The self-corrective nature of our systems of belief, mentioned above, is all we need. We could call this approach non-rational or natural foun-dationalism. (Not of course implying that there is anything irrational about it. It is just that the things in the foundation do not have the demon-proof way of ‘standing to reason’ that Descartes had hoped for.) Hume himself gave a number of arguments for side-lining any appeal to rationality, and we visit some of them in due course.
