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C. I. Lewis's Radical Foundationalism

1975; Wiley; Volume: 9; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.2307/2214522

1468-0068

Mark Pastin,

Philosophy and History of Science

No topic was of more concern to C. I. Lewis than the foundations of empirical knowledge. Lewis held (i) that empirical knowledge has empirical foundations and (ii) that these foundations are in the given data of sense and in memory. On both of these points the judgment of history, if so brief a history has judgment, has been negative. I believe that this judgment has been twice incorrect. My concern is with (i). While Lewis accepted a version of (i) which is open to serious objections, I shall provide a version of (i) which is not open to these objections. I shall examine one sort of consideration which may have led Lewis to accept his version of (i) rather than mine. In doing this, I shall explore some of the relations among credibilities, probabilities, and the probability calculus. Before turning to these tasks, I shall introduce some of Lewis's assumptions and terminology.