Justification

Epistemological foundationalism always sounded like a patent logical absurdity to me, an attempt to escape the natural indefinite regress of serious inquiry by sheer cheating — a bald pretense that some content could be self-certifying and therefore exempt from the need for justification. I have a hard time being polite about this; such a claim feels to me like a deep moral wrong.

The kind of justification we should care about is not some guarantee of absolute epistemic certainty, but a simple explanation why a claim is reasonable, accompanied by a willingness to engage in dialogue. All claims without exception should be subject to that. As Sellars said, “in characterizing an episode or state as that of knowing, we are not giving an empirical description of that episode or state; we are placing it in the logical space of reasons, of justifying and being able to justify what one says.” (Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind, p.76.) Aristotle would agree. (See also Verificationism?; Empiricism; Free Will and Determinism.)