On behalf of foundationalism: an Investigation of Keith Lehrer’s Objections on foundationalism

Having distinguished between corrigible foundationalism and incorrigible one, Keith Lehrer made three main objections to incorrigible traditional foundationalism. In the first objection he holds that there are only a very few basic beliefs and these limited basic beliefs cannot stand as foundation for the system of human knowledge. In the second objection he calls to question the way in which non-basic beliefs are based on basic ones. Finally in his third objection he criticized the most important argument of foundationalists in favor of their position in justification of knowledge i.e. argument from vicious circle and infinite regress. He tries to invalidate the argument with the clam that the justificatory chain need not go on ad infinitum or in circular way be justified on any previous knot but if justificatory process is made in a social context and when a belief is matter of agreement on both sides, the chain will come to halt.
All three objections of Lehrer seem to be flawed. To begin with, in discussing basic beliefs he totally neglected the role of rational self-evident propositions. Secondly the progressive epistemic transfer from self-evident to theoretical (derivative) proposition is made through argument and finally the mere agreement of rival sides on a given belief does not mean that it is justified.