Foundationalism is a sound theory of epistemic justification

Overview: The attempts of foundationalist epistemology and the epistemic regress argument.Foundationalism seeks to provide justification for what properly counts as justified true belief. The specific method of justification which foundationalism employs may be contrasted with competing epistemic theories of justification such as infinitism, coherentism, and lesser known foundherentism. These theories all employ specific conditions under which knowledge may be justified. The most common and well known argument for foundationalism specifically (and the one which I will choose to employ in this debate) is the regress argument. Written in formally, the argument may be expressed as the following: To be justified in believing some proposition A, one must have reason B for believing so. No proposition is self-justifying. I am not justified in believing something without some reason at least for believing so. Take for example the color of the underwear I am currently wearing. Consider the proposition ‘Socialpinko is currently wearing plaid pink and black boxers.’ Surely in order to be epistemically justified in believing this proposition one would need to have a reason in the first place. Why does one believe I am wearing that specific type of undergarment and not green boxers or none at all? Whether that reason is because one saw me put them on or because I have a habit of wearing undergarments of that type isn’t important here. The fact remains that it is not some necessary fact that I will be wearing plaid pink and black boxers at this time in all possible worlds and thus inference is necessary. To be justified in believing reason B (in order to justify belief in proposition A), one must have further reason C for believing so. This premise follows straightforwardly from the above. If one needs a reason (B) to believe a proposition (A), there must also be a reason supporting belief that that specific reason is also true. If C is false then neither B nor A can be said to be truly justified belief. Even if B and A are true propositions, one will not be justified in holding them on the basis of C. Consider the example of my underwear choice. Proposition A is that I am currently wearing plaid pink and black boxers. Some reason B can be given in support of proposition A such as the reason that wearing plaid pink and black boxers is the necessary result of having red hair. But it isn’t clear that having red hair necessitates wearing any specific type of undergarment. Some other reason C must therefore be given to believe that hair color determines underwear type, color, and style. Conclusion: Infinite inferential series and the need for termination via non-inferential propositions. Considering the previous points, it should be clear that without some foundational propositions on which to non-inferentially base knowledge, true justified belief is not possible. The infinite regress argument shows that so long as the proposition in question is inferentially known, there will be the need to justify some proposition on the end of an ever-growing (infinite in fact as the name of the argument suggests) series of propositions. True justification will never be attained as the source of knowledge will always elude the questioner. Imagine that your reason why hair color determines the details of one’s undergarments is because a little birdie told you. Pressed you say a baby rat brought you a message detailing the reliability of the bird, etc. etc. on ad infinitum. We never get to the ultimate justification of whether or not the proposition that I am wearing plaid pink and white boxers are justified true belief. Some non-inferential proposition or propositions will always be necessary for true justified belief, to fulfill the role of terminating an infinite inferential series.