Skip to Main Content
Frequently Asked Questions
Submit an ETD
Global Search Box
Need Help?
Keyword Search
Participating Institutions
Advanced Search
School Logo
Files
File List
ucin1028837654.pdf (108.79 KB)
ETD Abstract Container
Abstract Header
BONJOUR'S RECONSIDERATION OF FOUNDATIONALISM
Author Info
HARRINGTON, FRED
Permalink:
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1028837654
Abstract Details
Year and Degree
2002, MA, University of Cincinnati, Arts and Sciences : Philosophy.
Abstract
In BonJour’s recent essay, “The Dialectic of Foundationalism and Coherentism,” he argues for a reconsideration of foundationalism. BonJour makes three assumptions: (i) that the realist conception of truth as correspondence with the appropriate region of mind-independent reality is correct; (ii) that foundationalism is offering an account of “the fundamental structure of the epistemic justification of contingent or empirical beliefs, where what is distinctive about epistemic justification is that it involves an acceptably strong reason for thinking that the belief in question is true or likely to be true;” and (iii) that an internalist conception of epistemic justification is correct. BonJour then argues that an internalist foundationalism offers the correct conception of epistemic justification. I argue that, given the assumption of the correspondence theory of truth, an internalist foundationalism fails to provide an acceptably strong reason for supposing any belief to be true with regard to a mind-independent reality. After explicating BonJour’s notions of foundationalism, internalist justification, and truth as correspondence, the nature of foundational beliefs is explored through a dilemma posed as a challenge for metajustification. I attempt to demonstrate that foundationalism does not provide an adequate basis for epistemic inference to the external physical world, and use this to show that BonJour’s three assumptions are together incompatible. This is the goal of the first part of the thesis. In the second part of the thesis, both to emphasize that it is only this specific triumvirate that is incompatible and to suggest viable directions to proceed that are free from this criticism, I show that any two of these three notions plus the contrary of the third are compatible. Finally, I suggest that the combination of internalism, a correspondence theory of truth, and coherentism, thereby rejecting the assumption of foundationalism, shows the most promise for a complete and internally compatible theory of epistemic justification.
Committee
Dr. Robert Richardson (Advisor)
Pages
58 p.
Subject Headings
Philosophy
Keywords
Epistemology
;
Internalism
;
Coherentism
Recommended Citations
Refworks
EndNote
RIS
Mendeley
Citations
HARRINGTON, F. (2002).
BONJOUR'S RECONSIDERATION OF FOUNDATIONALISM
[Master's thesis, University of Cincinnati]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1028837654
APA Style (7th edition)
HARRINGTON, FRED.
BONJOUR'S RECONSIDERATION OF FOUNDATIONALISM.
2002. University of Cincinnati, Master's thesis.
OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center
, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1028837654.
MLA Style (8th edition)
HARRINGTON, FRED. "BONJOUR'S RECONSIDERATION OF FOUNDATIONALISM." Master's thesis, University of Cincinnati, 2002. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1028837654
Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)
Abstract Footer
Document number:
ucin1028837654
Download Count:
813
Copyright Info
© 2002, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by University of Cincinnati and OhioLINK.