Anti-foundationalism
From Geography
Anti-foundationalism, as the name implies, is a term applied to any philosophy which rejects a foundationalist approach. An anti-foundationalist is one who refuses a vision of knowledge as ' grounded in reality' or as charged with the task of 'reflecting' the world (Rorty, 1979). They do not believe that there is some fundamental belief or principle which is the basic ground or foundation of inquiry and knowledge (Wordiq, 2010).
A famous methaphor from Otto Neurath (Vienna Circle) wil crarify this anti-foundationalist thought. In the 1930s, Neurath wrote ( in Thagard & Beam 2010) :
There is no way of taking conclusively established pure protocol sentences as the starting point of the sciences. We are like sailors who must rebuild their ship on the open sea, never able to dismantle it in dry-dock and to reconstruct it there out of the best materials. Only the metaphysical elements can be allowed to vanish without trace. Vague linguist conglomerations always remain in one way or another as components of the ship.
Our 'ship on open sea' must be repaired by workman who, in order to replace any one plank, have to stand on planks which themselves may later have to be replaced (Wordiq, 2010). This means that our new knowledge is often based on old knowledge which will change and disappear over time. According to anti-foundationalism there is no foundation
Anti-foundationalists use logical or historical/geneological attacks on foundational concepts, often coupled with alternative methods for justifying and forwarding intellectual inquiry, such as the pragmatic subordination of knowledge to practical action
Sources:
Paul Thagard and Craig Beam
Philosophy Department, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L 3G1
http://cogsci.uwaterloo.ca/Articles/epistemological.html
Rorty, R. (1979) Philosophy and the mirrow of nature. Priceton, NJ: Princeton University Press
http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Anti-foundationalism
does not believe that there is some fundamental belief or principle which is the basic ground or foundation of inquiry and knowledge. foucault, Nietzsche
