From PhilPapers forum Epistemology:

2013-03-24
"background knowledge" as basic beliefs
R. Swinburne claims that "And, finally, basic propositions include very general propositions about what there is in the world and how things work—‘the Earth is hundreds of millions of years old’, ‘China is a big country’ [...] We normally do not recall how we came to learn these things, but we believe that we did learn them, have been told them often, and that everything else we learn fits well with them. They have the status of basic propositions to which the believer ascribes a high degree of prior probability, and often form our background beliefs (or ‘background evidence’ or ‘background knowledge’) which we take into account in judging the probability of beliefs of more limited scope." (Faith and Reason, p.21).

I wonder why he describes these propositions as basic beliefs?! This view seems to have important consequences. Does anybody know what is the origin of this view or any articles related to this issue?