Foundationalism

 

Sterling's Core Stoicism: The Six Philosophical Commitments

Five: Foundationalism

The Commitment

Some beliefs are basic — they do not derive their justification from other beliefs but serve as the foundation from which all other beliefs in a domain are tested. In Stoic practice these foundational beliefs are the dogmata: virtue is the only good, vice is the only evil, everything else is indifferent, only what is up to us has moral status. These are not conclusions reached during the examination. They are the standards the examination applies. They are already settled before the impression arrives.

Why Sterling Needs It

The examination at Step Four applies standards to the impression. Those standards must themselves be settled — not under review, not derived on the spot, not dependent on the outcome of the examination itself. If the standards were not foundational, the examination would generate an infinite regress: every standard would require another standard to justify it, and no impression could ever be tested against anything stable.

The source texts state this directly: "The standards used in examination are not derived from other beliefs. They terminate justification. They are the bedrock against which all claims are tested. Virtue is the only good. Vice is the only evil. Everything else is indifferent. Only what is up to us has moral status. These are not hypotheses. They are not conclusions. They are the conditions under which moral reasoning is possible at all. They function as axioms. They are the ruler, not what is measured. Without such foundations, no impression could be tested — only compared."

Epictetus confirms foundationalism explicitly in his own prescriptions. Have your dogmata at hand for every situation — specific ones for specific situations. The dogmata are retrieved, not generated. They are already in place when the impression arrives. Tremblay's scholarship confirms the same point: the agent who vomits the conclusion has the correct universal premise but it is not yet fully possessed. The foundational beliefs must be not only present but digested — worked through the particulars of the practitioner's actual life until no contradictory belief remains.

Without foundationalism the examination has no fixed point from which to operate. Every belief becomes negotiable in the presence of a sufficiently vivid impression. The agent who lacks settled foundational beliefs about virtue and indifferents has nothing stable to test impressions against. The examination becomes circular — the impression is tested against beliefs that are themselves susceptible to revision by impressions.

The Competing Positions

Coherentism as an epistemological position holds that no beliefs are foundational. All beliefs are mutually supporting. Justification is a matter of the overall coherence of the belief system rather than derivation from a fixed foundation. Every belief is in principle revisable in light of other beliefs.

Infinitism holds that justification consists in an infinite chain of reasons — each belief justified by another belief, with no terminus. No beliefs are basic. Justification never bottoms out.

Skepticism holds that no beliefs are genuinely justified — that the regress of justification has no satisfactory resolution and therefore that knowledge is impossible. The examination would have no reliable starting point.

Contextualism holds that what counts as a basic belief varies with the context of inquiry. There are no permanently foundational beliefs — what functions as a foundation shifts depending on what is being investigated and what the purposes of the inquiry are.

The Answers

Against coherentism: a coherent belief system without foundational beliefs is vulnerable to being coherently wrong. A practitioner whose entire belief system — including his value judgments — coheres around the false premise that externals are genuine goods has a coherent system. Coherentism cannot identify this as error because it has no fixed external standard. The examination requires beliefs that are not themselves up for revision during the examination — beliefs that function as the ruler rather than as what is measured.

Against infinitism: an infinite chain of justification provides no practical foundation for anything. The practitioner at the moment of impression cannot traverse an infinite chain of reasons before deciding whether to assent. The examination requires immediately accessible settled beliefs. Infinitism makes the examination practically impossible and provides no account of how training produces reliable judgment.

Against skepticism: if no beliefs are reliably justified, the examination has no starting point. Epictetus explicitly attacks the student who invokes skeptical questioning at the moment of crisis — this is precisely the failure to have settled foundational beliefs ready. Skepticism at the foundational level does not produce philosophical sophistication. It produces precipitancy — the failure to invoke the standards at all.

Against contextualism: if foundational beliefs shift with context, the practitioner has no stable platform across the different situations he faces. The belief that externals are indifferent must hold in the office, in the family, at the deathbed, in exile. A foundation that shifts with context is not a foundation — it is a preference that yields to pressure. Sterling's framework requires dogmata that hold across all situations precisely because impressions arrive from all situations.

The positive case rests on the requirements of training and the structure of reliable judgment. Tremblay's account of digestion shows what foundationalism requires in practice — the foundational beliefs must be worked through every particular in the practitioner's life until they hold without effort. The Enchiridion is the portable training document precisely because the foundational beliefs need to be immediately accessible at all times. A belief that must be derived under pressure will not be available when the vivid impression arrives. A belief that has been digested and is immediately present will be.

The telos of Stoic training on this account is not the acquisition of new beliefs but the full possession of the foundational ones. The sage's reliable virtue is not mysterious — he has fully digested the foundational beliefs. They govern assent without effort because no contradictory particular belief remains to challenge them.