Abstract: In traditional epistemological discourse, the tripartite theory of knowledge is the conception of knowledge as justified true belief. Each condition of knowledge - belief, truth and justification - has evoked critical discussions among philosopher. However, for its nature of epistemic normativity, justification has evoked more critical reviews and there has been the development of different theories in its regard. Among traditional theories of justification are foundationalism and coherentism. Susan Haack argues that these two are inadequate theories of justification due to some flaws - foundationalism is susceptible to the problem of infinite regress while coherentism is susceptible to circularity problem. She proposes foundherentism, an intermediate theory of justification between foundationalism and coherentism, which she argues addresses the flaws of the traditional theories through an epistemic combination of the relevance of experience for the justification of empirical beliefs as well as pervasive mutual dependence among beliefs. In this paper, I argue that Haack's foundherentism fails as an adequate theory of justification. The position of this paper is that foundherentism does not pointedly address the problems of regress and circularity, hence it fails on the same ground as foundationalism and coherentism.
Keywords: coherentism, foundationalism, foundherentism, epistemic regress, circularity, epistemic justification.
Introduction
In traditional epistemology, the three conditions of truth, belief and justification are held to be necessary and sufficient for knowledge. The truth condition stipulates that what is, is or what is not, is not and has generated some significant degrees of discussion that lead to different theories of truth such as correspondence, coherence and pragmatic theories. The belief condition is the acceptance of a proposition which may be true or false. Most objections against the truth condition are hinged more on the misuse of language rather than epistemic discourse. More so, to know a proposition, the mere belief that the proposition is true is inadequate for knowing it. One must have good reasons for believing it to be true. This is when the need for justification arises. It is seen as necessary because a belief which is true by mere luck doesn't amount to knowledge. Thus, justification is needed for a true belief to be knowledge. The justification condition has evoked great discussion and wide reviews. Among the three classic conditions for knowledge, justification is the only specifically epistemic component. The belief condition is psychological and the truth condition is semantic or metaphysical.1 Thus, justification is the difference between merely believing something that is true and knowing it. To have knowledge one must have justification. There are, however, different traditional epistemic theories of justification, namely foundationalism and coherentism.
Each of these theories provides a structure of justification to ground plausibility epistemic justification in the epistemological equation of asserting knowledge. Foundationalism holds "that some beliefs are non-inferentially justified, or "foundational", and that all other justified beliefs depend for their justification on these foundational beliefs" 2 while coherence theory of justification holds that "a belief is justified by the conformity of its relations with other beliefs to abstract principles of coherence, consistency, mutual reinforcement (possibly measured probabilistically), and explanation." 3 These theories are not without problem. Prominent among the problems faced by foundationalism is that of infinite regress. Andrew Cling explains the problem thus:
To know a proposition P0 we must have a reason P1 that supports P0 by providing evidence for it. A proposition, however, is a reason only if there is a proposition that supports it. This requires that we have a reason P2 that supports P1 and so on. The resulting sequence of reasons is endless: infinite or circular. We cannot, however, acquire support by means of endless regresses. Thus we have no knowledge. That, roughly, is the epistemic regress problem.4
This shows that foundationalism is beset with the problem of a continuous structure of building the justification of a basic belief on a more basic belief and so on ad infinitum. In the coherence theory of truth, the equality in the justificatory ability of beliefs suggests a circle of justification where each belief needs the mutual support of other beliefs. These problems, among others, prompted Susan Haack to propose an alternative theory of justification, that is, foundherentism - an intermediate theory between foundationalist and coherence theories of justification.
This paper has three sections. In the first section, I examine the foundationalist and coherence theories of justification and the problems associated with them. In the second section, I present a critical understanding of Susan Haack's foundherentism as a theory of epistemic justification. In the third section, I engage in a critical evaluation of the foundherentist theory of empirical justification and submit that it does not solve the regress and circularity problems.
A Critical Review of the Foundationalist and Coherentist Theories of Epistemic Justification
As earlier stated, justification is the only condition of knowledge which plays an epistemic normative role among the conditions of knowledge. This explains why there has been a myriad of work concerning the structure of justification which has in turn given rise to different theories of epistemic justification. In discussing some of the developed theories of justification, it is important to analyse the concept of justification itself. Justification literally translates to evidence or reason. Thus, the role of justification in the tripartite conception of knowledge is that it stands as the evidence for the validation of held true beliefs. The importance of justification manifests in the fact that true belief alone cannot amount to knowledge. There are cases when true beliefs are a result of guess work or sheer luck. This shows that there is the need for reason or evidence to validate true beliefs. There are, however, further questions about the nature of justification. This is as regards whether justification is internal or external. In other words, is the justification of the true beliefs held by an epistemic agent as a result of internally reliable procedure or externally evidential procedure, hence the internalist and externalist divide in the nature of justification.
The internalist theory of justification holds that the necessary factors that provide justification for a belief are internal to the epistemic agent. On the other hand, the externalist theory of justification holds that an epistemic agent can have a justified belief without knowing what justifies it.5 This is to say that the factors that justify a person's belief may be entirely independent of the person's subjective conception of the situation.6 In simple terms, factors that justify beliefs for internalism are those that are from within, internal and immediately accessible to the epistemic agent, that is, they are dependent on the epistemic agent's subjective view while factors that justify beliefs for externalism are those that are external and need not depend on the epistemic agent. The concern here is, however, the structure of justification and in this regard, there are two traditionally developed theories of justification, namely foundationalism and coherentism.
In making a knowledge claim, an epistemic agent bases his/her claim on the justification of the true belief he/she has. This justification is based on some other justificatory propositions which may be empirical beliefs or experiential propositions. Thus, the structure of justification, in this regard, is such that there are empirical beliefs that basically justify other empirical beliefs that in turn justify a knowledge claim. Basic beliefs are justified beliefs that do not require any inferential or conditional justifications from other beliefs. They are epistemically strong to justify knowledge claim. Non-basic beliefs are, however, dependent on inferential justification from other beliefs. The theory of justification with the structure explicated above is foundationalism. Robert Audi, states that foundationalism is the:
thesis that the structure of a body of knowledge... is foundational, in which this is taken to imply that any indirect (hence non-foundational) knowledge there is depends on direct (and thus in a sense foundational) knowledge. The superstructure, one might say, rests on the foundations. The second set of conclusions, regarding justification, may be interpreted as the thesis that the structure of a body of justified beliefs is foundational, where this is taken to imply that any indirectly (hence non-foundationally) justified beliefs there are depend on directly (thus in a sense foundationally) justified beliefs.7
Audi's definition simply presents the structure of justification in foundationalism as pyramidic, (borrowing Ernest Sosa's term). Some beliefs are non-basic and they depend for strength on more basic beliefs for epistemic support while some other beliefs are basic and are inferentially so such that they do not depend on further justification from other beliefs. Basic beliefs form the foundation of an epistemic agent's knowledge's claim. It is important to state that there are different variants of foundationalism which, arguably, have risen due to criticism-inspired ground-shifting. There are strong, pure, impure and weak or moderate foundationalism. One common feature of any variant of foundationalism is the view that true beliefs are justified directly by basic beliefs or inferentially by non- basic beliefs. The structure remains the same for all variants of foundationalism but the features of basic and non-basic beliefs may differ. For instance, strong foundationalism "requires that basic beliefs be fully justified by the subject's experience" while "weak foundationalism concedes that basic beliefs need not be fully justified by experience"8 Slight differences obtain in other variants of foundationalism as to what the features of the basic beliefs and non-basic beliefs are but the classical structure of foundationalism (of any variant) remains that justified beliefs are derived either directly from basic beliefs or inferentially through non-basic beliefs.
The problem with foundationalism, however, lies in the epistemic status it attributes to basic beliefs. A basic belief is taken to be one which immediately justifies an epistemic agents' knowledge claim. The immediate justification may be grounded on empirical evidence or rational deduction. But there is a question as regards what makes an epistemic agent's basic beliefs basic? In other words, raising the questions: "why is basic belief basic?" and "what makes basic beliefs basic?" is a pointer to the fact that basic beliefs will need a higher-order level and justification and when this is done, basic beliefs are no longer basic in the sense in which foundationalism holds them. When a higher-order level belief is used to justify the supposed "basic" belief, there is a need for a much higher-order level belief to justify the initial higher-order belief. This leads to an infinite regress and in the end, there is no end to justifying our beliefs.
Some advocates of foundationalism have tried to rescue it from the regress problem. Michael Huemer, for example, states that the regress problem is raised on the erroneous assumption that basic beliefs are incapable of being supported by reasons. Huemer argues that the position of foundationalism is that basic beliefs do not need reason for justification not that reasons could not be found for basic beliefs. Huemer's defense, notwithstanding, I believe that the regress argument against foundationalism still holds for the fact that reasons could be found for justifying basic beliefs presupposes that basic beliefs need them for justification. The regress problem against foundationalism seems to be targeted at the pyramidic structure of true belief justification, hence the development of an alternative theory of justification with a different justificatory structure, namely coherentism.
Michael Huemer defines the coherence theory of epistemic justification as one which,
...locates the source of all justification for belief in the relation of coherence. Typically, a system of beliefs is said to cohere well when it is consistent, many of the beliefs in the system are mutually supporting (that is, entail each other or render each other probable), and the system contains few or no anomalies (claims that have no explanation within the system).9
The above indicates that a belief or set of beliefs can be said to be epistemically justified if it coheres with other beliefs. Thus, unlike foundationalism which rests the justification of beliefs on basic beliefs, the coherence theory of epistemic justification rests the justification of a belief in the mutual support it gets within a set of other beliefs that it consistently cohere with. In a sense, coherentism seems to be an alternative theory to foundationalism which attempts to deal with the problem of epistemic regress faced by the latter. Coherentism's position against foundationalism includes the claim that there cannot be an adequate formulation of basic beliefs without further questions. Also, given the problem of epistemic regress, coherentist's claim rejects the foundationalist position that basic beliefs will be adequate to support the structure of epistemic justification touted by foundationalism.
One of the criticisms that have been raised against the coherence theory of epistemic justification is that it does not assign any role to sensory experience in its structure of justification. The theory holds that a belief is justified if and only if coheres with other beliefs within a system which suggests that it advocates an internal systematic structure of justification. This raises the question as to how mere internal coherence among beliefs within a system can serve as a basis of justification. For this internal system of coherence may not necessarily reflect happenings in the external world. Another problem against the coherence theory of epistemic justification is that of an adequate definition of coherence. As Huemer puts it, "what is it for a belief to be coherent?".10 How is the concept of "coherence" to be construed? Huemer posits two different forms of construal that an advocate of the coherence theory of justification may recognise. One is the weakest construal which, he posits, holds coherence to mean a mere logical consistency among beliefs such that to say a belief is justified in a coherentist system of epistemic justification is to say that that system does not contradict itself. Secondly, and the strongest construal, according to Huemer, is that of entailment such that to say a belief a belief is justified in a coherentist system of epistemic justification is to say that that system is coherent in a much as a belief therein is entailed by other beliefs in the system.11
However, for each construal of the concept of "coherence", there is a problem. The weak construal is faulty given the fact that an epistemic agent can have at least one false belief within his/her system of beliefs which, in any case, does not nullify the justification that other true beliefs within the system lend one another. The presence of at least a false belief, by the reckoning of the weak construal, implies incoherence but this would be a wrong implication since it is epistemically possible to have justified inconsistent beliefs. The strong construal of the concept of "coherence" runs into problem when one considers the fact that entailment among beliefs does not say anything special that could warrant a justification for the beliefs within a system of other beliefs.
Furthermore, one of the distinguishing features of the coherence theory of justification has turned out to be one of its greatest let down.
This feature is the claim that every belief within a system of belief is at epistemological par with one another and there is no belief that is doxastically more privileged than others. This claim can be illustrated as follows: In a system of beliefs with beliefs P,Q and R of equal doxastic status, justification I determined by the coherence of these beliefs where P can be the reason for Q which can in turn be the reason for R which can also in turn be the reason for P. With this, the charge of vicious circularity has been leveled against the coherence theory of justification. The point of the argument from circularity is that the idea of mutual support or coherence of beliefs within a system begs the question since a belief justifies some other beliefs that in turn justify it. Robert Audi attempts to defend coherentism by arguing that coherence of beliefs s holistic and not linear such that "beliefs representing knowledge do not lie at one end of a grounded chain; they fit a coherent pattern, and their justification emerges from their fitting that pattern in an appropriate way."12 This holistic pattern of justification requires that a whole system of beliefs rather than individual beliefs be considered for coherence. Despite Audi's defence, the circularity argument can also apply to the holistic view of coherentism with slight modification in the circularity argument.
Arguments against the foundationalist and coherentist theories of epistemic justification cannot be exhausted here. However, the few criticisms discussed above among other criticisms have prompted further modifications of the theories or the development of alternative theories as in the case of Susan Haack's foundherentist theory of empirical justification.
A Critical Understanding of Susan Haack's Foundherentist Theory of Empirical Justification
Susan Haack argues that the two traditional theories of justification - foundationalism and coherentism - are inadequate. Among other flaws, foundationalism (and any of its variant), according to her, is implausible for postulating a privilege class of basic beliefs which has plunged it into the problem of epistemic regress and coherentism fails for not assigning any cognizance to sensory experience to epistemic justification. Hence, there is a need to develop an alternative intermediate theory that will make up for these flaws.13
Foundherentism, according to Haack, shares some features with the traditional theories of justification, that is, foundationalism and coherentism. Like foundationalism, foundherentism assigns a relevant role to an epistemic agent's sensory experience in the justification of his or her empirical belief. This feature is lacking in the coherentist formulation and, the coherentist's claim that the relevance of sensory experience only have causal but logical relations to beliefs but does not undermine the relevance of sensory experience in justification. 14 Also, like coherentism, foundherentism holds that there is mutual support among an epistemic agent's justified beliefs and, the foundationalist's argument that a belief cannot be justified in a vicious circle, Haack argues, does not imply that there cannot be mutual support among beliefs.15
Haack presents four assumptions upon which foundherentism is based. The first assumption is that justification comes in degrees. The second is that the concepts of evidence and justification are internally connected. Thirdly, justification is personal as an epistemic agent may be more justified in believing a proposition than another epistemic agent is with regards to the same proposition. She, however, posits that though justification is personal, it is not subjective since an epistemic agent's personal justification in believing a proposition depends on how good the epistemic agent's evidence is. The fourth assumption is that justification is relative to time as one may be more justified in believing a proposition at time t0 than at another time t1.16 For Haack, as earlier stated, justification is a double aspect concept, that is, it is partially causal and partially logical.
For example, in the proposition: "A is more/less justified, at t, in believing that p, depending on how good his evidence is", the double aspect of the concept of evidence includes "his evidence" which is a causal notion while "how good" is a logical or quasi-logical notion. "Belief" also has a double-aspect understanding namely "belief" as a mental state (i.e. S-belief) and "belief" as the content of what is believed (i.e. C-belief). For any proposition p, there can also be S-evidence and C-evidence. Thus, for any epistemic agent's S-evidence with respect to proposition p, it involves experiential and belief-states of the epistemic agent which are causally connected to the epistemic agent's proposition p. On the other hand, an epistemic agent's C-evidence with respect to a proposition p, it involves "a set of proposition capable of standing in logical or quasi-logical relations to the C-belief that p."17
Furthermore, the S-evidence of an epistemic agent consists of two basic parts, namely: the S-reasons with respect to the epistemic agent's proposition p, which is a part of the epistemic agent's S-evidence with respect to the proposition p, which consists of other beliefs. Secondly, the epistemic agent's sensory experience S-evidence with regards to the proposition p include the epistemic agent's memory of past perceptual and introspective state, awareness of current perceptual and introspective states. On the other hand, the C-evidence of an epistemic agent also consists of two basic parts. The epistemic agent's C-reasons for a proposition p are the agent's C-evidence with respect to the proposition p which includes the belief-contents of the agent's S-reasons. Secondly, the epistemic agent's sensory experience C-evidence with regards to the proposition p include propositions that support the fact that the epistemic agent is in perceptual, memory or introspective state that serve as the epistemic agent's sensory experience S-evidence concerning the proposition p.18
The main crux of Haack's explication of belief as a mental state and belief-content as well as their distinction between experiential evidence which are the states causally connected with an epistemic agent's belief in a proposition and experiential evidence which are propositions that are logically connected to the epistemic agent's belief, is to ground the formulation of foundherentism in the following, non-exhaustive ways. Firstly, there is no need for beliefs that will be considered basic or non-inferentially justified for the sensory experience evidence for an epistemic agent's perceptual, introspective and memory state. Secondly, in addition to a relationship of mutual support among beliefs, there is the need for propositions that support the fact that the epistemic agent is in the perceptual, introspective and memory states. In sum, Haack argues, that there are three key factors that are relevant to the justification of an epistemic agent's beliefs. These include, firstly, supportiveness which indicates the extent which an epistemic agent's belief is supported by his/her experiential evidence. The second factor is that of independent security which implies that "how justified a belief is in believing something depends in part on how well is supported by other beliefs, and hence how justified he is in believing those reasons, independently of the belief in question."19 The third factor is that of comprehensiveness "which refers, not to the totality of relevant evidence but to the totality of relevant evidence but to the totality of relevant of available evidence."20
Thus, Haack presents foundherentism as an alternative theory of empirical justification which imbibes some features of foundationalism and coherentism but avoids the problems associated with a foundationalist claim of assigning privileges to some beliefs and also the problems associated with a coherentist's claim that mutual supportiveness alone suffices for the justification of beliefs.
A Critical Evaluation of Susan Haack's Foundherentism
One of the arguments against Haack's foundherentism, which I consider a mere conceptual problem, is that her foundherentist theory is not completely different from a weak version of foundationalism which claims that beliefs need not be justified by sensory experience alone but may also be justified by mutual support among beliefs. Weak foundationalism realises the problem associated with the strong claim to include mutual support. Haack's foundherentism is said not to be different from this formulation of weak foundationalism and that it is just a matter of difference in naming that Haack has employed in the presentation of her own theory of empirical justification. I do not subscribe to this argument though. Haack's foundherentism has as its take off point, the theories of foundationalism and coherentism but the uniqueness of her theory lies not only in the unification of some plausible features of foundationalism and coherentism but also in the clear difference her theory posits from the other traditional theories. For instance, any formulation of foundationalism, whether strong or weak, pure or impure, still holds that there is a privileged class of beliefs which are no-inferentially justified, the justificatory role assigned to this class of belief is what differentiate the different versions of foundationalism. However, Haack's foundherentism does not hold any class of belief to be non-inferentially justified in the same way as foundationalism. More so, Haack's foundherentism is different from coherentism by assigning a relevant role to experience in justification.
More serious arguments against foundherentism include that it does not, in the final analysis, address the problems of epistemic regress and vicious circularity associated with foundationalism and coherentism respectively. To start with, foundationalism is charged with the problem of epistemic regress because it holds that there are basic beliefs which non-inferentially justify other beliefs while foundherentism does not acknowledge basic beliefs to supposedly avoid the problem of epistemic regress. Foundationalists' instances of basic belief include experience the awareness of such qualitative feel of one's sensation needs no further justification. Haack's foundherentism does not recognise such beliefs which could be said to be isolated evidentially, that is, such beliefs have evidence that does not link them to further evidential justification. The absence of the acknowledgement of such beliefs in the formulation of foundherentism coupled with the fact that foundherentism acknowledges that every justified belief must stand in support with one another shows that foundherentism does not recognise such evidentially isolated beliefs and it may be difficult to have terminal justified beliefs, hence the problem of epistemic regress.
Coherentism is charged with the problem of vicious circularity but foundherentism which Haack presents as a more plausible alternative also does not escape this problem too. Foundherentism holds that beliefs are justified, among other things, by pervasive mutual support, independence of beliefs and comprehensiveness while acknowledging causal and logical aspect of justification but this does not preclude the possibility of having beliefs that are accidentally justified. Here is an illustration to explain this claim. Assuming an epistemic agent has two different sensory experiences but the qualitative feel (that is, what it is like to be in the state) of these experiences are indistinguishable for the epistemic agent because they are similar, it is likely that the epistemic agent would hold a belief that these two similar, but different, experiences have same properties. With this, it is in no doubt that the epistemic agent's belief is a false one but, on a foundherentist formulation, it is possible to have this false belief justified since the C-evidence (in this case, the proposition that supports the fact that an epistemic agent is in a perceptual or introspective state) will involve propositions to the effect that the qualitative feel of these experiences is the same. The possibility of justifying a belief by accident constitute a flaw in foundherentism and the connection of this with the problem of circularity is that a foundherentist rescue attempt may include that the accidentally justified beliefs be rightly justified by mutual support with other beliefs, but there is no guarantee that other beliefs cannot suffer the same fate of accidental justification and this may likely go on in a vicious circle of trying to justify a belief that has been accidentally justified. Thus, the foundherentist theory of epistemic justification fails in addressing the problem of epistemic regress and that of vicious circularity.
Conclusion
So far in this paper, I have been able to examine the two traditional theories of justification, namely foundationalism and coherentism. I identified and assessed some of the problems associated with these theories which include the problem of epistemic regress which is leveled against foundationalism for assigning privilege to some beliefs over and above others and the vicious circle charge against coherentism which was raised as a result of the claim that the doxastic equality that coherentism assigns to beliefs will reduce justification to a mere case of begging the question.
In the paper, I critically analysed Susan Haack's foundherentist theory of empirical justification which she developed as an intermediate theory between foundationalism and coherentism and also presented as a plausible alternative theory that will address the problems associated with the traditional theories of justification, that is, foundationalism and coherentism. I argued that foundherentism fails to address these problems. The possibility of beliefs that could be evidential in isolation and the failure of foundherentism to take this possibility into consideration is a pointer to the fact that it cannot address the problem of epistemic. Also, the possibility of having beliefs that are accidentally justified even when they are false indicates that foundherentism also is beset with the problem of vicious circle. I thus, submit that foundherentism does not provide an adequate theory of empirical justification.
1 J. Kim., "What is "Naturalised Epistemology"?" in Kornblith, H. (ed.) Naturalizing Epistemology. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1994, pp. 34-35.
2 M. Huemer, "Foundations and Coherence" in Dancy, J. et al (ed.) A Companion to Epistemology. 2nd Edition, Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2010, p. 25.
3 J. Leplin, A Theory of Epistemic justification. Philosophical Studies Series 112. Springer, 2009, p. 204.
4 A.D. Cling, "The Epistemic Regress Problem" in Philosophical Studies: An International Journal for Philosophy in the Analytic Tradition, 140(3), 2008: 401-402.
5 M., Lacewing, 'Internalist' and 'Externalist' Theories of Justification. New York: Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group, 1993, p. 3.
6 Laurence, Bonjour, "Externalist Theories of Empirical Knowledge" in French, A. P. et. al. (eds.) Midwest Studies in Philosophy Volume 5 Studies in Epistemology. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1980, p. 55.
7 R., Audi, Epistemology: A Contemporary Introduction to the Theory of Knowledge. 3rd Edition, New York: Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group, 2011, p. 216.
8 M., Huemer, "Foundations and Coherence", p. 27.
9 Ibidem, pp. 22-23.
10 Ibidem, p. 24.
11 Ibidem.
12 R., Audi, Belief, Justification and Knowledge: An Introduction to Epistemology. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Company, 1988, p. 88.
13 S., Haack, "A Foundherentist Theory of Empirical Justification" in Sosa, E. and Jaegwon, K. (eds.) Epistemology: An Anthology. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2000, p. 227.
14 Ibidem, p. 228.
15 Ibidem.
16 Ibidem.
17 Ibidem, p. 229.
18 Ibidem, pp. 229-233.
19 Ibidem, p. 232.
20 Ibidem.
REFERENCES
Audi, R., (1988), Belief, Justification and Knowledge: An Introduction to Epistemology. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Company.
Audi, R., (2011), Epistemology: A Contemporary Introduction to the Theory of Knowledge. 3rd Edition, New York: Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group.
Bonjour, Laurence, (1980), "Externalist Theories of Empirical Knowledge" in French, A.P. et. al. (eds.) Midwest Studies in Philosophy. Studies in Epistemology. Vol. 5, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Cling, A.D., (2008), "The Epistemic Regress Problem" in Philosophical Studies: An International Journal for Philosophy in the Analytic Tradition, 140(3), 401-421.
Dancy, J. et al (ed.) (2010), A Companion to Epistemology. 2nd Edition, Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing Ltd..
French, A.P., et. al. (eds.) Midwest Studies in Philosophy. Studies in Epistemology. Vol. 5, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1980.
Haack, S., (2000), "A Foundherentist Theory of Empirical Justification" in Sosa, E. and Jaegwon, K. (eds.) Epistemology: An Anthology. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing Ltd..
Huemer, M., (2010), "Foundations and Coherence" in Dancy, J. et al (ed.) A Companion to Epistemology. 2nd Edition, Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing Ltd..
Kim, J., (1994), "What is "Naturalised Epistemology"?" in Kornblith, H. (ed.) Naturalizing Epistemology. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.
Kornblith, H., (ed.) (1994), Naturalizing Epistemology. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.
Lacewing, M., (1993), 'Internalist' and 'Externalist' Theories of Justification. New York: Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group.
Leplin, J., (2009), A Theory of Epistemic justification. Philosophical Studies Series 112. Springer.
Sosa, E. and Jaegwon, K., (eds.) (2000), Epistemology: An Anthology. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing Ltd..
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Abstract
In traditional epistemological discourse, the tripartite theory of knowledge is the conception of knowledge as justified true belief. Each condition of knowledge - belief, truth and justification - has evoked critical discussions among philosopher. However, for its nature of epistemic normativity, justification has evoked more critical reviews and there has been the development of different theories in its regard. Among traditional theories of justification are foundationalism and coherentism. Susan Haack argues that these two are inadequate theories of justification due to some flaws - foundationalism is susceptible to the problem of infinite regress while coherentism is susceptible to circularity problem. She proposes foundherentism, an intermediate theory of justification between foundationalism and coherentism, which she argues addresses the flaws of the traditional theories through an epistemic combination of the relevance of experience for the justification of empirical beliefs as well as pervasive mutual dependence among beliefs. In this paper, I argue that Haack's foundherentism fails as an adequate theory of justification. The position of this paper is that foundherentism does not pointedly address the problems of regress and circularity, hence it fails on the same ground as foundationalism and coherentism.
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1 PhD., Department of Philosophy, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria