Hostname: page-component-cb9f654ff-kl2l2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-09-06T12:52:39.709Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Three Arguments Against Foundationalism: Arbitrariness, Epistemic Regress, and Existential Support

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Daniel Howard-Snyder  and
E.J. Coffman
Daniel Howard-Snyder
Affiliation:
Western Washington University Bellingham, WA, 98225, USA
E.J. Coffman
Affiliation:
University of Notre Dame Notre Dame, IN 46556 USA
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

A particular belief of a person is basic just in case it is epistemically justified and it owes its justification to something other than her other beliefs or the interrelations of their contents; a person's belief is nonbasic just in case it is epistemically justified but not basic. Traditional Foundationalism says that, first, if a human being has a nonbasic belief, then, at bottom, it owes its justification to at least one basic belief, and second, there are basic beliefs. Call the second thesis Minimal Foundationalism. In this essay, we assess three arguments against Minimal Foundationalism which we find in recent work of Peter Klein and Ernest Sosa.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 36 , Issue 4 , December 2006 , pp. 535 - 564
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2006

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Alston, W.P. 1989a. ‘Two Types of Foundationalism’ Journal of Philosophy 73 (1976) 165-85. Reprinted in W.P. Alston, Epistemic Justification: Essays in the Theory of Knowledge. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. 19-38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alston, W.P. 1989b. ‘Has Foundationalism Been Refuted?’ Philosophical Studies 29 (1976) 287–305. Reprinted in W.P. Alston, Epistemic Justification: Essays in the Theory of Knowledge. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. 39-56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alston, W.P. 1989c. ‘What's Wrong with Immediate Knowledge?’ Synthese 55 (1983) 73–95. Reprinted in W.P. Alston, Epistemic Justification: Essays in the Theory of Knowledge. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. 57-78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alston, W.P. 1989d. ‘Internalism and Externalism in Epistemology’ Philosophical Topics 14 (1986) 179–221. Reprinted in W.P. Alston, Epistemic Justification: Essays in the Theory of Knowledge. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. 185-226.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alston, W.P. 1989e ‘Epistemic Circularity’ Philosophy and Phenomenological Research (1986) 1–30. Reprinted in W.P. Alston, Epistemic Justification: Essays in the Theory of Knowledge. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. 319-49.Google Scholar
Audi, R. 1993. ‘The Foundationalism-Coherentism Controversy: Hardened Stereotypes and Overlapping Theories’ In The Structure of Justification,ed. Audi, R. New York: Cambridge University Press. 117-64.Google Scholar
R, Audi 1994. ‘Dispositional Beliefs and Dispositions to Believe’ Nous 28 419-34.Google Scholar
Bach, K. 1985. ‘A Rationale for Reliabilism’ Monist 68 246-63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bergmann, M. 2004. ‘What's Not Wrong With Foundationalism’ Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 68 161-5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
BonJour, Laurence. 1985. The Structure of Empirical Knowledge Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
BonJour, Laurence 2002. Epistemology: Classical Problems and Contemporary Responses New York: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Davidson, D. 1986. ‘A Coherence Theory of Truth and Knowledge’ In Truth and Interpretation: Perspectives on the Philosophy of Donald Davidson,ed. LePore, Ernest. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. 307-19.Google Scholar
Engel, M. 1992. ‘Personal and Doxastic Justification in Epistemology.’ Philosophical Studies 67 133-50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haack, S. 1993. Evidence and Inquiry Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Howard-Snyder, D. 2002. ‘On an “Unintelligible Idea”: Donald Davidson's Case Against Experiential Foundationalism.’ Southern Journal of Philosophy 40 523-55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Howard-Snyder, D 2004. ‘Lehrer's Case Against Foundationalism.’ Erkenntnis 60 51–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Klein, P. 1999. ‘Human Knowledge and the Infinite Regress of Reasons’ Philosophical Perspectives 13 297–325.Google Scholar
Klein, P 2003. ‘Skepticism,’ The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy,ed. Zalta, Edward N, URL= http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2003/entries/skepticism.Google Scholar
Klein, P. 2004. ‘What IS Wrong with Foundationalism is that it Cannot Solve the Epistemic Regress Problem.’ Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 65 166-71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Klein, P. 2005. Infinitism is the Solution to the Regress Problem’ In Contemporary Debates in Epistemology,eds. Steup, M and Sosa, E. Oxford: Blackwell. 131-40.Google Scholar
Kvanvig, J., and Menzel, C. 1990. ‘The Basic Notion of Justification’ Philosophical Studies 59 235-61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lehrer, K. 1990. Theory of Knowledge Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Leite, A. 2004. ‘On Justifying and Being Justified’ Philosophical Issues 14 219-53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pryor, J. 2005. ‘There is Immediate Justification.’ In Contemporary Debates in Epistemology ed. Steup, M and Sosa, E. Oxford: Blackwell. 181–202.Google Scholar
Sosa, D. Unpublished. ‘Epistemic Luck.'Google Scholar
Sosa, E., and L, Bonjour. 2003. Epistemic Justification: Internalism vs. Externalism, Foundations vs. Virtues Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Will, F. 1973. Induction and Justification Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar