Cartesian foundationalism is an evidentialism theory of justification that argues that justified beliefs are ultimately based on some indubitable, self-evident foundational beliefs that provide a rock-solid base for the rest of our knowledge. In order to understand the claims in this paper, I must clarify the definitions of appearance beliefs and external beliefs. Appearance beliefs are beliefs about your inner states of mind. An example of this would be if I am experiencing pain or I am thinking of a green elephant. Essentially how things visually seem to you, or how you might feel. External beliefs, on the other hand, are beliefs about the world outside of our internal states. An example of this would be if my skin was burned on the stove or I watched TV last night. It is important to note that these beliefs are harder to justify (recall the brain in a vat example). In this paper I will make the argument that the…show more content… In section one I will explain cartesian foundationalism. In section two I will explain the objection of the frying pan case. Lastly, in section three I will give an explanation as to why I do not believe that the Frying pan argument disproves the second claim of cartesian foundationalism.
Section 1 All versions of foundationalism accept the fundamental claims that there are justified basic beliefs (beliefs that are justified but are not justified by other beliefs). Cartesian foundationalism is no different; it establishes that if there are no justified basic beliefs then either: There are no justified basic beliefs at all, a justified belief can be justified by an unjustified belief (which seems like a wrong conclusion), we can have an infinite regress of justified beliefs which
