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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, IN46556USA
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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.

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

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