Problem of Foundationalism as a Theory of Epistemic Justification

Abstract

As the title indicates, this paper is intended to provide an account of the foundationalist's theory of justification of infallible basic beliefs. It is surely fair to suggest that for literally thousands of years, the foundationalist's thesis was taken to be almost trivially true. What this paper sets out to do is to identify what actually constitutes the core of the foundationalists' theory, the problem with the foundationalists claim and the attack on foudationalism. According to the foundationalist's claim, for all our beliefs to be justified they must consist of basic beliefs. These basic beliefs must be infallible, incorrigible and self justifying. Foudationalism over time have been quoted to be one of the most popular theories of justification of claims to knowledge. This paper is intended to critically evaluate this claim of the foundationalists and to be able to see how certain beliefs can be basic and self justifying and yet will not fall to subjectivity considering the fact that the basic belief is dependent on sense perception that can fall to subjectivism.