Foundationalism is a sound theory of epistemic justification

OverviewFoundationalism purports to be a sound epistemic method of justification. It sets out a specific theory of how knowledge can come to be justified, differentiated from other competing epistemic theories such as coherentism and infinitism. In this debate, I will lay out and attempt to defend foundationalism as a sound epistemic theory. Con may either choose to simply attempt to refute my arguments, or he may argue for a competing theory if he wishes. In this debate, I will defend foundationalism mainly from the perspective of the regress argument. The regress argument proceeds as follows:Premise 1: in order to be justified in believing a contingent proposition C, one must have a reason R for believing so.If a proposition is not true by necessity than it follows that there must be some inferential reason for believing it to be true. For instance, the fact that I have red hair is not true by necessity i.e. it is not true in all possible worlds. It is perfectly reasonable to imagine a world in which I would have been born with blond hair or brown hair, etc. Therefore, one would need some inferential reason for the belief "Socialpinko has red hair" to be justified. To just assume that I will have red hair without reason (even if it turns out to be true) cannot be considered justified belief as the proposition itself is not true by necessity.Premise 2: R can either be a contingent or a necessary proposition.Some propositions can be known to be necessary. That is, it's not possible to argumentatively deny them. Propositions of this nature include the classic laws of logic and the existence of one's own mind. All other propositions which must be justified via inferential reasoning can be described as contingent propositions. The terms necessary and contingent in the scope of this debate can be defined as describing propositions which are true by necessity and propositions which are not respectively. Reason R for justified belief of C is either self necessitating or must further rely on some other premise for justification.Premise 3: If R is a necessary proposition than foundationalism proves true.On foundationalism, all justified belief is ultimately grounded in belief which is non-inferentially justified. If R is true by necessity than it holds that it is non-inferentially justified and hence foundationalism.Premise 4: If R is a contingent proposition than it must also be justified by some further reason S, ad infinitum.From Premise 1, it holds that a contingent proposition can only be justified if there is some reason to believe it. If there wasn't a reason necessary than the proposition would not be contingent in the first place. But since R is contingent, we can logically assume that there must be another reason S to justify belief in reason R. However, here we are in the same epistemic state as in Premise 2. To justify reason S there must be some reason T and for reason T some reason U ad infinitum. Without a finite grounding of justification, one can never call upon the reason for the justification of some belief and thus that belief itself cannot be ultimately justified.Conclusion: There must be some foundational proposition which does not require inferential justification.Since the argument itself is valid, the premises if they hold true will necessitate the conclusion. There must be some foundational proposition or propositions from which all subsequent knowledge can be justified by reference to. It isn't impossible to figure out what some of these propositions could be. Descartes' "I think therefore I am" by itself can serve as an incontrovertible foundation for epistemic justification of existence. We start with our own minds and move on to other things from there.