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As with justification and knowledge, the traditional view of content has been strongly internalist in character. The main argument for externalism derives from the philosophy y of language, more specifically from the various phenomena pertaining to natural kind terms, indexicals, etc. that motivate the views that have come to be known as direct reference theories. Such phenomena seem at least to show that the belief or thought content that can be properly attributed to a person is dependent on facts about his environment - e.g., whether he is on Earth or Twin Earth, what is fact pointing at, the classificatory criteria employed by expects in his social group, etc. - not just on what is going on internally in his mind or brain.


An objection to externalist account of content is that they seem unable to do justice to our ability to know the content of our beliefs or thought from the inside, simply by reflection. If content is depending on external factors pertaining to the environment, then knowledge of content should depend on knowledge of these factors - which will not in general be available to the person whose belief or thought is in question.

The adoption of an externalist account of mental content would seem to support an externalist account of justification, by way that if part or all of the content of a belief inaccessible to the believer, then both the justifying status of other beliefs in relation to that content and the status of that content as justifying further beliefs will be similarly inaccessible, thus contravening the internalist requirement for justification. An internalist must insist that there are no justification relations of these sorts, that our internally associable content can be either justified or justly for anything else: But such a response appears lame unless it is coupled with an attempt to show that the externalist account of content is mistaken.

In addition, to what to the Foundationalist, but the view in epistemology that knowledge must be regarded as a structure raised upon secure, certain foundations. These are found in some combination of experience and reason, with different schools (empirical, rationalism) emphasizing the role of one over that of the other. Foundationalism was associated with the ancient Stoics, and in the modern era with Descartes, who discovered his foundations in the clear and distinct ideas of reason. Its main opponent is Coherentism or the view that a body of propositions my be known without as foundation is certain, but by their interlocking strength. Rather as a crossword puzzle may be known to have been solved correctly even if each answer, taken individually, admits of uncertainty.

Truth, alone with coherence is the study of concept, in such a study in  philosophy is that it treats both the meaning of the word true and the criteria by which we judge the truth or falsity in spoken and written statements. Philosophers have attempted to answer the question What is truth? for thousands of years. The four main theories they have proposed to answer this question are the correspondence, pragmatic, coherence, and deflationary theories of truth.

There are various ways of distinguishing types of Foundationalist epistemology by the use of the variations that have been enumerating. Planntinga has put forward an influence conception of classical Foundationalism, specified in terms of limitations on the foundations. He construes this as a disjunction of ancient and medieval Foundationalism;, which takes foundations to comprise that with self-evident and evident to the senses, and modern Foundationalism that replace evident Foundationalism that replaces evident to the senses with the replaces of evident to the senses with incorrigibly, which in practice was taken to apply only to beliefs bout ones present state of consciousness? Plantinga himself developed this notion in the context of arguing that items outside this territory, in particular certain beliefs about God, could also be immediately justified. A popular recent distinction is between what is variously strong or extremely Foundationalism and moderate, modest or minimal and moderately modest or minimal Foundationalism with the distinction depending on whether epistemic immunities are reassured of foundations. While depending on whether it require of a foundation only that it be required of as foundation, that only it be immediately justified, or whether it be immediately justified. In that it make just the comforted preferability, only to suggest that the plausibility of the string requiring stems from both a level confusion between beliefs on different levels.

Emerging sceptic tendencies come forth in the 14th-century writings of Nicholas of Autrecourt. His criticisms of any certainty beyond the immediate deliverance of the senses and basic logic, and in particular of any knowledge of either intellectual or material substances, anticipate the later scepticism of Balye and Hume. The; latter distinguishes between Pyrrhonistic and excessive scepticism, which he regarded as unlivable, and the more mitigated scepticism that accepts every day or commonsense beliefs (not as the delivery of reason, but as due more to custom and habit), but is duly wary of the power of reason to give us much more. Mitigated scepticism is thus closer to the attitude fostered by ancient scepticism from Pyrrho through to Sexus Empiricus. Although the phrase Cartesian scepticism is sometimes used, Descartes himself was not a sceptic, but in the method of doubt, uses a sceptical scenario in order to begin the process of finding a secure mark of knowledge. Descartes himself trusts a category of clear and distinct ideas, not far removed from the phantasia kataleptiké of the Stoics.

Scepticism should not be confused with relativism, which is a doctrine about the nature of truth, and may be motivated by trying to avoid scepticism. Nor is it identical with eliminativism, which counsels abandoning an area of thought together, not because we cannot know the truth, but because there are no truth capable of being framed in the terms we use.