Can Empirical Knowledge have a Foundation?

Abstract

The idea that empirical knowledge has, and must have, a foundation has been a common tenet of most major epistemologists, both past and present. In recent years, the most familiar foundationist views have been subjected to severe and continuous attack. The main reason for the impressive durability of foundationism is not any overwhelming plausibility attaching to the main foundationist thesis in itself, but rather the existence of one apparently decisive argument which seems to rule out all non-skeptical alternatives to foundationism, thereby showing that some version of foundationism must be true. The main dialectical variants of foundationism can best be understood as differing attempts to solve the, regress problem, and the most basic objection to the foundationist approach is that it is doubtful that any of these attempts can succeed. The fundamental concept of strong foundationism is obviously the concept of a basic belief.

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