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Full Idea
Radical foundationalism suffers from two weaknesses: there are not so many perfectly obvious truths as Descartes thought; and if we restrict ourselves to what it truly obvious, very little supposed common sense knowledge can be proved.
Gist of Idea
There are very few really obvious truths, and not much can be proved from them
Source
Ernest Sosa (The Raft and the Pyramid [1980], §3)
Book Ref
'Epistemology - An Anthology', ed/tr. Sosa,E. /Kim,J. [Blackwell 2000], p.136
A Reaction
It is striking how few examples can ever be found of self-evident a priori truths. However, if there are self-evident truths about direct experience (pace Descartes), that would give us more than enough.
8798 | Vision causes and justifies beliefs; but to some extent the cause is the justification [Sosa] |
8799 | If mental states are not propositional, they are logically dumb, and cannot be foundations [Sosa] |
8794 | There are very few really obvious truths, and not much can be proved from them [Sosa] |
8795 | Mental states cannot be foundational if they are not immune to error [Sosa] |
8796 | A single belief can trail two regresses, one terminating and one not [Sosa] |
8797 | The negation of all my beliefs about my current headache would be fully coherent [Sosa] |