foundationalism refers to the theory of justification in which we say that all knowledge or justified belief rest ultimately on self-evident or foundational beliefs that are taken to be true and don’t require further justification or scrutiny.
an example of foundationalism is the idea of universal truth - it is true and it just is
the advantages of foundationalism
- it provides a plausible and reasonably straightforward reply to the regress argument.
- if you break down your justification into foundationalism, it becomes justified
- it creates a scale for other beliefs - it is something to base other justifications on
- it seemingly aligns with common sense
the disadvantages of foundationalism
- someone can claim that something is self-evident and infallible but its not specifically defined and cannot have scrutinisation to it
- these foundational beliefs are in turn not being scrutinised or tested which doesn’t help with evaluating something as knowledge