| This thesis presents a type foundationalism that is new on two counts. First, traditional foundationalists hold that because of perceptual relativity, illusions, and the standard skeptical arguments, external world propositions can be justified only indirectly by means of subjective states or propositions. By setting aside skepticism as wrong in principle and by arguing that perceptual illusions and relativity are compatible with perceptual direct realism, a nonrepresentationalist account of justification is advanced based upon direct realism.; Second, antifoundationalists have argued that foundationalism fails because the perceptual given is either theory-laden, inferentially constructed, or noncognitive. They have argued further that contextual dimensions of justification are incompatible with hierarchical dimensions of justification. Each of these claims is refuted, and a developmental account of foundationalism is sketched that allows for justificatory revisions while preserving necessary hierarchical justificatory relationships ultimately grounded in perceptual states. This latter is accomplished by rejecting traditional foundationalism's insistence upon the incorrigibility of basic propositions, and by showing that conceptual or logical revisions can force reconstructions or modifications without severing a hierarchy's connection to perceptual states. |
