Foundationalism

Epistemological Fundamentalism (sometimes Fundamentismus, the English Foundationalism ) referring to a type of epistemological theories, ie theories about the nature and the realization of knowledge, justification, and on related problem contexts since the mid- 1960s. Epistemological Fundamentalism According to the there are so-called basic beliefs. They are not explained by any other beliefs. They are inversely as the foundation of the justification of other beliefs.

Variants of the Epistemological Fundamentalism

Such epistemological fundamentalism is attributed to many classics, including, for example, Aristotle. In the modern discussion of such positions were, for example, Roderick Chisholm (already in his major work published in 1966 ) represented and also already called fundamentalism.

This laid the foundation beliefs are not just as arbitrary ( " dogmatic " ) assumptions appear, they must, according to a widespread requirement, however, be justified itself. One way is to understand basic beliefs as justified directly by perceptions. For example, the perception that we see Charles sitting in the library, justify the basic conviction that Karl actually sitting in the library. Perceptions, as it first seems, can justify beliefs, without need of justification itself, because perceptions have one or you do not. They can not be justified, it is not reasonable to have them. They can explain at most. Therefore, perceptions can not justify our beliefs. Perceptions can only be used to explain our beliefs. Either Basic beliefs are thus justified by other beliefs, whereby the threat of recourse ( cf. Munchausen Trilemma ) is not stopped, or it is used something other than beliefs, that is not in need of justification indeed, whereby the base beliefs are not justified.

Since basic beliefs so do not beliefs can be justified by something other than, the only possibility is that they are self-justifying. For example, attempts to introduce basic beliefs as close as possible to the perception. For the case in which we see Karl in the library, therefore, would be the basis of belief that 's just it seems that Karl is sitting in the library. That would definitely keep in regard to the conviction right, even if it turns out later that that was a mistake, because it was not Karl, but Friedrich. Such " perceptually close " but beliefs are meaningless, and where a mistake has been excluded in any case, is nothing more, so you may be right. But at least they do not say much about the reality. Either the basic beliefs are so self-justifying and without empirical content, or they have empirical content and can not be regarded as fundamental. So the fundamentalism seems to be no way out of the trilemma.

Alvin Plantinga distinguishes between two forms of classical fundamentalism: The Ancient and Medieval fundamentalism sees a proposition as legitimately basal, if this is either evident [ "self- evident" ] or sensual evident [ "evident to the senses ."] Propositions are legitimately then basal For the modern fundamentalism, if they are evident either [ "self- evident" ] or uncorrectable.

Criticism of the epistemological fundamentalism

Plantinga argues that the criteria for Basalität that are used by epistemological fundamentalists on self-referential manner are incoherent because the conditions have to be fulfilled by the proposition. So be it, for example, difficult to justify why the statement " For any proposition A and any person S: A is then and only then legitimately basal S, if A is incorrigible or evident to S" either incorrigible or evident - and justifiably basal - could be.