Document Type : Research
Author
Department of Theology, Moral Philosophy, University of Qom
Abstract
Foundationalism is an epistemological theory of truth in which knowledge acquires its validity from self-evident propositions, but these basic propositions, due to their conceptual clarity, are not treated as to their significance. One important, yet unanswered question is, what is the criteria for being self-evident? In this article, various definitions and conditions will be presented and then we will deal with five criteria, all of which have been mentioned in philosophical and logical literature: the first one offers immediate(presential) knowledge as a guarantee for the truth value of self-evident, the second considers self-evident as if they are incorporated in our nature, the third idea find a connection to a divine being as a solution, and finally the fourth theory is a compound one, it distinguishes between conceptual clarity and truth-value and for each one suggests an independent solution, for conceptual clarity it points out to the self-sufficiency of these propositions i.e. they do not need any external middle term to relate the subject to the predicate, and for truth value, it suggests intuition as evidence and then practical argument assists our intuition to guarantee the truth value of self-evident propositions, the last theory seems to offer a more plausible explanation than others
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