Page History

SCANNED PDF

Is there any sense in which metaphysical beliefs may be said to provide the foundation for other kinds of beliefs?

If metaphysics is justified in its claim to explicate the basic beliefs that all of our other beliefs – basic beliefs—basic as well as nonbasic – necessarily nonbasic—necessarily presuppose, then there is at least this sense in which metaphysical beliefs may be said to provide the foundation for all other kinds of beliefs.

...

This means that the distinction between narrower and broader senses of "foundationalism," helpful as it may be in other connections, is irrelevant here. Metaphysical beliefs do not provide the basis for all other kinds of beliefs in the sense that they explicate the basic beliefs from which all other nonbasic beliefs may somehow be derived by rational inference. Moreover, it lies in the nature of the case that no properly metaphysical belief can be, in principle, any more or any less basic than any other. If a whole system of metaphysical beliefs can be derived from the premise, "Something exists,' " clear-headed theists contend that the same is true if one argues instead from the premise, "God exists." 

...