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changes, this change seems to make it reasonable now to believe a hypothesis that wasn't supported by your previous beliefs. It seems to do so even if you haven't yet changed your beliefs. The change in the conscious character of your experience seems to explain why a change in your beliefs is called for. Foundationalists find support for their idea that some beliefs are justified without the need from support from further beliefs in examples like this one. In response to the question “What could justify your belief if not some further belief?”, many foundationalists now believe that rational support from experience is a good answer. Foundational beliefs needn't be arbitrary beliefs, and it needn't be irresponsible to believe without support from further beliefs, not if experience can function as another kind of justifier.

      2.4 The questions we will take up in this chapter are questions about perceptual experience and its epistemic role. Many foundationalists are now attracted to this view:

      Perceptual experience is, on this view, a source of justification for these beliefs. If perceptual experience provides this kind of immediate justification (and, all else being well, knowledge) and puts you in the enviable situation where no further evidence is needed to settle a question, how exactly does it do so? To answer this question, we'll need to answer two further questions. One question is a question about the epistemic regress discussed in the previous chapter: how exactly can an epistemic regress be stopped? We also need to answer a related question about perceptual experience: does perceptual experience have what it takes to stop the regress of justification?

      2.5 To understand how epistemic regresses come to a stop (and whether experiences can stop them), it helps to think about how they get started in the first place. Thinking about the differences between beliefs that are justified and beliefs that are not should help us understand what something needs to have good epistemic standing. In turn, this should help us understand what justifiers must provide to give beliefs this good standing.

      2.6 We might feel the need for supporting reasons for our beliefs most strongly when we recognize our own epistemic failings. Consider this passage from Descartes' Meditations:

      Some years ago I was struck by how many false things I had believed, and by how doubtful was the structure of beliefs that I had based on them. I realized that if I wanted to establish anything in the sciences that was stable and likely to last, I needed – just once in my life – to demolish everything completely and start again from the foundations … My reason tells me that as well as withholding assent from propositions that are obviously false, I should also withhold it from ones that are not completely certain and indubitable.

      (1641, p. 1)

      2.7 On this way of looking at things, if something stops a justificatory regress, it must provide us with certainty. Call this position Cartesian foundationalism:

      Cartesian foundationalism (regress‐stopping claim): something stops the regress of justification by constituting a justifier for our foundationally justified beliefs iff this is something distinct from a belief that provides the thinker with certainty that her foundational belief is true.

      If this is the right way to think about the termination of the epistemic regress, then the question as to whether experience can stop the epistemic regress can be restated as a question about whether experience can provide us with the right kind of certainty.

      2.9 In addition to this point about tolerating risks, it's worth highlighting a related point about our sources themselves. Just step back and think about paradigmatic cases of knowledge and of justified belief. Think about the knowledge we can gain by looking online. You might look online and find numbers for your favorite restaurants. It's quite natural to think that in committing the number to memory, you come to know that the number to your favorite takeout place is 07963‐123 456. It's natural because you know that the book was carefully researched. Imagine that you also discover that the book contains this line in the opening pages of the book: “Although we went to great lengths to ensure the accuracy of each entry, we are sure that mistakes will eventually be discovered and we will need to make changes accordingly.” It's tempting to think that you know the book contains at least one error. These knowledge ascriptions suggest that the fallibility of the book is compatible with the further idea that you can stop the regress of justification and come to know or justifiably believe things about phone numbers by consulting the book. If some paradigmatic cases of knowledge are cases where we gain knowledge from fallible sources, it's not at all clear why the fallibility of the senses should be taken to be a reason to think that the senses do not provide adequate justificatory support for our perceptual beliefs. If we do not need certainty to justifiably draw an inference, why should certainty be required for non‐inferential justification?

      2.10 Most foundationalists now accept this less stringent view:

      Modest foundationalism (regress‐stopping claim): something stops the regress of justification by constituting a justifier for our foundationally justified

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