anti-foundationalism
No bedrock needed
Anti-foundationalism is the philosophical position that knowledge and belief systems don't rest on any bedrock of self-evident truths or indubitable foundations.
Where foundationalism seeks certain starting points from which all other knowledge derives, anti-foundationalism holds that all beliefs are provisional and mutually supporting rather than built on unshakeable ground.
The view appears across philosophy, literary theory, and legal scholarship: Her anti-foundationalism made her skeptical of claims to objective truth.
Reason proving rightness
- contextualismBelief justification varies situationally
- holismWholes trump components
- pragmatismPractical problem-solving philosophy
- warrantFormal authorization document
epistemic · circularity · regress · beliefs · knowledge · certainty · infallibility · self-evidence
Analysis exposing self-contradiction
- metanarrativeAll-encompassing explanatory framework
- DerridaGrammatology's French author
- FoucaultProminent French family name
- discourseFormal communication on subjects
intertextuality · contingency · hermeneutics · historicism · genealogy
Coexistence of differing views
- constructivismActive knowledge-building theory
- subjectivismBelief truth is personal
- nominalismUniversals exist as labels only
- indeterminacyLack of fixed outcome
flux · variability · particularism · culturalism · multiculturalism · antirealism · diversity
Unyielding adherence to doctrine
- absolutismUnrestricted governmental authority
- essentialismDoctrine of fixed natures
- universalismDoctrine of total reconciliation
- objectivismBelief in external truths
correspondence · givenness · incorrigibility · reductionism · rationalism · empiricism · transcendentalism
justification
Reason proving rightness
- contextualismBelief justification varies situationally
- holismWholes trump components
- pragmatismPractical problem-solving philosophy
warrant · epistemic · circularity · regress · beliefs · knowledge · certainty · infallibility · self-evidence · axiomatic
deconstruction
Analysis exposing self-contradiction
- metanarrativeAll-encompassing explanatory framework
- DerridaGrammatology's French author
- FoucaultProminent French family name
discourse · intertextuality · contingency · hermeneutics · historicism · genealogy
pluralism
Coexistence of differing views
- constructivismActive knowledge-building theory
- subjectivismBelief truth is personal
- nominalismUniversals exist as labels only
indeterminacy · flux · variability · particularism · culturalism · multiculturalism · antirealism · diversity
dogmatism
Unyielding adherence to doctrine
- absolutismUnrestricted governmental authority
- essentialismDoctrine of fixed natures
- universalismDoctrine of total reconciliation
objectivism · correspondence · givenness · incorrigibility · reductionism · rationalism · empiricism · transcendentalism
- American Philosophypragmatism, William James, John Dewey, Ralph Waldo Emerson, transcendentalism
- postmodernismdeconstruction, metafiction, hyperreality, pastiche, metanarrative
- philosophyethics, logic, metaphysics, ontology, epistemology
- critical theorydeconstruction, Marxism, feminism, simulacrum, postcolonialism
- ontologyontology, being, existence, becoming, universals
anti-foundationalismessentialism
Doctrine of fixed natures
absolutism · objectivism · universalism · Platonism · transcendentalism
found, foundation, founder, founding, foundations, foundational, foundationless