traditional foundationalism, initially put forward by aristotle, also received attention in the middle ages. thomas aquinas sustained the theory with a little bit adaptation. but, becuase of his unique conception of the mechanism of knowledge acquisition, william of ockham suggested a theory of foundationalism based on direct realism. in order to avoid the criticisms levelled at aristotle'...

Abstract This paper contributes to answering the question how physicalism can be defined for a world without fundamental physical phenomena. In recent in this journal, Torin Alter, Sam Coleman, and Robert J. Howell propose necessary condition on physicalism. They argue that is true only if there no infinitely descending chain of mentally constituted I alleged faces counterexamples. An phenomena...

Abstract There has been an explosion of interest in the metaphysics fundamentality recent decades. The consensus view, called metaphysical foundationalism, maintains that there is something absolutely fundamental reality upon which everything else depends. However, a number thinkers have challenged arguments favor foundationalism and proposed competing non-foundationalist ontologies. This paper...

Most foundationalists allow that relations of coherence among antecedently justified beliefs can enhance their overall level of justification or warrant. In light of this, some coherentists ask the following question: if coherence can elevate the epistemic status of a set of beliefs, what prevents it from generating warrant entirely on its own? Why do we need the foundationalist’s basic beliefs...

My theory is a version of foundationalism. Foundationalism says that there are certain beliefs, the so-called "foundational beliefs," which we are justified in holding and which do not depend on any other beliefs for their justification. Perceptual beliefs, in my view, are foundational. Notice that the definition of foundational beliefs does not say that they do not depend on anything else for ...

The purpose of this article is to delimit what can and cannot be claimed on behalf of second-order logic. The starting point is some of the discussions surrounding my Foundations without Foundationalism: A Case for Second-