Resurrecting Old-Fashioned Foundationalism

by Michael DePaul (Editor), Richard Fumerton (Contributor), Laurence BonJour (Contributor)

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.

Genres: Philosophy

Paperback

First published January 1, 2000

Reviews

[Vagabond of Letters, DLitt]

This collection of essays contains precisely what it says on the tin: modern (and I will add seminal) contributions to the attempt to build a epistemology (and from thence a philosophy) out of nothing but 'self-evident' first principles and axioms which are not and can not be further justified - they are the bedrock of thought and knowing - after the fashion of Leibniz, Descartes, Clark, Spinoza, and to a degree Plato, and against Aristotle and following empiricists/tabula rasists, idealists, and defenders of the partial a priori (which is then filled with sense experience) such as Kant.

In short, for an axiomatic justification of knowledge as JTB (contra Gettier) and largely for an old fashioned correspondence theory against coherentists and Wittgensteinians. Also with a refutation of logical positivism (as if a new one were needed).

There is no fancy system-building from first principles here, no Hegelian triad or attempt to deduce all of reality from the Monads of Leibniz: only an attempt to build a theory of knowledge and a corollary theory of truth using new principles and methods in defense of the old, unfairly rejected but never refuted school of axiomatic foundationalism.