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A posteriori

DOI
10.4324/9780415249126-P002-1
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DOI: 10.4324/9780415249126-P002-1
Version: v1,  Published online: 1998
Retrieved March 29, 2024, from https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/thematic/a-posteriori/v-1

3. Foundationalism about empirical warrant

The leading alternative to coherentism is foundationalism about empirical justification: empirical justification has a two-tier structure in that some instances of such justification are non-inferential, or foundational, and all other instances of such justification are inferential, or non-foundational, owing to their dependence on foundational justification. Bertrand Russell, A.J. Ayer, and C.I. Lewis advanced influential twentieth-century versions of foundationalism about empirical knowledge and justification. Foundationalists differ among themselves on two key matters: the explanation of what precisely constitutes non-inferential, foundational empirical justification, and the explanation of how empirical justification can be transmitted from foundational beliefs to non-foundational beliefs. Opposing the radical foundationalism of Descartes, contemporary foundationalists typically endorse modest foundationalism, implying that foundational beliefs need not possess or yield certainty and need not deductively support justified non-foundational beliefs. A foundational belief, minimally characterized, is non-inferentially justified in that its justification does not derive from other beliefs.

Traditionally, empiricist proponents of foundationalism have countenanced foundational justification by non-belief sensory experiences. These empiricists, notably represented by C. I. Lewis, hold that foundational empirical beliefs can be justified by non-belief sensory experiences (for example, your non-belief experience involving your ‘seeming to see’ a book page) that either make true, are best explained by, or otherwise support those foundational beliefs (for example, the belief that there is, or at least appears to be, a book page here, before you). More recently, proponents of foundational empirical justification by reliable empirical origins have proposed that non-inferential empirical justification derives from a belief’s origin in a non-belief empirical belief-forming process (for example, perception, introspection) that is truth-conducive to a certain extent, in virtue of tending to produce true rather than false beliefs. The latter proposal, a species of ‘process reliabilism’, cites the reliability of a belief’s non-belief origin, whereas the previous view invokes, as justifiers, the particular sensory experiences that underlie a foundational belief. Both approaches can, however, accommodate the view that foundational empirical justification is defeasible, or overridable given the acquisition of new evidence (see Foundationalism).

A comprehensive account of empirical justification will explain the nature of sensory experience. If sensory experience does not have a non-conceptual component, it will be ill-suited to serve the purposes of traditional foundationalism about empirical justification. In that case, sensory experience will fail to provide a basis for justified empirical beliefs that does not itself require evidential support. If sensory experience is identical to conceptualization, judgment or belief, then it will itself need evidential support if it is to confer justification on some beliefs; and if this needed support is to be genuinely empirical, it will have to involve more than just propositional relations among beliefs. At least, various proponents of traditional foundationalism have, on this basis, sought a non-conceptual foundation for empirical justification in sensory experience, a foundation that yields a straightforward distinction between a posteriori and a priori warrant.

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Citing this article:
Moser, Paul K.. Foundationalism about empirical warrant. A posteriori, 1998, doi:10.4324/9780415249126-P002-1. Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Taylor and Francis, https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/thematic/a-posteriori/v-1/sections/foundationalism-about-empirical-warrant.
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