Bonjour

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Recommended: Essays on epistemology

‘Can Empirical Knowledge Have a Foundation?’ - Bonjour Bonjour criticizes all forms of epistemological foundationalism. He describes the various forms of foundationalism and the main argument surrounding them as well as the justification regress problem - Justification of a belief is justified by another belief which must also be justified...etc. This epistemic regress gives the foundationalist four options: (i) The regress ends with beliefs that have no justification. (No good because unjustified arbitrary beliefs cannot justify beliefs.) (ii) The regress is infinite (No good because there is no justification.) (iii) The regress is circular (A form of coherence justification but it is no good because circular justification is not justification.) (iv) The regress ends with beliefs that are justified without the justification of other beliefs. The Foundationalist argues for (iv) because all other options are no good. Bonjour disagrees, (iv) does not solve the regress of justification problem. He argues against the claim that some empirical beliefs are justified intrinsicall...

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