Foundationalism - Epistemology Video 8

This is video 8 in an introductory course on epistemology, the philosophy of knowledge. In this video we look at foundationalism, one of the two most famous theories about the structure of justification. How does it answer the regress problem? What is the status of the foundational beliefs? Which beliefs might be foundational? We consider both self-evident truths and truths of experience; in the next video, we will look at a line of criticism against foundationalism.
Victor Gijsbers teaches philosophy at Leiden University in the Netherlands. You can follow him on mastodon: @[e-mail].
This video is part of a lecture series originally recorded for my students during the 2023/2024 spring semester. The entire playlist is here: • Course in Epistemology

[@Mr.Ousghir]

very, very, very well explained. Thank you.

[@台男波哥]

1:10 there are certain beliefs that do not have to be justified through inference( or justified in some non-inferential way)
2:05 strong foundationalism and weak foundationalism
2:25 strong: Beyond criticism
3:00 weak: can be strengthened given more justification
4:05 what kind of beliefs could those be? 2 classes of answers, self-evident, observation
5:45 self-evident, René Descartes, Cogito
7:20 self-evident, mathematics and logic
9:50 two worries of self-evident truth, rather narrow
11:35 I hold a green pen
12:30 bring us to content through God: Descartes, Spinoza
13:45 experience, non-inferential
15:15 usually observations are not Beyond criticism
16:35 change or reinterpret the notion of observation: impression
18:00 Descartes, internal, external
18:45 weak foundationalism
20:35 pretty hard to distinguish from coherentism

[@koolmexi]

Thank you very much for all your videos. Extremely enlightening.

[@VictorGijsbers]

Glad you like them!

[@dominiks5068]

I like the account that Laurence Bonjour defends in "In Defence of Pure Reason"

[@lurb1557]

Great video! What readings would you recommend for foundationalism (strong and weak), coherentism and discussions between the two?

[@VictorGijsbers]

I like the discussion between Elgin and Van Cleve, chapter 10 of Contemporary Debates in Epistemology, 2nd Edition. That's what I read with my students. But of course there's a huge literature. :-)

[@JamesColeman1]

How about a quick sum up at the end? Nice work.

[@abdelrahmanmustafa8937]

Everything is so cool except the innovation of strong foundationalism and weak foundationalism it doesn't exist in the scripture and so it's heresay