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Topic: Foundationalism

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	Foundationalism
		Foundationalism as understood by philosophers is first and foremost a position regarding the structure of justified belief or of knowledge.
		Foundationalism thus divides justified beliefs into those that are justified by inference from others and those, the foundations or terminating nodes of a structure of reasons, that are justified without the necessity for inference—those that are, in some sense, intrinsically reasonable for a subject to believe.
		Foundationalism therefore does not rule out the possibility that, at one time, a subject’s belief A could legitimately be used to support his belief B, while at another time B could support A. Foundationalists defend their position by two types of arguments.
	www.iscid.org /encyclopedia/Foundationalism (694 words)

	Foundationalism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		Foundationalism is any theory in epistemology (typically, theories of justification, but also of knowledge) that holds that beliefs are justified (known, etc.) based on what are called basic beliefs (also commonly called foundational beliefs).
		Strictly speaking, neither empiricism nor rationalism is committed to foundationalism (it is possible to be an empiricist coherentist, for example, and that was a common epistemological position in 20th century philosophy).
		Alternatives to foundationalism include coherentism and reliabilism (though this has sometimes been construed as an unusual variant of foundationalism).
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Foundationalism (473 words)

	Foundationalism essay
		Foundationalism answers this by arguing that all beliefs are built upon a basic self-affirming truth that is accepted as being necessarily true.
		As foundationalism accepts that there is a single, absolute truth then it allows for objective truths and thus true knowledge as any belief can be compared to this absolute standard.
		In foundationalism, a belief change at any level requires all beliefs based on that belief to be challenged and possibly disregarded.
	www.arrod.co.uk /essays/foundationalism.php (884 words)

	Foundationalism and Hermeneutics
		This kind of foundationalism came to a kind of grief much like the Rationalistic self-evident truths, since it turned out that disagreements and apparent mistakes could occur even in the course of direct empirical observation: The "foundational" pieces of knowledge were neither certain nor infallible.
		If foundationalism is the thesis that we can construct knowledge with absolute certainty starting from nothing, then the denial of this can give us various possible theses: (1) knowledge cannot be constructed, (2) there is no absolute certainty, and (3) knowledge cannot be started from nothing.
		The truth of foundationalism (expressed by Bernstein as "objectivism"), on the other hand, was that the text or the datum does impose a limit to interpretations.
	www.friesian.com /hermenut.htm (2989 words)

	Coherentism
		I object to foundationalism that it is incoherent; by parity, the foundationalist objects that coherentism is unfounded.
		Foundationalism comes in different flavors depending on what particular type of belief or unit of knowledge or whatnot is taken to be foundational.
		It may seem that the foregoing must either be a caricature of foundationalism or a prelude to an endorsement of skepticism.
	personal.bgsu.edu /~roberth/coherence.html (4175 words)

	PH29A Foundationalism (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-06)
		substantive foundationalism, which adds a third: (iii) there are certain kinds of beliefs (or other conscious states) that by their very nature — that is, in virtue of their content — are fitted to play the role of terminating points for chains of justification.
		Williams notes a feature of substantive foundationalism that has appealed to many: its promise of a basis upon which everything else has to be be built suggests that genuine disputes can always be settled by reference to a basis independent of the disputants.
		Williams contrasts Descartes, for whom foundationalism yielded a method of inquiry, and one that put a premium on avoiding error, with a moden perspective in which the issue is one of justification rather than method.
	www.cavehill.uwi.edu /bnccde/PH29A/ph29afoundatinalism.html (1869 words)

	Obiter Dicta: Epistemology: Foundationalism
		Foundationalism is the view that there is - indeed, that there must be - such an ultimate level of non-inferentially justified beliefs.
		Foundationalism divides our beliefs into two classes: those which need support from others, and those which do not.
		In response classical foundationalism maintains that the basic beliefs are not ordinary perceptual beliefs about physical objects but beliefs about our own sensory states or immediate experiences - how things seem or appear to us.
	orda.blogspot.com /2005/04/epistemology-foundationalism.html (613 words)

	FOUNDATIONALISM:
		To motivate foundationalism, we form a disjunction of the four options, eliminate as unsatisfactory those involving circles, infinite regresses or arbitrary starting points, and then conclude that option (4) must be true.
		Foundationalism so conceived certainly implies an account of justification, one that Rorty thinks the coherentists have critiqued correctly.
		Current defenders of foundationalism seem to feel a pressure to preserve an access to a perceptual given that is completely independent of any concepts or background knowledge.
	enlightenment.supersaturated.com /essays/text/stephenhicks/diss/hicksdiss1.html (5995 words)

	[No title]
		Foundationalism can be fallible because knowledge does not inferentially force that “someone’s grounds for knowledge are indefeasible.
		Fifth, the fallibilist foundationalism is not dogmatic because it allows people to have justified beliefs based on their perception and experience.
		Laurence Bonjour’s Epistemic Ascent Argument Against Foundationalism Laurence Bonjour is a coherentist who claims that justification for foundational beliefs must come in the following form: A certain foundational belief has property P. Beliefs that have P are likely to be true.
	www.truthawakens.com /philosophy/foundationalism.htm (1266 words)

	Mimicking Foundationalism (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-06)
		Fundamental issues concern the acceptability of `foundationalism': a foundationalist account of justification appears to be required if we are to be able to look upon any of our beliefs as legitimate at all; yet no defensible form of the doctrine has been found.
		And the kind of epistemic dualism associated with standard forms of foundationalism similarly identifies being basic or foundational with the possession of a distinctive and objective kind of epistemic value: such beliefs are justified or warranted; and their justification is unconditional.
		I believe that this project of `mimicking foundationalism' is central to Peirce's philosophical work, and that he uses a variety of philosophical tools to carry this project through.
	www.shef.ac.uk /~phil/staff/hookway/mimicking_foundationalism.htm (8238 words)

	Foundationalist Theories of Epistemic Justification
		Foundationalism is a view about the structure of justification or knowledge.
		But other versions of externalism are also implicitly or explicitly committed to a version of foundationalism, or, at the very least, give an account of justification that would enable one to distinguish noninferential from inferential justification, direct from indirect knowledge.
		Externalist versions of foundationalism are probably attractive to many because they often allow at least the possibility of a much expanded foundational base of justified beliefs.
	plato.stanford.edu /entries/justep-foundational (5994 words)

	OhioLINK ETD: HARRINGTON, FRED
		After explicating BonJour’s notions of foundationalism, internalist justification, and truth as correspondence, the nature of foundational beliefs is explored through a dilemma posed as a challenge for metajustification.
		I attempt to demonstrate that foundationalism does not provide an adequate basis for epistemic inference to the external physical world, and use this to show that BonJour’s three assumptions are together incompatible.
		In the second part of the thesis, both to emphasize that it is only this specific triumvirate that is incompatible and to suggest viable directions to proceed that are free from this criticism, I show that any two of these three notions plus the contrary of the third are compatible.
	rave.ohiolink.edu /etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1028837654 (232 words)

	Lecture Notes, Lehrer's Theory of Knowledge, Chapter 3, Infallible Foundationalism (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-06)
		On Lehrer's account of foundationalism, the stopping point is a "basic belief." Any version of foundationalism of this sort is "doxastic" foundationalism, that is, a version where the foundational evidence is a belief.
		Briefly, a logical motive for adopting foundationalism is that the process of justification must have a stopping point that does not require further justification.
		Foundationalism is often adopted by empiricists, who according to Lehrer think that justification is based on basic beliefs whose content is "empirical statements," which are "statements of observation" (p.
	hume.ucdavis.edu /phi102/tkch3.htm (5611 words)

	Coherentist Theories of Epistemic Justification
		According to foundationalism, the regress is found by finding a stopping point for the regress in terms of foundational beliefs that are justified but not wholly justified by some relationship to further beliefs.
		The distinctive feature of foundationalism, in the context of the relationship between appearances and beliefs, is that this relation between appearances and beliefs is taken to be one which imparts positive epistemic status (perhaps only in the absence of defeaters).
		So, for example, if a version of foundationalism appeals to the appearance that it is raining as that which undergirds the foundational warrant for the belief that it is raining, that theory must maintain that the appearance supplies some positive warrant for the belief.
	plato.stanford.edu /entries/justep-coherence (6996 words)

	iustificare: Toward a Post Foundationalism and Epistemic Certainty - Part I (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-06)
		Many evangelicals are committed (at least in theory) to foundationalism, the belief that certain foundational truths exist, can be known, and can be used to access other truths absolutely through a series of infallible and logically connected propositions (i.e.
		Foundationalism, as an epistemic category, can be traced back to the rise of the enlightenment and the age of reason.
		Soft Foundationalism seems to follow the basic logic of foundationalism, but wants to emphasize the inherent limitations associated with human knowing.
	iustificare.blogspot.com /2005/04/toward-post-foundationalism-and.html (983 words)

	Phil 211: Class #12 - Foundationalism
		Note then that foundationalism is not an analysis of epistemic justification as we discussed last week.
		However, we can given analysis that implies foundationalism as Steup notes: someone is justified in believing a proposition if and only if either her belief has a property of justification or bears a relation to one or more or other beliefs that has that property.
		Classical foundationalism asserts that a he belief can not be justified unless it's justifier gives the subject a guarantee of truth.
	www.arts.uwaterloo.ca /~celiasmi/courses/old_courses/WashU/Phil211/class12.html (3085 words)

	Knowledge - Foundationalism and Correspondence Theory
		The first theory of truth we are going to look at is called Foundationalism.
		Foundationalism is basically what is termed a correspondence theory of knowledge.
		This is because certain beliefs held in the mind are said to correspond - or not - to states of affairs in the outside world.
	www.philosophyonline.co.uk /tok/knowledge7.htm (354 words)

	van Haaften and Snik / Foundational Development Without Foundationalism
		The arguments against foundationalism must be acknowledged, but it might still be possible to justify general and fundamental principles in a non-foundationalist way.
		There are two serious arguments against foundationalism: first, it is logically impossible to dig up ultimate origins in such a deductive procedure.
		Nor is it totally independent in the sense of a point of reference outside of any conceptual framework (as, according to its critics, foundationalism would require), or independent in the sense of an impartial third party (for instance, some higher-level coordinating framework).
	www.ed.uiuc.edu /eps/pes-yearbook/95_docs/van_snik.html (4071 words)

	Cartesian Foundationalism (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-06)
		52 for the key claims of foundationalism and the key questions that must be answered in order to have a reasonably clear formulation of foundationalism.
		Somehow, foundationalism has to deal with this matter, either by defending the idea that we do believe all this stuff or else by coming up with a new account of what’s basic.
		So, there is room for a new version of foundationalism to be formulated, one that does not require so extensive a set of basic beliefs about our own inner states.
	www.ling.rochester.edu /~feldman/philosophy243/07-cartesian_foundationalism.html (877 words)

	Majikthise : Foundationalism/coherentism
		The biggest challenge for foundationalism is not so much in identifying a few items of certain knowledge, but rather in showing how our everyday knowledge can be derived from these truths.
		Whether foundationalism is a practical theory or not depends on whether those propositions turn out to be some of the ones we would intuitively say are unknowable, or if they turn out to be things we intuitively think that we do know for sure.
		I think the debate re foundationalism is largely due to a category error: namely that of applying a deductive model of justification to non-deductive judgements.
	majikthise.typepad.com /majikthise_/2005/10/foundationalism.html (3865 words)

	STRONG FOUNDATIONALISM: HAS IT BEEN REFUTED
		He is particularly critical of foundationalism, which, he maintains, cannot answer the skeptic and which lacks the resources to ground such common-sense intuitions as our belief in the reliability of the senses.
		The various versions of foundationalism agree that an epistemic regress (that is, the giving of reasons for what one believes), if it would be fruitful, cannot go on forever, but must terminate at a set of beliefs that itself requires no justification: Knowledge requires foundations.
		High access requirements are not, in fact, among foundationalism’s “background assumptions.” It is entirely possible, on foundationalist terms, to be fully justified in one’s belief without being able to explain one’s justification.
	startthinking.homestead.com /files/WoodPaper.htm (5067 words)

	Relativistic Foundationalism
		Ethical foundationalism: the search for the ground of all value, for something that can be valued for its own sake without qualification, and for the sake of which everything else can be valued.
		Nevertheless, the different kinds of foundationalism all have a certain abstract form in common, a form which, captures the temptation of foundationalism, and yet makes it extraordinarily hard to see why anyone would ever have seriously believed it.
		The type of foundationalism I am advocating is "modern", as opposed to post-modern, in its espousal of an universalizing reason.
	www.chass.utoronto.ca /~sousa/foundism.html (7277 words)

	what's not wrong with foundationalism (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-06)
		One thing all forms of foundationalism have in common is that they hold that a belief can be justified
		foundationalism is unacceptable because it advocates accepting an arbitrary reason at the base, that is, a reason for which there are no further reasons making it even slightly better to accept than any of its contraries.
		To sum up: the objections to foundationalism given by Klein in his 1999 and his 2000 either fail to apply to foundationalism or are question-begging or are based on a misunderstanding of what the sensible foundationalist will say in response to socratic interrogation by a skeptic.
	web.ics.purdue.edu /~bergmann/klein.htm (1751 words)

	Fides Quaerens Intellectum: Theistic Foundationalism (?) (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-06)
		Curt, from North Western Winds wrote an interesting post exploring "Christian Foundationalism." In the comments, I explored some vague thoughts on whether belief in God is basic (in the epistemic sense).
		Recall that foundationalism is the structure of justification in epistemology that justifies beliefs from inference chains that terminate in basic beliefs.
		My version of strong foundationalism requires these terminus basic beliefs to be infallible.
	blog.johndepoe.com /2004/10/theistic-foundationalism.html (1714 words)

	Foundationalism (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-06)
		Foundationalism is built on the old understanding of knowledge as justified true belief (the JTB account), which has run into some major difficulties:
		There are a number of different things called knowledge, some of which involve justification and some of which do not.
		The problem with coherentism is that it seems to make sense that we could all agree on something but still be wrong.
	uwadmnweb.uwyo.edu /Philosophy/foundationalism.htm (547 words)

	Probability & Coherence
		(b) Moderate foundationalism holds that there are basic beliefs that possess a degree of justification independent of their support by other beliefs, that this degree of justification is sufficient for knowledge, but that it does not amount to absolute certainty.
		(c) Finally, weak foundationalism holds that the basic beliefs only possess a small degree of non-inferential justification which is insufficient by itself for knowledge, and that we must rely on coherence to amplify our justification up to the level where it would be sufficient for knowledge.
		The thrust of BonJour's severe criticisms of foundationalism in The Structure of Empirical Knowledge is this: any theory of justification must explain why the beliefs it identifies as "justified" are likely to be true, and we have no satisfactory explanation of why foundational beliefs are likely to be true.
	home.sprynet.com /~owl1/bonjour.htm (2601 words)

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