Leithart and Franke on Postfoundationalism
Peter Leithart is posting on Postfoundationalism with reference to John Franke’s recent ETS lecture on the same topic. There is not much to disagree with in respect to Leithart’s critique of Franke. However, why is it that the default mode of Christian thinking on epistemology is foundationalist? “Moderate” foundationalist, to be sure, but foundationalist nonetheless.
One of the respondents shows this very attitude in a way representative for many:
The respondent raised the question of whether God is “foundation” or “rock” for believers, and if that is so, should the foundation be questioned.
The line of thinking goes: if God is admitted as foundational in any sense to your theology (which it must be if you want to be a Christian), then you are a foundationalist. So there!
Two problems with this:
(1) This does not do justice at all to what thinking men (and women) call “foundationalism.” Therefore, it will be considered to be a strawman by Franke and the likes - and not without justification.
(2) To see why I object to this default mode (and why I believe even a “biblical foundationalism” is the stealth mode of an unbiblical epistemology), see my earlier post here.
Sebastian,
Leithart seems to have an implied criticism of Franke’s taxonomy (and particularly Franke’s classification of his own view as “non-foundationalist”) in the following quote from the post you cite:
If I have read Leithart correctly, I am in agreement with this criticism. One of my major critiques of Franke has been his overly narrow and unduly restrictive definition of what exactly constitutes “foundationalist thought.”
Franke focuses exclusively on an infallibilist type of doxastic foundationalism and he repeatedly equates that with “foundationalism” [this is one of the reasons he mistakenly identifies broad foundationalists like Plantinga as "non-foundationalists" in his works].
He makes no distinction [that I have found] between (1) structural and substantive foundationalism, (2) doxastic and non-doxastic accounts of what exactly constitutes a properly basic foundation, and (3) fallibilist and infallibilist versions [which is a further distinction within doxastic foundationalism].
If he has made these important distinctions, I wish that (1) someone would point me to them, (2) he would very carefully qualify what type of “foundationalism†he is opposed to by using a consistent designation for that specific form of foundationalism throughout [unless of course he truly is antagonistic to all forms of foundationalism – something that Leithart and others seem to be suspicious of].
I want to make this point too - I have substantial difficulty with Franke’s proposal for theological method that extends beyond his rejection of a particular theory about the structure of knowledge.
Additionally, the very complex subject of “certainty” needs to be carefully defined in any discussion of this type. I may make some preliminary comments about this concept shortly.
Comment on November 22, 2005 @ 12:04 pm