Coherentism VS Foundationalism as a theory of justification You are welcome. And thank you for sharing your thoughts.
No need really for me. Either is a fine choice. I will counter your question with another question.
Can you justify both without criticizing either. I think both should be embraced. In which proportions is another matter — Paul S
I think you hit the nail on the head. I am leaning toward the conclusion that one can justify both, but in different domains of knowledge. I'd argue that Foundationalist theory of justification is a default method in almost all circumstance, especially when assessing the propositions that originate in the physical world, and especially through our experiences. Coherentism must exclusively be applied to assessing the propositions that came in the form of a testimony. The reason is simple, it is often impossible to apply an inference from first principles to someone else's testimony. (At least, it is unlikely to find the basic truths that one can use for justifying his belief in the testimony)
For example, suppose your friend enters your house and says that "he feels cold" and "he has a fever". You assess your other beliefs such as that "the weather is warm outside ", "it is a flue season", "he appears sick". You conclude that those beliefs are consistent with his statements. Hence you are justified to believe the proposition that he has a cold.
Now suppose one was to apply foundationalism to justify believing in your friends statement. I don't see how one can make an inference chain that can justify it. The only possibility is something like the following: 1) i believe in his statement because he isn't a lier. 2) He isn't a lier because he has always said truth 3) ......and so on. The point is, >>the chain must start from a statement, "i believe the testimony because the source of the testimony is trustworthy"<<. The problem is that >>such chain of inference doesn't start from the basic truths<<. It starts from a necessary conclusion and goes toward basic truths. That contradicts foundationalism.