Epistemological Foundationalism

Abstract

Chisholm’s theory of knowledge is a classical formulation of the contemporary epistemological foundationalism. The theory consists of the formal part, where the hierarchy of the basic epistemic values is formulated and of the material part, containing the material rules that allow to correlate the epistemic values with the particular mental states.
In the paper Chisholm’s hierarchy of the epistemic values and his material rules are discussed. Chisholm’s thesis of the priviledged access to the private mental states and the so called adverbial theory of sense data which is a characteristic feature of Chisholm’s approach are analyzed. His foundationalism proves to be an iterative foundationalism in Alston’s sense and his adverbial theory of the sense data allows to
avoid some philosophical misconceptions.