After some deliberation I have decided on a project for my thesis. I have chosen to write about Coherentism with special attention on the Isolation Objection and responses to it. This was my original idea for a topic and I thought maybe I would branch out but I think this will be the best bet. With this topic I can focus on one thing and really hit it home, hopefully. I am glad to have been able to read a little bit off topic however, and I think I will be doing a lot more research on epistemic theories of justification in the future. At the moment I am planning on taking a serious look at BonJour's and Lehrer's responses to the isolation objection and I would much appreciate any further suggestions.
I am also beginning to think about the structure of the paper as I begin to write. I will definitely be sketching a basic coherence theory and a basic isolation objection. At the moment I am trying to figure out how I will be beginning the paper. My initial idea is to discuss theories of epistemic justification, namely foundationalism, and then to explain some reasons for rejecting earlier theories. I will sketch the Sellarsian dilemma of the Myth of the Given as a main objection to Foundationalism and then give reasons for trying to find other theories to answer the skeptical argument for the regress of justification. From here I will give Coherence theories as the best option and sketch out what I take to be a basic theory of Coherentism. That is all so far.
I am still out on deciding what I take to be the best possibility for a theory of epistemic justification. Susan Haack's foundherentism seems to be a great idea bringing together both foundationalist tendencies and coherence as a main constituent, yet it seems that this theory must fall into either of the two categories it is trying to combine. And thus it succumbs to the objections of its parentage.
New-Old Fashioned Foundationalism like that of Fumerton and BonJour are both very interesting, but I worry that direct acquaintance has as many definitional issues as coherence. Also I feel that BonJour's constituative apperception of the content of sensual beliefs seems a bit tacked on or ad hoc. I am not sure of this, but I feel that if his theory were to be true then it wouldn't be provable by any means.
Externalism like that of Pollock and Plantinga seems plausible as well, but again here I feel that both may turn out to be unprovable. Pollock's theory will simply be subject to probability ratings if it escapes the problems of reliablism, and Plantinga's design plans will only be proven if Christ returns or if one finds themselves dead and in the afterlife (which is not much help to us here).
So again I am brought back to coherence and I am not exactly sure what to do. Hopefully in my investigations of the isolation objection I will be drawn to one way of answering the problem. If I can find a way to explain input (especially sense input) into a coherentist system, then a coherence theory would probably be the most defensible.
As always, any suggestions or questions are welcome
Kyle
