Is Bonjour And Sellars As A Type Of Propositional Knowledge?

In chapter one, Sire wants to help students understand two things central to a worldview: (1) presuppositions, and (2) answering one foundational question. He uses an illustration of a boy asking his dad what holds up the earth. After answering that the world is held up first by camel, then underneath that a kangaroo, the dad finally concludes that an elephant ultimately holds it all together; his father is pressed to name what Sire calls, “a prime foundation” or “the final foundation of reality” (16). Sire

The idea of pragmatic justification is an important concept to understand. Pragmatic justification is believing in something not because there is irrefutable evidence for it, rather, because it is beneficial for one to do so based on the possible outcome of believing. Pascal’s Wager serves as a good example of pragmatic justification.

What is the act of being justified based or grounded on, that is, what is necessary to have happened or to be true in order for justification to be possible?

My foundation/framework advocates that there is only one way to God and that is through Jesus Christ (John 14:6), hence, my choices and decisions are made by consulting him for guidance (Proverbs 3:5). Therefore, I believe that there is no other way to truth, and relying on one’s own belief system based on fallible understanding and wavering emotions makes for a weak foundation built on fear and selfishness and not true absolute values. When meaningful life decisions are made based on the circumstances (ethical relativism) these decisions will always be subject to the environment around them and instability will manifest in multiple ways (James

Everyone knows that when you plan on building anything you need the proper foundations to support whatever you plan on building. Whether you are building with Legos or actual wood, having the right foundation is important. To understand what a worldview is, one must first define it. According to Hiles and Smith (2014), a worldview “is a foundational set of assumptions to which one commits that serves as a framework for understanding and interpreting reality and deeply shapes one’s behavior”. This foundation starts at the very moment someone is born because “worldviews begin to form before people are aware that they are trusting in anything” (Hiles and Smith, 2014). The purpose of this paper is to discover the

Discovering the right relationship between faith and reason matters as much as finding the right religion matters, yet the conflict seems irresolvable. Rationalists and fideists can both claim legitimate descent in the history of religion, but the essence of one view seems categorically unacceptable to the other.

First, B cannot be a reason for B itself, and second, a reason for B cannot alternate between B and that reason. In other words, circular reasoning is expelled from being proper justification, and foundational reasons are not sufficient due to the absence of a further reason. If both conditions are true, then the chain of reasons for any belief is potentially infinite or unlimited. The problem with infinitism is that an infinite number of beliefs, whether potential or not, do not exist. Humans have finite minds and finite lives, and eventually after being questioned numerous times there will be no more reasons that could be possibly formed to justify a belief. For example, when a child continues to ask his or her parent “Why?”, after a series of reasons the parent will not be able to devise an answer to the question. Therefore, infinitism is not a strong response to skepticism.

First it is important to understand the type of belief we are talking about before we can truly understand Frede’s and Burnyeat’s dispute between epistemic and non-epistemic appearances. In The Outlines of Scepticism Sextus

Alvin Plantinga is a Reformed Epistemologist. He does not necessarily agree with the solidity and rational behind Classic Foundationalism, which states that all nonbasic belief’s are ultimately justified by basic beliefs and all basic beliefs must be incorrigible and infallible. Plantinga argues, though, that people have basic beliefs that are not infallible all the time. These beliefs are axiomatic to our belief system but they are not immune to doubt. For example, we believe there is a physical, mindless world that exists outside the self. We also believe there are other human minds all around us. People believe these things even though we don’t have arguments for them being true. Nonetheless, Plantinga thinks these beliefs as perfectly rational, while a classical foundationalist would have to disagree. It is true, then, according to Plantinga, that we can be fully justified in holding a basic belief even if its validity is vulnerable to new, contradicting,

William Clifford argues that we should never “believe anything on insufficient evidence” (Philosophy of Religion, p. 103)1 and if we do decide to believe in God without any evidence it would be considered “wrong,” however, William James’ The Will to Believe essay argues, in response to Cliffords essay, that believing anything without sufficient evidence is “an irrational rule” (James, p. 109)2. James’ essay suggests that there is some level of truth to the fact that no one can decide what it is that you truly believe in because if that were to be true somewhere along the way someone else probably forced those beliefs on you, either directly or indirectly. He suggests that your true beliefs are the ones that you have without any rhyme or reason. James goes to say that it is better to believe in something wholly, even if there is no evidence to prove it because that may be the only way to find your true faith, while Clifford believes that it is safer to believe in nothing until you have clear evidence so you do not have to run the risk of possibly believing in a inauthentic belief.

The second point is when the person associates this faith to a positive feeling or as if them believing in whatever the idea is, is a virtuous act. The person’s belief becomes more and more cemented into their core beliefs, eventually becoming near impossible to dislodge from the person’s psyche. The text adds that the less evidence supporting the idea the more

If every person just believed the surface of an idea or religion and never questioned deeper then how would we ever know if there was something more to it that could lead us to the correct answer? We need skeptical people to make civilized conclusion that give answers. Of course we may not believe with their conclusion, but with the help of some of their questions we can proceed to make our own

First, I find the externalism response to be the most intuitive response because the conception of knowledge and justification that it relies on is one that I believe comes closest to accurately describing the concept of knowledge. Goldman’s conception of knowledge as justified true belief coupled with his conception justification being “a belief is justified in the case that it is caused by a process that is in fact reliable, or by one that we generally believe is reliable” (Goldman), seem to be capture both how we commonly think of knowledge while being a concept that is filled out enough to handle common problems that the concept of knowledge faces. It seems that the intuitiveness of the conception knowledge at the base of this response leads to the response itself also being an intuitive. Skeptical scenarios generally have the stance that we cannot have any knowledge of the world around us. What the externalism response offers as an answer is that we can have knowledge of the external world around us as long as our beliefs about the external world are caused by truly reliable processes

Throughout history, philosophers have been trying to come up with a clear way to provide the justification of our beliefs and knowledge. Noah Lemos offers readers explanations of both foundationalism and coherentism for theories of justification. These two different theories offer very different ways to explain the basis of our beliefs. For a foundationalist, they believe that all of our beliefs can be broken down until we reach a basic belief. This belief would be largely independent of other beliefs and not derived from other beliefs. A coherentist feels that a belief can be reasonably justified if it is coheres with our other beliefs.

In questioning the existence of God, the ideology of fideism is used to in support the existence of God with the use of faith. Opposed to other various views, fideism relies on the use of faith and/or revelation rather than depending single-handedly on reason alone. Blaise Pascal is a French philosopher that approaches the doctrine and beliefs of fideism using his “wager” argument to confirm the concept that there is a monotheistic God in existence (269).