Hi everyone,

Perhaps it might be helpful to add at least another author's view of what
constitutes "foundationalism" in philosophy and ethics.

Ray:
>>I have a little problem trying to understand just what "foundationalism"
>>*is*. That is, I don't think that I really understand the "foundationalism"
>>question.
>
>Chris Hope:
>I was confused at the start too. There is a helpful definition a bit
>further into the paper:
>
>"Moral justifications are foundational if they posit the existence of
>certain basic or privileged beliefs which are supported non-inferentially.
>Such premises are generally claimed to be a priori, self-evident, or
>directly justified in some manner; they do not depend upon any other
>beliefs for their support."

In the article we're discussing, Minteer relies on (among other sources)
Don Herzog's book on political philosophy, _Without Foundations:
Justification in Political Theory_ (Cornell, 1985).  Herzog provides a
fairly concise overview of "foundationalism" in the introduction to his
book and relates it to the basic philosophical problem of justification.  I
will just copy a few paragraphs from his book in the hopes of further
clarifying what some philosophers take foundationalism to be.  (My earlier
remarks on foundationalism have obviously been influenced by Herzog's
account.)

Herzog:

". . . The conception of justification .  .  .  [that a foundational]
argument summons up should be clear: one finds axiomatic premises and then
deduces the position to be justified.  Philosophers have traditionally
called this a foundationalist view of justification, and I will adopt their
coinage here.  But I do not wish to treat the geometric model as the sum
and substance of foundationalism.  Instead I take it as an especially vivid
member of a broader class of arguments.  That broader class is what I call
foundationalist.  One way to characterize its salient features is this: any
political justification worthy of the name must be grounded on principles
that are (1) undeniable and immune to revision and (2) located outside of
society and politics.  The first proviso allows for alternatives to
self-evidence: perhaps no rational agent would deny the principles, or
experience would be impossible without them, or we can show that God has
promulgated them.  The second proviso is deliberately open-ended: the
foundationalists [including Hobbes, Locke, Bentham, and Sidgwick] I discuss
.  .  . appeal to unalterable facts of human nature, to language, to
theology and principles of rationality, and more.

	"This characterization of foundationalism is more suggestive than
sharply defined.  One might well desire a much crisper account. In what
sense must the premises be undeniable?  Must they be immune to revision
from any and all quarters, or just from some quarters?  Language is as
thoroughly a social creation as anything else; just what does it mean to
say language is outside society and politics?  But I will not offer any
further abstract account of foundationalism.  Indeed I believe the demand
for one should be resisted.  For many theoretical concepts, definitions are
either unavailable or unhelpful; foundationalism is one such concept.  Yet
definition is not the only way to gain an understanding of a concept.  One
alternative--a decidedly better one here--is to get a rough sense of what
the concept is about and then to examine some instantiations of it.  A
suggestive characterization is enough to alert us to family resemblances
without blinding us to interesting differences among members of the family.
Besides,  .  .  .  foundationalism is in part incurably metaphorical.

	"In any case, the general idea of a foundational argument is
familiar enough to begin.  Foundationalism often seems the very model of
justification.  Only a foundational argument, we want to say, could
possibly provide a justification.  Indeed there are good reasons for
finding such arguments attractive; they have a number of genuine virtues I
am happy to concede.  Typically they are masterpieces of clarity and rigor.
They derive enormous critical power by applying a set of extrapolitical
standards to politics.  They move far more briskly and decisively than our
everyday political arguments.  They boast immutable first principles that
would give political theorists a fair claim to the timelessness they often
seek.  If they worked, they would resolve all our doubts and
disagreements--even the kind of doubts generated by skeptics, the sort who
will question any view, any premise, however sensible it seems.

	"But they do not work.  That is a historical claim: I know of no
successful foundational argument in political theory, or, for that matter,
in any other field.  However attractive it may seem, then, foundationalism
is the view I mean to attack.  I have no airtight metatheoretical case to
offer, no way of showing that foundational arguments are doomed to fail;
the issues at stake are forbiddingly abstruse.  I can suggest immediately,
though, that is Plato, Hobbes, Kant, Sidgwick, and countless brilliant
others all failed, the reasonable hypothesis is that they were trying to
square a circle.  In the course of the discussion I will offer some other
observations on the flaws of foundationalism" (20-22).

Jim again: in some ways Minteer's method in the article we're discussing
resembles that of Herzog.  Rather than attempting a comprehensive
definition of what "foundationalism" is in every case, Minteer offers a
overview or a sketch of how he views the term, and then moves on to
examining how the actual arguments of some selected environmental thinkers
(Rolston, Callicott, Katz) exhibit foundational tendencies.  I think that
Herzog's final point--that philosophers committed to foundationalism are in
some sense trying to "square a circle"--is especially important to keep in
mind when reading Minteer's essay.  One might easily extend Minteer's
analysis to other systematic or foundationalist environmental philosophers
such as Paul Taylor, for example.

Hope this helps with the further definition and/or conceptualization of
"foundationalism."

Jim T.