample) and was rejected.

Thus, I don't know that I will ever return to the classroom as student instead of teacher. So to give myself some solace that my youthful energy did not go to waste, hopefully somebody finds useful my 1000+ pages of transcribed, collated philosophy papers on the epistemological concept of "infinitism," which can be found here. Each paper was found on google scholar, and while it may be missing a few of the longer, book-length treatments, I believe it is otherwise fairly comprehensive up until around 2011.

P.S. For those who are interested in the topic of infinitism in general, this book is excellent.

Contemporary Epistemology: Positism

History

There is very little that has been said about the positist theory of the structure of epistemic justification, probably because there are so few adherents. It has been explicitly acknowledged as a distinct position only recently. James van Cleve’s contribution to Contemporary Debates in Epistemology (2005, link) is the first instance in which I encountered the term, and I have not found anything prior to that essay which mentions “positism” in an epistemic context. He defines it there as the belief that “chains of justifying reasons can terminate in reasons that are not justified themselves, but are simply individual or societal posits” (pg. 168). In a footnote to this essay, van Cleve writes:

The distinction between positism and foundationalism is lost on those who cannot hear the word “justified” as anything but a past participle, implying that some act or relation of justifying has occurred whereby a belief is justified by something else that serves as a reason for it. For foundationalists, “justified” simply connotes a favorable epistemic status, which a belief may have even though the subject has no reason for it. In this connection, another term, such as “evident” or “credible,” might be less misleading than “justified.” (pg. 178)

In other words, van Cleve believes a positist would admit his basic beliefs do not have a favorable epistemic status. It's just a belief one has, and on the basis of this belief other beliefs of his can be “justified,” or one can be “justified” in coming to believe other things. Ryan Herbert (link) defines positism similarly, stating positists hold that basic beliefs “can serve to justify other beliefs” (pg. 15), although these basic beliefs “are not autonomously warranted and… are neither epistemically justified nor unjustified” (pg. 14). [Herbert slightly misstates positism when he says this, as positists do view basic beliefs as epistemically unjustified. He also does not seem to distinguish, as Engel does, between doxastic and personal justification (see below).] Herbert adds that this encompasses both doxastic and propositional justification (pg. 15), which is significant in comparison to some who are infinitists about propositional but not doxastic justification. 

Both van Cleve and Herbert credit the origin of positism to what Ludwig Wittgenstein called “hinge” propositions: 

…the questions that we raise and our doubts depend upon the fact that some propositions are exempt from doubt, are as it were like hinges on which those turn.  

That is to say, it belongs to the logic of our scientific investigations that certain things are in deed not doubted.  

But it isn’t that the situation is like this: We just can’t investigate everything, and for that reason we are forced to rest content with assumption. If I want the door to turn, the hinges must stay put. (On Certainty, §§341-3)

Any act of questioning or doubting presupposes we believe certain propositions. In a skeptical context, question or doubt has to relate to some (or even all) propositions, but that is to already acknowledge, in some sense, the existence of this or these propositions, or at least that which gives this or these propositions meaning. In short, one can't deny, doubt, or question all propositions without rendering those denials, doubts, or questions unintelligible.

Wittgenstein goes on to say hinge propositions can’t be known, but that may just be due to his definition of knowledge: “One says “I know” when one is ready to give compelling grounds. “I know” relates to a possibility of demonstrating the truth” (On Certainty, §243). John Robbins had a similar definition, and I very much doubt he was a positist. In any case, it is obvious that on this definition, only something believed by inference can be “known.” If one were to have confronted Wittgenstein with a different definition of knowledge that would not have automatically ruled out basic beliefs – perhaps this happened – I am unsure of how Wittgenstein would have replied. Positism does remind me of the emotivist position taken up by the logical positivists (link), and Wittgenstein was involved with this latter group in the early part of his life. I still think it would be too ambitious to call Wittgenstein a positist on the foregoing evidence alone, although in an undeveloped or logically implicit sense it could be true.

Introduction to Engel's Paper

Surprising as it may seem, this is all that I could find that had been said about positism prior to last year. Perhaps it has been elsewhere discussed, but aside from these few scant references in papers by non-positist philosophers, I haven't encountered a self-aware defense of this position besides Mylan Engel Jr.'s “Positism: The Unexplored Solution to the Epistemic Regress Problem” (link). The reason is, I think, simple: philosophers have for a long time assumed epistemic justification is either intrinsic or transferred. Thus, there is no logical room for a position in which a belief is justified by an unjustified belief (link).

This assumption that epistemic justification is transferred has been recently challenged by a rising number of infinitist epistemologists, so it is not unexpected that at least one defendant of positism has seen and taken the opportunity to piggy-back on this objection and also claim “reasoning itself can be justification generating” (Metaphilosophy, Volume 45, Issue 2, 2014, pg. 152). In his abstract, Engel defines the transmittance assumption - which leads to an epistemic regress, as positists don't believe in justified basic beliefs - as follows: “Person S is mediately justified in believing p iff (1) S has a doxastic reason q for p and (2) S is justified in believing q.” Two defenders of infinitism, Jeanne Peijnenburg and Scott Aikin, also highlight this aspect of Engel's defense of positism:

Mylan Engel Jr.'s “Positism: The Unexplored Solution to the Epistemic Regress Problem” develops and defends the view that a justification-conferring chain of reasons may legitimately begin with an unjustified belief. Engel holds that, under certain circumstances, reasoning itself can be justification generating, and not just justification transmitting. He argues that a person S can be justified in coming to believe a proposition p on the basis of an unjustified posit R, provided S does not realize she is unjustified in believing R and she has no defeaters that defeat R's status as a reason for p. Engel maintains that when one believes a proposition p, one is rationally committed to what is knowingly entailed by p, unless one is prepared to abandon p in light of those entailments. Accordingly, the propositions one believes provides defeasible reasons for believing the propositions they knowingly entail. Engel characterizes his positist view as a form of nondoxastic coherentism that is compatible with other meta-epistemic views. In particular, Engel is keen to show that his view is compatible with the existence of basic beliefs grounded in sense experience and also compatible with a version of infinitism that holds that inference itself is justification enhancing. (Ibid., pg. 141)

So much for a general canvassing of Engel's aims. He intends to defend the legitimacy (though not justificatory exclusivity) of positism, accepting van Cleve's definition (pg. 146). Before delving into his arguments, I found there to be a lot of terminological nuance, enough to warrant a whole section of Engel's essay. I suppose this is to be expected in cases where not much has been said on a subject, so it's necessary to look at what Engel is specifically defending. I'll also break up my following sections to correspond to the main sections of Engel's article.

Terminology

Roughly, the principle distinction between the doxastic and propositional justification is that doxastic justification is concerned with the justificatory relationships among and statuses of one's actual beliefs, not merely potential propositions that could or should serve those purposes for an epistemic agent. The relationship between propositional and doxastic justification corresponds, respectively, to ex ante and ex post justification. This is the preferred terminology of Engel, who accepts Alvin Goldman's definitions in “What is Justified Belief?” (1979, pg. 21): “The ex post use occurs when there exists a belief, and we say of that belief that it is (or isn't) justified. The ex ante use occurs when no such belief exists... Here we say of the person, independent of his doxastic state vis-à-vis p, that p is (or isn't) suitable for him to believe.” Ex ante or propositional justification determines whether one may or should [have] acquire[d] a belief; ex post or doxastic justification determines whether a belief one already accepts should be kept or discarded. Accordingly, doxastic justification is sometimes said to be parasitic on propositional justification in that having the former entails having the latter but not vice versa. With this in mind, Engel proposes to evaluate positism in terms of ex ante justification (2014, pg. 148).

Engel further intends to evaluate positism with respect to “personal justification,” meaning he is concerned with the circumstances under which a person is worthy of epistemic praise for believing that p (cf. Engel, “Personal and Doxastic Justification in Epistemology,” 1992). Engel says that this sort of epistemic justification occurs when one believes “that p only if she has an undefeated reason for believing that p” (pg. 147). In this context, her reasons must be “internally accessible;” that is, her reason “to believe that p is a consideration, from [her] egocentric point of view, that suggests that p is true” (pg. 147). 

Engel then provides a sort of useful glossary of terms. Notably, a belief or experience is considered “basic” if a subject is “noninferential” and “immediately justified” in having it (pg. 148). Doxastic [foundations of coherence] theories assume “only beliefs can serve as reasons for other beliefs,” whereas nondoxastic theories reject this assumption (pg. 148). Most of what else Engel mentions may be here passed over, as their primary function just seems to be to show the number of contrasting theories of epistemic justification in terms of structure and nature. The specific theory that is worth mentioning is the one Engel defends. The following closes out this section:

...there is a third form of coherence theory that epistemologists have not recognized. Like foundations theories, modest nondoxastic coherence theories acknowledge that some reasoning is linear and admit that some beliefs are basic, for example, simple perceptual beliefs. Unlike foundations theories, however, modest linear noncircular nondoxastic coherence theories insist we can be justified in holding nonbasic beliefs that do not ultimately trace their justification back to basic beliefs. In section 3, I argue that a Positist version of this sort of Modest Coherentism (PMC) allows us to solve the regress problem for ex ante justification as it most frequently arises. (pg. 149)

Clearly, Engel's views indeed live up to his self-titled description as an epistemic “ecumenical beast” (pg. 157). He thinks epistemic justification can be had in a number of ways, but while some of these variations are interesting, I will restrict myself to commenting on why and how he thinks positism suffices.

The Epistemic Regress Problem for Ex Ante Justification

Engel begins section 2 of his article with an important historical point: 

...the epistemic regress problem was put forth as a skeptical challenge designed to undermine the very possibility of rational belief. In its contemporary guise, the regress problem has been formulated as an argument from elimination in favor of foundationalism - one designed to show that basic beliefs must exist if we are to be epistemically justified in believing anything at all. (pg. 149)

One comment that should be made at this point also relates back to Engel's epistemic ecumenicism, and that is with regards to the weak standard Engel has set for the goal of epistemic justification to be met. I don't have a problem with much of Engel's terminology outlined in the previous section, but if all that it takes for one to be justified in coming to believe p is that he have an undefeated (but not undefeatable) reason for it, and if what suffices as a reason is that it merely suggests to his mind that p is true, then one could easily imagine scenarios in which two people could be justified in coming to believe contradictory propositions. Does Engel think this qualifies as rational belief? According to the original context of the skeptical challenge to which Engel alludes, I don't see how he could. But then I fail to see how the skeptical challenge can be addressed by Engel in the first place. It would be one thing if Engel wished to propose positism in a different context, but in the beginning of this section he has made it clear he knows the original point of the regress argument and believes PMC provides a solution. But unless he were willing to argue against the much more stringent (indeed, infallibilistic) skeptical standard of epistemic justification - which he does not do here, in any case - that would require he deal with the skeptical challenge on its own terms, not his. The force of this point will, I hope, become clearer in the following discussion.

Next, Engel lays out premises of the regress argument for ex ante justification:

A1. S is justified in coming to believe that p iff either (1) S is immediately justified in coming to believe that p or (2) S is mediately justified in coming to believe that p. 

A2. S is mediately justified in coming to believe that p iff (1) S has a doxastic reason q for p (where q might be a conjunction), and (2) S is ex post justified (either mediately or immediately) in believing q. (pgs. 149-150)

He then reasons how a foundationalist would use these premises to argue that foundationalism must be true. Clearly, he doesn't believe this succeeds. He makes three points, none of which I believe are persuasive.

Firstly: “Even if sound, all RA shows is that there must be basic beliefs, if we are to have any justified beliefs at all, and it remains a theoretical possibility that justification skepticism is correct” (pg. 151). One may claim “no one is justified in believing anything,” but those words only have intelligible, definite meaning in the context of the claimant being epistemically justified in assigning said meaning. Otherwise, it could mean anything, including “everyone is justified in believing anything,” In other words, justification skepticism cannot be consistently maintained, and any argument to the contrary presupposes this is true, Engel's own argument to this effect included.

Secondly:  “...even if there are basic beliefs, as RA allegedly shows, in order for foundationalism to be correct, there must be enough basic beliefs to support the structure of our justified nonbasic beliefs, and RA does nothing to show the latter” (pg. 151). He goes on to say he does believe perceptual beliefs are properly basic (I'm not sure if Engel distinguishes between basic beliefs and properly basic beliefs) if they are grounded in perceptual experiences, but he argues many nonbasic beliefs we think we are justified in believing, like moral and philosophical beliefs, cannot be traced back to basic beliefs. This is backwards, and Engel repeats this mistake a few times. A foundationalist reasons from foundations, not to them; he only is in a position to know what is a justified nonbasic belief because he was first in a position to know what is a justified basic belief. Assuming certain nonbasic beliefs are justified and then using that to rule out the possibility of there being a sufficient number of justified basic beliefs to account for these is to put the cart before the horse. If this is the external critique it appears to be, a foundationalist will find it unpersuasive simply because he does not operate from the same bases as Engel, so to speak.

Thirdly: “Take the current debate between foundationalism, coherentism, infinitism, and positism. No matter which of these positions you believe is correct, you won't be able to trace this philosophical belief back to properly basic beliefs” (pg. 151). Engel cites Plantinga in his footnote to this comment, further adding that this would make foundationalism self-refuting. But why Engel thinks, for instance, that the belief “divine revelation is self-authenticating” cannot be basic, I don't know. I think that belief could put one in a position to make the regress argument for foundationalism. If Engel's flat denial is due to people disagreeing about things regarding God, I don't see how that is relevant. People can disagree about everything. Does that imply there can be no incorrigible beliefs? No. Here again the importance of discussing infallibilism is demonstrated.

Justification Ex Nihilo

Having spelled out the regress problem and addressed why he thinks foundationalism fails, Engel turns to his own view, which is primarily targeted at explaining how reasoning itself can be justification generating rather than justification transmitting.

In the first subsection, Engel makes the argument that one is “justified in believing q” if he also believes “that p and that p entails q,” even if he is unjustified in believing either that p or that p entails q (pg. 152). I don't think this is true. The internal logic of the individual should lead him to believe q, but this is an entirely separate question from whether or not he is justified in believing q. This is true even on Engel's already watered down definition of epistemic justification as one's having an undefeated reason for q, not to mention more robust perspectives. If one encounters a defeater for p and still believes that p and that p entails q, would Engel say that he is still justified in coming to believe q? If so, he must revise his definition of epistemic justification. If not, he must admit that it is not “his commitment simpliciter to p and p entails q that rationally commits him to q” (pg. 153). It appears the second is the route Engel opts for, as in the next subsection he prescribes N2, a norm stating “If you believe that p and that p entails q, and you care about whether q, then if you have no defeaters for p as a reason for q, believe q” (pg. 155). So I missed the point of this subsection.

In his second subsection, Engel discusses justificational opacity and norm followability. He first discusses what epistemic norms are, writing that “S is justified in coming to believe that p if and only if S would not violate any epistemic norms by coming to believe that p” (pg. 153). If epistemic norms are usually merely permissive rather than mandatory, as Engel says they are, then I would say that rather than calling S justified in coming to believe p, it makes more sense to say he is just permitted to believe p. Epistemic justification connotes a favorable epistemic status, whereas epistemic permission norms seem more neutral. Regardless, Engel next argues that 

On the plausible assumptions that (i) we ought to be able to reason the way we should reason and (ii) ought implies can, the correct epistemic norms, whatever they are, must be such that we are actually capable of following them and guiding our beliefs in conformity with them. Accordingly, an adequacy constraint on any regulative epistemic norm is that it be followable. A person cannot be criticized for failing to follow a norm that is impossible to follow, for no one can be expected to follow an unfollowable norm. (pg. 153)

To begin with, notice that Engel is willing to accept plausibility assumptions only when they suit his purposes. Justification skepticism isn't plausible, but that was nevertheless cast as a mark against foundationalism. Plausibility should work both ways in these discussions. But more importantly, freedom doesn't ground or follow from norms. This would transition into a discussion of moral ontology, which I have written about elsewhere (link). Suffice it to say as a person who thinks determinism is an epistemic necessity and that persons do have moral obligations, I disagree with this assumption.

In any case, Engel mentions these two assumptions to argue that premise A2 of the regress argument for ex ante justification can be formulated as unfollowable norm N1: “For any belief B1 that you hold, employ B1 as a reason for some new belief B2 only if you are justified in believing B1” (pg. 153). There several problems with this. Firstly, the aforementioned distinction between permission and justification becomes evident, as one may be permitted to believe B2 even if B2 cannot be deduced from justified belief B1. This is permitted as long as ~B2 also cannot be deduced from a justified belief, so N1 only holds if it is further stipulated that one wishes to be justified in coming to believe B2. That is very different from just wishing to be permitted to hold B2. But further, even if it is “psychologically unrealistic” (pg. 154) to separate our justified and unjustified beliefs, it is not unfollowable, it's just hard. We typically don't want to do that except in philosophical or apologetic contexts. But the point is that even on Engel's “plausibility assumptions,” A2 can hold.

Engel then attempts to bolster his case by providing memorial beliefs as an example of how A2 can't be followed: “Given the justificational opacity of memorial beliefs, we can't follow the epistemic norm (i.e., N1) implicit in A2. Consequently, A2 is false, where the regulative conception of justification is concerned” (pg. 154). Setting aside what points I've already made in regards to unfollowability, Engel's short discussion of memorial beliefs really seemed out of place in the context of his article. For starters, doesn't any reasoning session engage in memorial beliefs? As temporal creatures, it appears to me we take time to think any proposition. Doesn't that mean each belief we have is in some sense memorial, as we have to remember that to which each concept in a proposition refers? Or does Engel believe propositions and even arguments can be comprehended instantaneously? The latter appears dubious to me - Engel doesn't even define what he thinks a memorial belief is, let alone address any of these relevant concerns - but the former calls into question Engel's assertion that “we can't tell introspectively which of our memorial beliefs we are justified in holding and which we aren't” (pg. 154), as he must have assumed the opposite in believing himself to be justified in arguing this position. Either way, I think it was a mistake to squeeze one page worth of material about a heavy metaphysical topic like memorial beliefs into a discussion about the structure of justification and think it decisively or forcibly shows anything. I certainly did not follow the logic of the following statement from subsection 3: “Since we can't tell introspectively which of our memorial beliefs we are justified in holding and which we aren't, we rightly regard all memorial beliefs as having a default (albeit defeasible) permissible-to-reason-from status” (pg. 155). 

He ends this second subsection by providing N2 (defined above) as an alternative method of reasoning to N1, promising that the next section will explain why people do and are right to reason in thusly. Now, I don't necessarily have a problem with N2. I would say it's a fine permission norm. Engel even makes the useful point (and again on pg. 157) that Peter Klein, a notable infinitist about propositional justification, seemingly accepts N2 as a permission norm about doxastic justification and has really committed himself to positism. But to recap above criticisms, as a solution to the regress problem in the context of the skeptical challenge, I think it doesn't suffice. 

Unfortunately, this next subsection mostly explains how people reason, not why it is right. Engel notes we often reason from premises we don't question until we encounter a defeater, at which point we see if there are any defeaters of said defeater. How we proceed from there depends on what we find. He compares our private reasoning to our public reasoning as well as computer simulations. This is descriptive language. The closing paragraph is the closest thing I found to justification for N2:

Reasoning in this way is extremely efficient. If we had to stop and reevaluate our beliefs each time before we reasoned from them, we would draw very few conclusions. The point is not merely that we do regularly engage in default reasoning but that, given both the efficiency and the self-correcting nature of such reasoning, it is entirely rational for us to do so. Objection: But won't engaging in default reasoning make us prone to countless irremediable errors? Response: No, for when we employ default reasoning, we're constantly engaged in what John Pollock (1986, 56-57) describes as “primed research” - the subconscious monitoring of our reasoning, constantly being on the lookout for reasoning errors and potential defeaters for our reasons. In this way faulty reasoning and faulty beliefs are constantly getting corrected, as new information become available. (pg. 156)

From this account, it seems the purpose of positism is utilitarian. If the point of reasoning this way is to arrive at more conclusions rather than truly justified conclusions, it does make more sense to allow for more premises than basic beliefs. And given the existence of permitted beliefs in addition to mandatory ones, this is fine. But then positism becomes less about solving the regress problem and more about its indirect value in being unwittingly used in other, less strict contexts than epistemology. 

Additionally, it seems positism only works within the context of a different theory of structural justification. Notice that Engel hastens to assure the reader that this view is self-correcting (retroactive) and includes primed research (proactive). While this never seems to get us to the point of infallible justification in believing anything, upon further consideration, it might already presuppose it. For in accordance with what standard[s] are we correcting or protecting our beliefs from faultiness? How is it we can sense when something we believe or encounter is erroneous? If whatever standard Engel would have in mind can itself be revised, this deflates his response to the posed objection: we might be correcting our beliefs according to a standard which itself needs or will be corrected. Who knows what is erroneous in such a case? If, on the other hand, the standard is a necessary one, then it seems we have a belief which has been justified by some other structural theory than positism, as positism is fallibilistic. Given Engel's epistemic ecumenism and prior defense of coherentism, this makes sense. But then once again, positism seems to be less about philosophical concerns and more about its potential usefulness as an add-on to some extant, self-sufficient theory of epistemic justification.

In the last subsection, Engel attempts to outline a sufficient condition for positist justification (pg. 156): 

(PJ) S is justified in coming to believe that q on the basis of her belief p, which she's ex post unjustified in believing, IF: 

(i) S believes that p,

(ii) S believes that p entails q (or that p makes q sufficiently probable), 

(iii) S appreciate the fact that (p & p entails q) is a reason to believe q,

(iv) S does not realize that she is unjustified in believing p,

(v) S has no reason to believe ~q, i.e., S is not aware of any rebutting defeaters for p as a reason for q,  

(vi) S has no reason to deny that p would not be true unless q were true, i.e., S is not aware of any undercutting defeaters for p as a reason for q, and 

(vii) S has no reason to believe ~p, i.e. S it not aware of any negating defeaters for p. 

I don't have much more to add to what I've already said. I will say that this seven-step process by which one can allegedly be justified in coming to believe q doesn't strike me as plausible or psychologically realistic per Engel's earlier remarks. I am particularly curious how a self-conscious positist - such as Engel appears to be - could exercise PJ(iv). Once you've done all that work in defending or coming to understand how you are justified on positist grounds, I would think it would be hard to fail to realize what one's unjustified premises are. That may just be because I tend to think about epistemology a lot, but then again, you'd probably have to think about epistemology a lot to become a positist in the first place. 

He finishes this section by noting p can itself come to be justified either by providing a reason for it, whether directly due to some new belief or because “the best explanation for why p has given rise to so many other beliefs that cohere with the rest of her belief system is that p is true” (pg. 157). It isn't clear whether Engel now believes, in light of this paper, which, if any, structural theory of epistemic justification can stand alone.

The Many-Solutions Solution to the Regress Problem and Conclusion

Engel wraps up his article with these two short sections, summarizing his position in them. The first section consists of what Engel perceives to be the positive and negative qualities of the various theories of epistemic justification, a discussion which can for these purposes be put aside, interesting though it may be, because it doesn't really concern positism.

In his conclusion, Engel clarified that his rejection of the transmission-only thesis is mainly grounded on the unfollowability of A2/N1, which is why I paid so much attention to the second subsection above. He finishes with a distinct point that wasn't mentioned in the body of the paper but is worthy of mention:

As for the arbitrariness thesis, PMC's combination of default reasoning and primed search for errors mitigates against the charge of arbitrariness. Although S might have acquired some belief B inappropriately/arbitrarily, the fact B has persisted, that is, B hasn't been purged due to countervailing considerations, despite S's having been on the lookout for such considerations, makes B more than just an arbitrary belief. The longer B survives this primed-search-self-monitoring process, the less arbitrary B becomes, True, even if B persists indefinitely, S won't be justified in believing B, unless she acquires an undefeated reason for B, but S needn't be justified in believing B in order for B to cease to be arbitrary. (pg. 158)

I would have been interested to see Engel address this more fully. For instance, at what point can B entirely cease to be arbitrary? What does it mean for B to be arbitrary or non-arbitrary, given that it can in both cases be unjustified? I didn't even realize this was a concern until the last paragraph of the paper.

To summarize my findings, I do not believe positism is a solution to the regress problem, nor do I think it can be synthesized with any other theory to nevertheless epistemically justify individuals in certain cases. It may have some function in the context of permitted beliefs.