Study Guide part 2

Regress Problem:
A justified by B, which is justified by C, which is justified by D, etc, and so on.
Where do you stop the justification?

Coherentism
Beliefs derived some how support belief you started with. Justification is a feature of a mutually supportive system of belief with any particular belief being justified by its role in the system as a whole.

Advantages of Coherentism
1. The way Science and Math works.
2. The way we justify beliefs in practice.
3. Practical short-cuts.

Disadvantages of Coherentism
1. Leads to a dogmatic approach, inclines people to form beliefs based on ideology vs. evidence.
2. Consistency is a necessary, but not a sufficient condition for truth.
3. Doesn't tie beliefs to the external world sufficiently.

Foundationalism
Justification springs from a special class of beliefs, not based on any other beliefs.
Philosophers who are Foundationalists: Descartes, and Plato were Rational Foundationalists, while Locke, Hume, Aristotle, Berkeley were Empricist Foundationalists.

Properly Basic Belief
Belongs in Foundationalism _justifiably_ is not believed on the basis of another belief (non-inferential)

Rationalists
Put Math and Logic at the base.

Empericists
Added upon Math and Logic with things "evident to the senses"

Classical Foundationalism
Rationalists and Empericists. Everything before the 20th century. The philosopher Kant is also included.

Advantages of Foundationalism
_If_ it works, seems most certain way of justifying beliefs. Based on something _solid_. In theory it looks like the best bet initially.

Problems with Foundationalism
1. Disagreement about what goes in the foundation.
2. Can't be justified by its own standard (self-referentially incoherent)
3. Hard to justify many common sense beliefs.

"Myth of the Given"
Raw, uninterpreted sense experiences. Which we can not be mistaken about. "I seem to see red," "I am in pain"
Myth of the Given is challenged as infallible. To the extent that these experiences are raw and uninterpreted, they can't serve as a foundation for other beliefs.
A second belief: To the extent that these experiences are conceptualized, so that they _can_ serve as a foundation, they become fallible.

Fallibilism
Possibly false beliefs can go in the foundation/can be properly basic.
You can give up on being 100% right, and can be right 99.9% of the time.