A Study Of Susan Haack’s Foundherentism

The concept of justification is extremely important in contemporary analytical philosophy and epistemology.The research on the concept of justification has been plagued by the “infinite regress problem”.Both foundationalism and coherentism,as competing theories,try to give an answer to the problem of the infinite regress problem.Foundationalists endorse that beliefs are justified by an agent’s intuitions or self-examinations,or are supported by the beliefs thus justified.The coherentists endorse that the justification is regard as relationship between beliefs,so they interpret the beliefs to be justified as beliefs that coexist with other beliefs held by the agent.However,both theories encounter formidable difficulties.Susan Haack put forward a better epistemological justified theory than traditional competitors: foundherentism.Susan Haack acknowledges the value that experience provides in justifying beliefs,but denies the existence of any foundational beliefs having special status.She agrees that beliefs can support each other through interpenetrating coherent relationships,and strives to make an appropriate status in the coherentism for experience.Susan Haack implanted experience into the theoretical framework of the coherentism,and applied coherence to the theoretical framework of the foundationalism.Therefore,on the basis of the foundationalism and the coherentism,Susan Haack proposed a justification theory that can cope with both and avoid their respective shortcomings.This paper takes Susan Haack’s foundherentism as the research object,and attempts to give some reconsiderations to the concept of epistemological justification.The content of the full text is developed according to the following clues.Firstly,this article takes the infinite regress problem faced by epistemological justification as the starting point,and then discusses the foundationalism’s and the coherentism’s solutions to this problem,as well as the questions or the criticisms on these solutions.Besides that,this paper summarizes the main difference between the two traditional epistemological justification theories.Secondly,this paper focuses on Susan Haack’s solution to the problem of the infinite regress problem.Susan Haack criticized both the foundationalism and the coherentism,but she did not abandon them.Instead,she attempted to put forward a epistemological justification theory combining the two theories by redefining the basis of the belief justification and retaining coherence as a necessary condition for the belief justification.In addition,this article also evaluates whether the foundherentism can completely solve the infinite regress problem.Finally,this paper reviews the foundherentism from three aspects.Jaap Hage also tried to combine the foundationalism and the coherentism,and then proposed integrated coherentism.This article compares Susan Haack’s foundherentism with Jaap Hage’s integrated coherentism,and shows the special significance of the former.In addition,this paper also compares the foundherentism with weak foundationalism,and points out the differences between them.In order to further show the characteristics of the foundherentism,this article also specifically explores the role of experience in epistemological justification under the framework of the foundherentism.