ted the minds making them mechanical and incapable to deal with the problems of human life. The great writers, like Hawthorn ( Rappachini's Daughter ), Dickens ( Hard Times ), Gette (in his critique of Newtonian theory of light), exposed a real problem. Existentialism itself was a reaction on the mental inclination of the time to artificial mechanical mode of thinking. To be able to act like a machine, even as intricate as computer, does not presuppose to understand (keep in mind the Chinese Room argument). And humans need both action and understanding. No matter what Modernists and Post-modernists say, those two differ from each other, because there are different levels of understanding connected with the same action at different times and in cases of different people. Some actions could be done without understanding at all, like in the case of hypnotic suggestion, or mechanically under the influence of external causes. So when we face real of imaginary difficulties with faundationalist approach to epistemology why should we take another foundation in disguise of coherentism? p> Among other objections to A Priori Foundationalism E & F criticize the Euclidean geometry on the pretext of theories of Riemann and Lobachevsky. But the authors, as well as those who are convinced by this line of thought, obviously do not have mathematical background. Mathematicians know very well the concept of the area of ​​ applicability of the algorithm . Euclidean theory is applicable only to plane surfaces, and he never tried to apply it to spherical or curved ones. Riemann and Lobachevsky in their turn never suggested applying their theories to the planes. So there is no problem at all except learning of mathematics and using its foundations properly. But the latter problem is not a problem of epistemology.
The argument against the logical law of the excluded middle by Quine and Putnam consists of speculations about quantum mechanics. But physicists use terms wave and particle to signify certain properties of a thing not the thing itself. When I say, "I am strong and flexible", I talk about two different properties of one thing, my body, and not about two mutually exclusive characteristics. Who said that wave and particle are mutually exclusive? A portion of a wave could be considered as a particle! A limited quantity of energy is, in a sense, a particle. So here also there is no real problem or threat to the concept of the excluded middle. I strongly suspect that other objections to faundationalism could be resolved as well with proper scrutiny.
So called philosophers of science often refer to Einstein's theory of Relativity trying, and surprisingly successfully, use it like a charm or religious dogma when they think it would help them to impress non-physicists. But, like any physical theory, it has its problems of different calibers, and those still have not reached the consensus of professionals. Particularly the incompatibility of Einstein's and Plank's views on probability, the unresolved problem of unified theory of field of force and more. Einstein's efforts to explain gravitation through geometry of space turned into tautology, which shows that he was not a great logician. But it is easy to hypnotize naive people without real education in physics, who seek new foundational re-assurances after being rapidly liberated from the old ones, which they did not understand too much also, but liked to believe in them anyway. This spirit of fast acquirement of new beliefs relates to the spirit of our time: fast food (often cheap and not healthy), fast sex (often confused and meaningless), fast shopping (often of items we do not actually need). This is one of the reasons to argue for the philosophy, which traditionally deals with all kinds of beliefs, regardless of time and effort, in its dedication to the truth and clarity. p> I argue that foundational beliefs are necessary for the normal (healthy) functioning of our mind, and the only choice available to us is the choice between different kinds of those, and not between foundations and their annihilation. I think, Kant would agree to include the foundational tendency into his Categories of Pure Understanding . Still the category of Causality lies probably close to that - when we look for the cause, we look for some foundational idea, which explains an event or another idea, in a sense. And, yes, epistemologically we can see the threat of infinite regress here, but in reality we stop somewhere saying: "this link of the infinite chain is quite obvious or self-evident , at least for the time. Later we doubt the link (the foundation) and immediately look out for another link which at this time we are happy to accept as a ne...
