₦airaland Forum

I don’t think you’ve properly understood the notion of properly basic beliefs, Tomislav. You mustn’t equate being properly basic with being indefeasible. Memory beliefs (e.g., “I left the car keys in the dresser”) and perceptual beliefs (e.g., “I see a cat in the backyard”) are, like beliefs grounded in testimony, properly basic but are defeasible, that is to say, they can be mistaken. The fact that my properly basic beliefs may sometimes be false does nothing to remove their proper basicality (that is, I am rational and exhibit no cognitive defect in holding such experientially grounded beliefs non-inferentially). If I become aware of some defeater of one of my Best Wireless Earphones Under 5000
properly basic beliefs, then I must give it up (or find a defeater of the defeater).

So the fact that some testimony is false doesn’t imply that testimonial beliefs are not properly basic beliefs. It only implies that such beliefs are defeasible and are sometimes defeated. I think that the Mormon’s “burning in the bosom” is an example of a false belief which many Mormons hold in a basic way.

By contrast I think that the witness of the Holy Spirit is veridical. Does this imply that “some properly basic beliefs are really more properly basic than others?” No, though adherents of so-called Reformed epistemology would affirm that properly basic beliefs do differ in their degree (the tenacity with which they are held) and depth of ingression (centrality to one’s system of beliefs). For example, my belief that “I have a head” has a greater degree of belief for me than “I left my keys in the dresser,” though both are for me properly basic. What I think you should say is that some properly basic beliefs enjoy greater warrant than others. That is not itself a properly basic belief but is just a matter of what we discover from experience.

The difference between my belief and the Mormon’s beli