Presuppositionalism & Properly Basic Beliefs

Описание: I expound upon the concept of properly basic beliefs, why such unsupported beliefs are not a license to believe in just anything, and I argue why I think presuppositionalists can't meet the challenge they set out for the rest of us when it comes to justifying the use of reason.

Link to my earlier video of which I make mention:    • DEFENDING REASON: A response to presupposi...  


On my view, properly basic beliefs are:
1) They are all unstated assumptions (though one can become or be made aware of them). You were never taught to trust your senses, to rely on your memory, look for causes, think of yourself as a self, or apply induction, etc.
2)They are all universally-held. Good luck finding anyone who or any culture which don't make these assumptions.
3) They are ingredient to rationality and reasonableness to such a degree that their denial manifests itself as obvious irrationality and even madness. Try to imagine a person who lived as if his sense weren't reliable, who never assumed that something was an effect of some other thing, who invariably violated basic norms of deduction (such as believing manifest contradictions, not just failing to recognize contradictions), etc. Such a person would seem daft, if not utterly incomprehensible and we'd likely institutionalize the person for his or her own good.
4) They cannot be defended except on pain of circularity.
And so, they are
5) Irrevisable (not to be confused with indubitable, or inerrant). We have no grounds for rejecting them because we'd have to employ them in the very act of reasoning about why rejecting them. It's not that we couldn't be mistaken about the, but grounds for rejecting them are lacking, except on pain of circularity.

They constitute, in other words, the very basis by which we can reason and arrive at the rest of our beliefs. This sets them apart.
They are not merely unwarranted. They are unwarrantABLE.