Concept
Anti-foundationalism
Overview
Anti-foundationalism (also called nonfoundationalism) is any philosophy which rejects a foundationalist approach. An anti-foundationalist is one who does not believe that there is some fundamental belief or principle which is the basic ground or foundation of inquiry and knowledge.
Anti-foundationalism can be metaphysical (positing a ground of being or metaphysical foundation), ethical (positing some value or virtue as fundamental), epistemological (i.e. the foundationalist theory of justification) or apply to some other field with foundationalist theories.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
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There is much more care and modesty, logic and inventiveness, in a word, more philosophical method in the work of the special sciences than in the so-called "philosophy," and every one will agree with the temperate words of Bagehot[2] on the present system builders: "Unproved abstract principles without number have been eagerly caught up by sanguine men, and then carefully spun out into books and theories, which…
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Thoughts Out of Season, Part II
The author is tied to Anti-foundationalism in the knowledge graph.
But a second and worse defect in a philosophy than that of contradicting our active propensities is to give them no object whatever to press against. A philosophy whose principle is so incommensurate with our most intimate powers as to deny them all {83} relevancy in universal affairs, as to annihilate their motives at one blow, will be even more unpopular than pessimism. Better face the enemy than the eternal Void!…
William James, The Will to Believe, and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy
States what Anti-foundationalism is.
2. "HOW COULD anything originate out of its opposite? For example, truth out of error? or the Will to Truth out of the will to deception? or the generous deed out of selfishness? or the pure sun-bright vision of the wise man out of covetousness? Such genesis is impossible; whoever dreams of it is a fool, nay, worse than a fool; things of the highest value must have a different origin, an origin of THEIR own--in this…
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil
The author is tied to Anti-foundationalism in the knowledge graph.
Philosophers who discussed Anti-foundationalism
Related ideas
- Friedrich Nietzsche
- Foundationalism
- John Searle
- Edward Said
- Linguistic turn
- Neopragmatism
- Metaphysics
- Cybernetics
- Niklas Luhmann
- Charles Taylor (philosopher)
- Michel Foucault
- Moral relativism
- Stanley Fish
- Epistemology
- Ethics
- Social construct
Place in the tradition
Part of Analytic philosophy.