Foundationalism involves a distinction between basic beliefs and derived beliefs while Coherentism holds that belief is only justified with mutual belief among them. Foundationalism exalts the relevance of an individual experience to the justification of his or her belief. Coherentism is structurally the same as foundationalism in that it to some extent provides principles that stipulate conditions within which beliefs are justified. Epistemic principles for the foundationalism are principles that justify first basic propositions albeit being second level. Foundationalism does not allow epistemic principles to function as conclusions supported by perceptual belief. Coherentism belief that principles stand in relation to mutual support. It is possible to combine these two approaches and come up with a better theory of justification. .Coherentism is seen as another version of foundationalism thus they would augur well if combined. Foundherentism might provide some avenues for the further development of naturalistic coherentism. This can happen through emphasizing empirical input in coherentism and through adopting a weak version of naturalism.
A basic belief should have several qualities in order to be justifiable. The first is that a basic belief must be indubitable. This means that people can only belief of something or an event only if he or she is victim or happens to them. A good example is a man who believes that there are heart ailments only because he is suffering fro the same. Another quality is infallible. This believes in logical relations between the mere facts, an individual believe some propositions, and the proposition is true. (Pollock & Cruz 1999).Non-inferential justification is a kind of justification and the impossibility of error is important to none inferential justification. When a justification believes that a proposition that turns out to be true then that justification will entail the necessary truth. The final quality is that a basic belief must incorrigible. Incorrigibility entails self-justification. It offers certain explanation as to why certain things are self-justifying. The argument is that a proposition and its negation cannot be both incorrigibly justified without the proposition being incorrigible (Pollock & Cruz 1999). An example is that Mark is non-incorrigible to Mary. This means it is either possible for Mary to believe Mark and be wrong or for Mark to believe Mary and be wrong. Mary could discover that inductively that there are certain circumstance is under which she has propensity to believe Mark.
Sellar is wrong in her approach to the empirically based knowledge as closes the door to some basic realities. Sellars complaints about the given and the way she pins down the title. Sellar states that she begins her attack on sense- datumn theories it is the only step in a critique of the entire framework of givenness. A bit later she says that the point of epistemological category of the given is seemingly to show that the notion that emphirical knowledge rests on a foundation of non-inferential knowledge. Sellar does not direct his attack on the attack on the given to attacking sense-datumn theory.( Evans & Smith. 2012). Most of his criticisms are well taken. It is important to distinguish between direct awareness of particulars from immediate knowledge facts. It is not clear if Sellar wishes to deny all non-conceptual awareness of particulars.
Reference
Pollock, J. L., & Cruz, J. (1999). Contemporary theories of knowledge. Lanham, Md. [u.a.: Rowman & Littlefield.
Evans, I., & Smith, N. D. (2012). Knowledge. Cambridge, UK: Polity.
