The Foundations of Knowledge

Book excerpt: Contemporary epistemology has been moving away from classical foundationalism--the thesis that our empirical knowledge is grounded in perceptual beliefs we know with certainty. McGrew reexamines classical foundationalism and offers a compelling reconstruction and defense of empirical knowledge grounded in perceptual certainty. He articulates and defends a new version of foundationalism and demonstrates how it meets all the standard criticisms. The book offers substantial rebuttals of the arguments of Kuhn and Rorty and demonstrates the value of the classical analytic approach to philosophy. Foundations will interest philosophers of science, language, and the mind.