Empirical foundationalism affirms that some empirical beliefs a person holds have a degree of justification or warrant that does not derive from their being inferable from other empirical beliefs the person holds. Such beliefs are basic for the person. In his recent book Laurence Bonjour claims that foundationalism faces the following problem:The basic problem confronting empirical foundationalism … is how the basic or foundational empirical beliefs to which it appeals are themselves justified or warranted or in some way given positive (...) epistemic standing, while still preserving their status as basic. This problem amounts to a dilemma: if there is no justification, basic beliefs are rendered epistemically arbitrary, thereby fatally impugning the very claim of foundationalism to constitute a theory of epistemic justification; while a justification which appeals to further premises of some sort threatens to begin anew the regress of justification which it is the whole point of foundationalism to avoid. (shrink)

The reliability of a belief-producing process is a matter of how likely it is that the process will produce beliefs that are true. The term reliabilism may be used to refer to any position that makes this idea of reliability central to the explication of some important epistemic concept. I know of three such positions that appeal to some epistemologists: a reliabilist account of what makes a belief justified, a reliabilist account of what makes a true belief knowledge, and a (...) reliabilist answer to the question of the fourth condition, the question of what must be added to justified true belief to make knowledge. Obviously these are alternative positions rather than parts of a single coherent whole. I think of the first as reliabilism’s boldest stand, the second as the position to which it may retreat when the first is found untenable, and the third as its last refuge. I will criticize only the first two positions. (shrink)

According to a simple version of the reliability theory of epistemic justification, a belief is justified if and only if the process leading to that belief is reliable. The idea behind this theory is simple and attractive. There are a variety of mental or cognitive processes that result in beliefs. Some of these processes are reliable—they generally yield true beliefs—and the beliefs they produce are justified. Other processes are unreliable and the beliefs they produce are unjustified. So, for example, reliable (...) processes such as perception and memory yield justified beliefs while an unreliable process such as wishful thinking—believing something as a result of wishing that it is true—yields unjustified beliefs. (shrink)

It is commonly thought that the requirements of inferential justification are such that necessarily the process of inferentially justifying a belief will come to an end. But, If this is so, We should be able to pick out those requirements of justification which necessitate an end to the justification process. Unfortunately, Although there is nearly unanimous agreement as to the need for such an end, It is by no means clear which particular requirements of justification impose this need. I examine (...) and criticize several seemingly plausible ways of showing that regresses of inferential justification are impossible and then propose two requirements of inferential justification which, I argue, Are sufficient to show the impossibility. (shrink)