Foundationalism

Certaines croyances sont justifiées tandis que d’autres ne le sont pas. Si je crois que la Terre est ronde, on peut considérer que ma croyance est justifiée, alors que si je crois qu’elle est plate, elle ne l’est pas. Qu’est-ce qui différencie les unes des autres ? Une croyance justifiée doit-elle toujours être fondée sur une autre croyance justifiée ? Comment pouvons-nous éviter la conclusion sceptique selon laquelle nous ne sommes pas justifiés à croire quoi que ce soit ? Ces (...) questions classiques se trouvent encore aujourd’hui au centre de débats en épistémologie. Cette entrée présente une introduction aux discussions centrales concernant les conditions et la forme de la justification de nos croyances. (shrink)

Amodal completion is the representation of occluded parts of perceived objects. We argue for the following three claims: First, at least some amodal completion-involved experiences can ground knowledge about the occluded portions of perceived objects. Second, at least some instances of amodal completion-grounded knowledge are not sensitive, i.e., it is not the case that in the nearest worlds in which the relevant claim is false, that claim is not believed true. Third, at least some instances of amodal completion grounded knowledge (...) are not safe, i.e., it is not the case that in all or nearly all near worlds where the relevant claim is believed true, that claim is in fact true. Thus, certain instances of amodal completion-grounded knowledge refute both the view that knowledge is necessarily sensitive and the view that knowledge is necessarily safe. (shrink)

Many people believe that the mind is an epistemic refuge of sorts. The idea is that when it comes to certain core mental states, one’s being in such a state automatically puts one in a position to know that one is in that state. This idea has come under attack in recent years. One particularly influential attack comes from Timothy Williamson (2000), who argues that there is no central core of states or conditions—mental or otherwise—to which we are guaranteed epistemic (...) access. In Williamson’s words, we are cognitively homeless. In this paper I will argue that Williamson’s argument for the conclusion that we are cognitively homeless fails. Then I will show that there is a class of phenomenal states that constitutes a substantial cognitive refuge. When all is said and done, I will have both defended and shed light on our cognitive home. (shrink)

One important strand of Sellars’s attack on classical foundationalism from Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind is his thesis about the priority of is-talk over looks-talk. This thesis has been criticized extensively in recent years, and classical foundationalism has found several contemporary defenders. I revisit Sellars’s thesis and argue that is-talk is epistemically prior to looks-talk in a way that undermines classical foundationalism. The classical foundationalist claims that epistemic foundations are constituted by the agent’s set of looks-judgments. However, I argue (...) that only a subset of these looks-judgments are even candidates to serve as foundations for the agent’s empirical knowledge, and membership in this subset is determined by the agent’s theory of how the world is. Thus, the epistemic force of the looks-judgments in this subset is dependent on the agent’s theory of how the world is. This means that these looks-judgments aren’t foundational at all, as the agent’s theory of how the world is is epistemically is prior to the epistemic status of these looks-judgments. This is the sense in which judgments about how the world is are epistemically prior to judgments about how things look. This conclusion allows concrete elaboration of another of Sellars’s well-know claims: “I do wish to insist that the metaphor of ‘foundation’ is misleading in that it keeps us from seeing that if there is a logical dimension in which other empirical propositions rest on observation reports, there is another logical dimension in which the latter rest on the former”. (shrink)

Dogmatists claim that having a perceptual experience as of p can provide one with immediate and defeasible warrant to believe that p. A persistent complaint against this position is that it sanctions an intuitively illicit form of reasoning: bootstrapping. I argue that dogmatism has no such commitments. Dogmatism is compatible with a principle that disallows the final non-deductive inference in the bootstrapping procedure. However, some authors have maintained that such strategy is doomed to failure because earlier stages of in the (...) bootstrapping inference are already problematic. I argue that insofar as these inferences appear problematic, the dogmatist is not committed to sanctioning them. I conclude that the bootstrapping argument presents no significant objection to the claim that perceptual experiences can provide immediate and defeasible warrant to believe their contents. (shrink)

While recent discussions of contextualism have mostly focused on other issues, some influential early statements of the view emphasized the possibility of its providing an alternative to both coherentism and traditional versions of foundationalism. In this essay, I will pick up on this strand of contextualist thought, and argue that contextualist versions of foundationalism promise to solve some problems that their non-contextualist cousins cannot. In particular, I will argue that adopting contextualist versions of foundationalism can let us reconcile Bayesian accounts (...) of belief updating with a version of the holist claim that all beliefs are defeasible. (shrink)

This essay purports to be a “negative” defense of acquaintance foundationalism. It is “negative” in that I do not do much in the way of advancing novel argument for the position, nor do I extend the position very much. Rather, I focus on demonstrating that the position has the resources to overcome objections that have been proposed to it. In particular, I argue that it can overcome the dilemma proposed by Wilfrid Sellars and developed by Laurence BonJour against foundationalism, as (...) well as dilemmas proposed by Jack Lyons and Michael Bergmann targeting internalism. Acquaintance foundationalism is what I will call any theory of justification that is internalist in what may justify us, foundationalist in the structure of justification, and relies on the concept of acquaintance in justifying our basic beliefs. Internalism requires that what justifies us improves the belief from the perspective of the believing subject. Foundationalism states that the justification for all beliefs depends ultimately on basic beliefs. Finally, acquaintance is a relation between a person and other things such that these other things are before the “mind’s eye” of the subject. The general idea behind each of these dilemmas, so I will argue, is to claim that acquaintance foundationalism cannot provide epistemic reasons for basic beliefs, where epistemic reason means something that contributes to justification from the subject’s perspective. Each dilemma will ask whether the alleged justifier has some feature x. However, each dilemma contends that, whether the alleged has the feature x or not, it cannot serve as an epistemic reason. For example, BonJour will ask whether our allegedly basic beliefs are cognitive or not. He argues that if they are cognitive, they need justification, but if they are not cognitive, they cannot provide justification. Thus, no allegedly basic belief can serve as an epistemic reason. I argue that the notion of acquaintance allows us to escape such dilemmas because our states of acquaintance allow us to justify our basic beliefs without requiring justification themselves. I do so by borrowing, in part, Richard Fumerton’s theory of non-inferential justification, plus adding on a few epicycles to allow us to base our basic beliefs on our acquaintances. The first chapter sets up the issues of the dissertation: it gives context to the project, defines acquaintance foundationalism and epistemic reason, and discusses our dilemmas in broad outline. It also summarizes the rest of the essay. I use epistemic reasons in a specialized sense in the dissertation, which necessitates an extended discussion. This is the focus of chapter two. I argue that an epistemic reason is a mental complex that consists of Fumertonian acquaintances. When we have an epistemic reason, we have a mental complex that is related in the appropriate way to a belief. This is just what provides justification for the belief. This chapter explicates this notion. It includes an extended discussion of Richard Fumerton’s theory of non-inferential justification, which I follow in outline but diverge from in detail. This discussion focuses on his notion of acquaintance, and the items with which we may be acquainted. I then move to a discussion of the metaphysics of epistemic reasons, explaining how they consist of these acquaintances. I also discuss the relationship between epistemic reasons and epistemic justification. The third chapter is historical in focus. I examine Sellars’s famous dilemma for foundationalism, and contend that it can be best understood as an attempt to deny the foundationalist epistemic reasons for his beliefs. I also examine Laurence BonJour’s later formulation of the Sellarsian dilemma, and again argue that it is best understood as denying epistemic reasons to foundationalists. I then review the options that an acquaintance foundationalist has to respond to these dilemmas, as these responses will allow us to see where our more recent dilemmas go wrong. Chapter four address Jack Lyons’s dilemma. I consider what Lyons says about his dilemma at some length. I then argue that it is structurally similar to the Sellarsian dilemma, and tries to undermine the internalist’s ability to offer epistemic reasons for his beliefs. I then argue that Lyons’s dilemma only seems persuasive because he misunderstands what is required for experience to provide us with an epistemic reason. When properly understood, his dilemma fails to tell against the acquaintance foundationalism. I also argue that Lyons’s version of externalism is much more radical than it might initially appear, helping to motivate acquaintance foundationalism. The fifth chapter focuses on Michael Bergmann. I give his dilemma an extended discussion, which I follow up by reframing it in terms of epistemic reasons. I argue that his dilemma, while seemingly persuasive, fails to trouble the acquaintance foundationalism. I argue that we may be strongly aware of our epistemic reasons without starting a regress, which vitiates his dilemma. I conclude with some short remarks on possibility of skepticism. (shrink)

In Reason and Explanation Ted Poston advances an explanatory coherentist view of justification, according to which the justification of a person’s beliefs consists in how well those beliefs fit within a virtuous explanatory system. Poston argues that epistemic conservatism, which holds that in at least some cases belief itself generates epistemic merit, plays an essential role in such an account. Poston’s version of conservatism holds that “mere belief” – belief in cases of empty symmetrical evidence, where the subject lacks any (...) evidence for or against the claim – generates justification for that belief. In this essay I challenge epistemic conservatism; I focus on concerns arising from Poston’s account of conservatism. I then suggest Poston’s view does not need epistemic conservatism and conclude that his project would be more cohesive and compelling if he were to jettison conservatism. (shrink)

This paper addresses the scatter problem for foundational evidentialism. Reflection on the scatter problem uncovers significant epistemological lessons. The scatter problem is evaluated in connection with Ernest Sosa’s use of the problem as an argument against foundational evidentialism. Sosa’s strategy is to consider a strong intuition in favor of internalism—the new evil demon problem, and then illustrate how a foundational evidentialist account of the new evil demon problem succumbs to the scatter problem. The goal in this paper is to evaluate (...) the force of the scatter problem. The main argument of the paper is that the scatter problem has mixed success. On the one hand, scatter undermines objectual evidentialism, an evidentialist theory that formulates principles of basic perceptual justification in terms of the objects of perceptual states. On the other hand, the problem of scatter does not undermine content evidentialism, an evidentialist view that formulates its epistemic principles in terms of the assertive content of perceptual states. The significance of the scatter problem, especially in concert with the new evil demon problem, is that it provides an argument for content evidentialism. (shrink)

Recently, several theorists have proposed that we can perceive a range of high-level features, including natural kind features (e.g., being a lemur), artifactual features (e.g., being a mandolin), and the emotional features of others (e.g., being surprised). I clarify the claim that we perceive high-level features and suggest one overlooked reason this claim matters: it would dramatically expand the range of actions perception-based theories of action might explain. I then describe the influential phenomenal contrast method of arguing for high-level perception (...) and discuss some of the objections that have been raised against this strategy. Finally, I describe two emerging defenses of high-level perception, one of which appeals to a certain class of perceptual deficits and one of which appeals to adaptation effects. I sketch a challenge for the latter approach. (shrink)

Ordinarily, people take themselves to know a lot. I know where I was born, I know that I have two hands, I know that two plus two equals four, and I also think I know a lot of other stuff too. However, the project of trying to provide a philosophically satisfying account of knowledge, one that holds up against skeptical challenges, has proven surprisingly difficult. Either one aims for an account of justification (and knowledge) that is epistemologically demanding, in an (...) effort to offer an account that satisfactorily addresses skepticism, or one aims for an account of justification (and knowledge) that makes sense of our ordinary knowledge claims. However, the history of contemporary epistemology tells us that you cannot have both: the former results in skepticism, the latter in an unsatisfying response to skepticism. -/- What we find, in the array of contemporary attempts to give accounts of knowledge and justification, are numerous views spread across the internalism/externalism spectrum that deal with the dilemma of the previous paragraph in different ways. Most of them are guided by the goal of accommodating our ordinary knowledge claims. This is especially true of externalist accounts, but many internalist accounts are guided by this same goal, though perhaps to a lesser degree. One kind of internalist view stands out for its insistence on providing philosophically satisfying accounts of knowledge and justification, even if doing so has skeptical implications. This is the traditional, old-fashioned, Cartesian-style internalism that was so prominent in the early 20th century and is now a minority position. -/- Unlike competing versions of epistemic internalism, the guiding principle of traditional, Cartesian-style internalism (what I will henceforth call ‘traditional internalism’) is not to accommodate our commonsense views about the rationality of our ordinary beliefs. Instead, traditional internalism emphasizes rationality’s demand for philosophical assurance, on the basis of evidence that can withstand the strongest skeptical challenges, that our ordinary beliefs (perceptual and otherwise) are true. According to the traditional internalist, the philosopher, qua philosopher, ought to begin the epistemological project from the inside, placing a premium on satisfying our philosophical curiosity. -/- Despite the relative unpopularity of traditional internalism the view can be taken to be worthy of attention for a variety of reasons. First, traditional internalism has great historical importance. Significant portions of the history of contemporary epistemology, and to a lesser degree philosophy in the modern era (roughly, Descartes to Kant), are grounded in a number of the intuitions that drive traditional internalism. Second, and perhaps even more importantly, traditional internalism serves as the source of a wide variety of criticisms for other, more prominent, contemporary epistemological views. In a number of debates the views of the traditional internalist are used to play a kind of Devil’s advocate. Finally, some of the ideas that ground traditional internalism have had a bit of resurgence of late.1 To put it simply, traditional internalism refuses to go away. In this introduction, I will do three things. First, I will situate traditional internalism among other competing versions of internalism by highlighting the ways in which traditional internalism differs from them (in particular, evidentialism and conservatism). Second, I will explain more carefully some of the central tenets of traditional internalism and what motivates them. Third, I will highlight some of the difficulties that threaten traditional internalism, and I will explain how the contributions to this volume interact with those difficulties. -/- The goal of this volume is to test again the staying power of traditional internalism, to see if this once historically prominent view deserves another look, to see if traditional internalism is a legitimate contender providing useful criticisms of more prominent views, or, if instead it is time for traditional internalism to be left by the wayside. (shrink)

In recent epistemology many philosophers have adhered to a moderate foundationalism according to which some beliefs do not depend on other beliefs for their justification. Reliance on such ‘basic beliefs’ pervades both internalist and externalist theories of justification. In this article I argue that the phenomenon of perceptual learning – the fact that certain ‘expert’ observers are able to form more justified basic beliefs than novice observers – constitutes a challenge for moderate foundationalists. In order to accommodate perceptual learning cases, (...) the moderate foundationalist will have to characterize the ‘expertise’ of the expert observer in such a way that it cannot be had by novice observers and that it bestows justification on expert basic beliefs independently of any other justification had by the expert. I will argue that the accounts of expert basic beliefs currently present in the literature fail to meet this challenge, as they either result in a too liberal ascription of justification or fail to draw a clear distinction between expert basic beliefs and other spontaneously formed beliefs. Nevertheless, some guidelines for a future solution will be provided. (shrink)

Direct realist versions of foundationalism have recently been advocated by Pryor, Huemer, Alston, and Plantinga. DRF can hold either that our foundational observation beliefs are about the simple perceptible qualities of objects, or that our foundational observation beliefs are more complex ones about objects in the world. I will show that whether our observational beliefs are simple or complex, the agent must possess other epistemically significant states in order for these observational beliefs to be justified. These other states are therefore (...) epistemically prior to observation belief, and prevent them from being epistemically foundational. (shrink)

Knowledge requires both freedom and friction . Freedom to set up our epistemic goals, choose the subject matter of our investigations, espouse cognitive norms, design research programs, etc., and friction (constraint) coming from two directions: the object or target of our investigation, i.e., the world in a broad sense, and our mind as the sum total of constraints involving the knower. My goal is to investigate the problem of epistemic friction, the relation between epistemic friction and freedom, the viability of (...) foundationalism as a solution to the problem of friction, an alternative solution in the form of a neo-Quinean model, and the possibility of solving the problem of friction as it applies to logic and the philosophy of logic within that model. (shrink)

The phenomenon of mutual support presents a specific challenge to the foundationalist epistemologist: Is it possible to model mutual support accurately without using circles of evidential support? We argue that the appearance of loops of support arises from a failure to distinguish different synchronic lines of evidential force. The ban on loops should be clarified to exclude loops within any such line, and basing should be understood as taking place within lines of evidence. Uncertain propositions involved in mutual support relations (...) are conduits to each other of independent evidence originating ultimately in the foundations. We examine several putative examples of benign loops of support and show that, given the distinctions noted, they can be accurately modeled in a foundationalist fashion. We define an evidential "tangle," a relation among three propositions that appears to require a loop for modeling, and prove that all such tangles are trivial in a sense that precludes modeling them with an evidential circle. (shrink)

This remarkably clear and comprehensive account of empirical knowledge will be valuable to all students of epistemology and philosophy. The author begins from an explanationist analysis of knowing—a belief counts as knowledge if, and only if, its truth enters into the best explanation for its being held. Defending common sense and scientific realism within the explanationist framework, Alan Goldman provides a new foundational approach to justification. The view that emerges is broadly empiricist, counteracting the recently dominant trend that rejects that (...) framework entirely. Topics treated include the Gettier problem, the nature of explanation and inductive inference, the justification of foundations for knowledge in terms of inference to the best explanation, the possibility of realist interpretations of contemporary science, reference, and the relations between empirical psychology and epistemology. Professor Goldman defends the need for a foundational theory of justification and presents a version that refutes standard criticisms of that doctrine. His defense of realism takes into account contemporary advances in semantics and philosophy of science. It attempts to clarify the kinds of skeptical argument the philosopher must take seriously, without succumbing to them. While recent epistemology has tended to dismiss the traditional foundational approach, it has not provided a suitable alternative. Goldman breaks new ground by adapting that approach within his explanationist, inductive theory. (shrink)

Contemporary epistemology has been moving away from classical foundationalism—the thesis that our empirical knowledge is grounded in perceptual beliefs we know with certainty. McGrew reexamines classical foundationalism and offers a compelling reconstruction and defense of empirical knowledge grounded in perceptual certainty. He articulates and defends a new version of foundationalism and demonstrates how it meets all the standard criticisms. The book offers substantial rebuttals of the arguments of Kuhn and Rorty and demonstrates the value of the classical analytic approach to (...) philosophy. 'Foundations' will interest philosophers of science, language, and the mind. (shrink)

Foundationalism is the view that philosophical propositions are of two kinds, those which need supporting evidence, and those which in themselves provide the evidence which renders them irrefutable. This book, originally published 1988, describes the battle between foundationalism, which places belief in God in the first category, and various other approaches to the problem of faith – ‘Reformed Epistemology’, hermeneutics; and sociological analysis. In the concluding section of the book, an examination of concept formation in religious belief is used to (...) reinterpret the gap between the expressive power of language and the reality of God. (shrink)

“The inquiry into the foundations of knowledge is a systematic inquiry into the problem of truth. This problem constitutes one of the three main concerns of philosophical analysis, the others being the problem of beauty and the problem of goodness.” Thus Evangelos P. Papanoutsos, Greece’s leading contemporary philosopher, introduces this third book of his “Trilogy of the Mind.” The first two volumes covered aesthetics and ethics; this one is a major work in epistemology. Combining rigorous analysis with thorough-going scholarship, displaying (...) an intimate acquaintance with the physical and humanistic sciences, and drawing on a deep understanding of philosophical method and the history of philosophy, Professor Papanoutsos is held in high esteem by his European colleagues. This translation of his masterpiece will enhance his reputation and influence among readers of English. The themes of The Foundation of Knowledge range over the topics that have been continually challenging to the modern era of philosophers: being and consciousness, experience and reason, common sense and science, and the domains of knowledge, including the nature of philosophical knowledge. Special attention is paid to the analysis of theoretical consciousness, the problems of categorical thinking, the theory of judgment, mathematics and logic, and the limits of historical understanding. (shrink)

The contributions in this volume make an important effort to resurrect a rather old fashioned form of foundationalism. They defend the position that there are some beliefs that are justified, and are not themselves justified by any further beliefs. This epistemic foundationalism has been the subject of rigorous attack by a wide range of theorists in recent years, leading to the impression that foundationalism is a thing of the past. DePaul argues that it is precisely the volume and virulence of (...) the assaults which points directly to the strength and coherence of the position. (shrink)

I proceed by examining the versions of foundationalism advanced by C. I. Lewis and Roderick Chisholm. In presenting their views, Lewis and Chisholm have attempted to give answers to three fundamental questions: Why must the structure of empirical knowledge be foundational? What is the nature of the foundation of knowledge? and How does the foundation serve as the justification of nonfoundational beliefs? Their answers to these questions are the subject of examination in this dissertation. ;Foundationalism may be characterized as the (...) theory whose central tenets are: Some empirical beliefs have at least some degree of initial epistemic justification which is independent of the justification that they may derive from other beliefs; and All empirical beliefs must ultimately derive at least some of their justification from beliefs that are self-justified, i.e., beliefs that satisfy . In this dissertation, I will attempt to show that some theory which affirms both of the foregoing theses is tenable. I will demonstrate the tenability of foundationalism by examining the most influential versions of the theory, and by attempting to show how the defects of these versions of the theory could be eliminated and how the conflicts between the different versions could be resolved. (shrink)

The primary purpose of this study is to critically assess some of the main objections that have been raised against foundational theories of epistemic justification. Toward this end I begin in the Introduction by defining some key terms, giving a first characterization of foundationalism, and providing a list of ten sorts of anti-foundational arguments to be considered. ;Chapter I is devoted to a study of the so-called "regress argument." This study is essential for my purposes, since I am defining foundationalism (...) in terms of the regress argument's conclusion. I examine various objections that foundationalists have offered against claims that chains of justified beliefs may end in "blind posits," continue infinitely, or form loops or circles. After conducting this study I am able to more precisely define foundationalism. ;In Chapter II I am concerned to expose various putative anti-foundational arguments that turn out to be, literally, irrelevant. That is, the three argument-types considered in Chapter II are such that, even if they are sound they fail to show that foundationalism is untenable. ;Since the regress argument plays such a major role in providing both motivation and rational support for foundational theories of justification, it is important to assess the merits of various sorts of anti-foundational arguments meant to show that the regress argument is unsound. An assessment of two such argument-types is the central focus of Chapter III. ;Finally, Chapter IV is devoted to an examination of the five kinds of anti-foundational arguments from our original list not covered in previous chapters. My final conclusion is that reports of the death of foundationalism have been greatly exaggerated; foundationalism has by no means shown false or unreasonable. (shrink)

The traditional project of answering skepticism has fallen out of favor in recent years due to both piecemeal criticism of traditionally motivated projects and increasing pessimism about the concepts, methods and goals which constitute traditional epistemology. After characterizing that approach, I argue that global criticisms levelled by Kuhn, Rorty and Quine at objectivity and analyticity--two concepts commonly taken to be central to traditional epistemology--are question-begging at best, and that in consequence there is good reason to reexamine the case-by-case arguments against (...) traditional theories of justification. ;Foundationalism, which has always loomed large on the traditional horizon, stands in particular need of such examination. Surprisingly, moderate foundationalism runs afoul of a fatal dilemma: either it restarts the epistemic regress or it lapses into an unacceptable epistemic externalism. Existing versions of strong foundationalism require reformulation if they are to escape this difficulty. In examining classical foundationalism, one version of strong foundationalism, I give an account of minimal privileged access, a nonepistemic notion involving demonstrative reference, which generates incorrigible basic beliefs of the kind classical foundationalism seeks. These beliefs survive both the empirical and the a priori criticisms usually fatal to claims of epistemic privilege and provide sufficient information to permit fallible but genuinely justificatory ascent to belief in mind-independent objects. Contrary to some influential recent objections, the mode of epistemic ascent this requires, inference to the best explanation, can be distinguished from inductive inference and can provide good, truth-conducive reasons for belief in an external world. (shrink)

Chapter I. The tenets essential to any foundationalist theory are stated. These tenets make reference to the concept of a basic proposition. Literature discussing and attempting to define this concept is surveyed and assessed. ;Chapter II. The definitions surveyed are seen to make use of the concept of epistemic justification. Two senses of justification--external and internal--are distinguished and discussed. A definition of basic propositions is offered using the external sense of justification. ;Chapter III. A variety of theories, all satisfying the (...) essential tenets of foundationalism, are distinguished. Special attention is given to Cartesian foundationalism and its relation to the other theories distinguished. Something is said about the motivation for accepting Cartesian foundationalism. ;Chapter IV. A variety of criticisms of foundationalism are assessed from the point of view of determining whether they are successful against Cartesian foundationalism. It is shown that many criticisms are directed against tenets associated with but not essential to Cartesian foundationalism. Other criticisms attack Cartesian foundationalism more directly, but are shown to be unsuccessful. ;Chapter V. Critics allege that Cartesian foundationalism requires the existence of "the given" and that either the given does not exist or it cannot provide the foundation for knowledge that the Cartesian foundationalist requires of it. The arguments of these critics are assessed. It is concluded that they too are unsuccessful. ;Chapter VI. Chisholm's version of Cartesian foundationalism is assessed. It is found to be unsatisfactory in its attempt to establish a bridging principle that would state the conditions under which a basic proposition justifies a nonbasic proposition. ;Chapter VII. After considering some criticisms by Pollack pertinent to establishing foundational principles, a revision of one of Chisholm's bridging principles is formulated and discussed. It is concluded that the revised principle can serve as a plausible component of a Cartesian foundationalist theory. No complete theory is developed, but directions are suggested for future work. (shrink)

This dissertation is an investigation into the nature of justification and rational belief. In Chapter I, four theories of the justification of belief are presented and criticized. These theories--classical foundationalism, modest foundationalism, coherentism, and the causal theory--are found to be similar in a certain respect. They each embody or are consistent with a certain conception of rationality, one in which beliefs are rational just in case they are backed by adequate justifications, and in which adequate justifications are thought to be (...) mental entities composed of beliefs and inferences. It is argued that this conception of rationality and justification does not naturally generate an account of the social functions of justifications, of their role as the rational means for securing intrasubjective agreement. Motivated by this shortcoming, a fifth theory of justification, contextualism, is introduced. By conceiving of justifications as arguments--as structured sets of statements which one person offers to another--the contextualist proposes to give a theory of the adequacy of justification which will account for the social functions of justifications. In Chapter II, a contextual theory of justification is formulated. This theory consists, in part, of a set of necessary and sufficient conditions for the adequacy of justifications. According to the theory, a justification's adequacy is relative to the context in which it is given. And on this view, a particular justification is adequate relative to a certain context just in case it is adequate to fulfill two social goals: to convince the people to whom it is given that the person giving it is justified in accepting its conclusion and to convince them that they would be justified in accepting the conclusion. In Chapter III, the final chapter, a contextual theory of rational belief is developed and defended against the charge that its relativism renders rationality arbitrary. In this chapter, the conditions under which people are justified in believing particular statements are formulated. It is argued that all justified, rational beliefs rest ultimately on unjustified, arational ones. And a general theory of the nature of arational belief is offered. (shrink)

The standard view concerning types of theories of justification is that there are two types of theories: foundational and coherence theories. Foundationalism is generally taken to be what I call Minimal Foundationalism, which is a weaker form of foundationalism than Classical Foundationalism. I argue that this taxonomical scheme is inadequate since it fails to separate theories that are intuitively different, and it places some theories that are avowedly of one sort in the other type of theory. ;A different classification scheme (...) depending on a distinction between subjectivity and objectivity is then offered. That distinction concerns whether what a person thinks, or is able to think on simple reflection, concerning his having met certain conditions for justification affects his justification. The two possible effects are that the satisfaction of a condition for justification entails that a person is able to think that this condition is satisfied, and that a person's ability to think that a condition is satisfied entails that that condition is satisfied. Thus, the most subjective theory possible is when a mutual entailment relation holds between these conditions and a person's possible thoughts about these conditions. I then show how this classification scheme is able to properly characterize many actual theories of justification, and how it can enlighten one as to the nature of different sorts of theories. ;The major task undertaken is to show that a completely subjective theory of justification is adequate to that sort of justification relevant to knowledge. A completely subjective theory of justification claims that it is logically necessary and sufficient for a belief to be justified that, roughly, the person is able to think on simple reflection that the belief is justified. It is defended that when this sort of justification is undefeated and occurs with true belief, knowledge is the result. Thus, contrary to the major views concerning knowledge in the history of philosophy, quite an extensive degree of subjectivity in justification is compatible with out intuitions concerning knowledge. (shrink)

This study investigates the proper logical forms of theories of epistemic justification and defends the foundationalist theory by using the concept of epistemic supervenience. ;In chapters 1 and 2, I argue that due to the possibility of actual infinite regresses of justified beliefs, the traditional infinite regress argument for foundationalism is not eliminative enough to force us to adopt foundationalism and so we need more substantial solution to the regress problem to prevent the reemergence of total skepticism. ;In next two (...) chapters, I argue that much needed argument can be found in the concept of epistemic supervenience and I apply this concept to the theory of epistemic justification. In chapter 3, I introduce the notion of epistemic supervenience and distinguish the partiresultance concept of epistemic supervenience from the standard current concept of it, represented by Jaegwon Kim. I argue that most contemporary theories of epistemic justification should be understood in terms of the former, not in terms of the latter. More importantly, an evidential support must go from the former to the latter, not the other way around. ;In chapter 4, I argue that my notion of epistemic supervenience can be used as an argument for two essential foundationalist theses. For, by the concept of epistemic supervenience, we can be assured of the existence of non-epistemic justification-making properties from which directly evident beliefs can be generated and we can be also assured of the existence of necessary relations which transmit this justification to other beliefs in one's doxastic system. Moreover, I have argued that two important corollaries can be drawn from epistemic supervenience: One is the proof showing that there cannot be an infinite regress which is inimical to foundationalism and so the total skepticism on this account should be abandoned. The other is that justification of epistemic beliefs must follow the logical pattern of what Roderick Chisholm calls "critical cognitivism". ;In the final chapter, I discuss and refute two possible objections against epistemic supervenience, by showing that these objections lead us to two implausible forms of global skepticism. Consequently, I conclude that both epistemic foundationalism and meta-epistemic foundationalism are the proper logical forms in the theory of epistemic justification. (shrink)

Analytic epistemologists, over the last two decades, have been troubled by two vexing and seemingly unrelated problems. First they have been trying to describe the "structure" of justification of our knowledge claims; this enterprise has been called the "foundationalism debate." Secondly though, they have also been trying to formulate precisely the necessary and sufficient conditions for "knowing;" this difficulty has come to be known as the "Gettier Problem." The first project deals with epistemic justification and the second, with the analysis (...) of knowledge. The connections, if there are any, between these two research programs remain most obscure at present. And the silence with which most philosophers greet this question leads one to suppose that perhaps there are no interesting connections after all. I argue, however, that there are strong links between the two projects and that together they point us toward a workable "theory of justification." The foundationalism debate teaches us what makes a belief justified. And the Gettier-related literature is best construed, I contend, as a somewhat confused attempt to show us what kinds of justified beliefs are also likely to be true. We could say then that the foundationalism dispute discloses what makes our beliefs "justified," while the Gettier problem takes our theory of justification somewhat further. Recognizing that a belief can be justified and yet be false, the Gettier literature teaches us how to identify beliefs that are more than merely justified--beliefs that are, shall we say, "completely justified" and therefore especially likely to be true. Consequently, our theory must make a distinction between "justified" and "completely justified" belief and provide us with a model of each. The threading insight that binds the two models and that lies at the heart of the essay is the idea that justification should be understood as an essentially dialectical affair in which one meets the challenges of a critic. (shrink)

This thesis presents a type foundationalism that is new on two counts. First, traditional foundationalists hold that because of perceptual relativity, illusions, and the standard skeptical arguments, external world propositions can be justified only indirectly by means of subjective states or propositions. By setting aside skepticism as wrong in principle and by arguing that perceptual illusions and relativity are compatible with perceptual direct realism, a nonrepresentationalist account of justification is advanced based upon direct realism. ;Second, antifoundationalists have argued that foundationalism (...) fails because the perceptual given is either theory-laden, inferentially constructed, or noncognitive. They have argued further that contextual dimensions of justification are incompatible with hierarchical dimensions of justification. Each of these claims is refuted, and a developmental account of foundationalism is sketched that allows for justificatory revisions while preserving necessary hierarchical justificatory relationships ultimately grounded in perceptual states. This latter is accomplished by rejecting traditional foundationalism's insistence upon the incorrigibility of basic propositions, and by showing that conceptual or logical revisions can force reconstructions or modifications without severing a hierarchy's connection to perceptual states. (shrink)

The epistemology is the analysis of principles, foundations, structures and conditions of the scientific knowledge. Is it possible to solve these problems by scientific means and ways only? The traditional empirical epistemology was refuted on ground of the scientific research of perception, behavior, language etc. In this respect N. Chomskyś contribution is considerable. But what his solution represents is the neocartesian interpretation of the language competence. J. Piaget and his followers do not agree with the conception of N. Chomsky. According (...) to J. Piaget whatever knowledge assumes the schemes, which are not out of subject , nor the native ability , nor constant they develop in the interaction between the organism and the environment. Then the constructive epistemology concerns the mechanisms of this development. (shrink)