Mid-term Grading Key

Total possible points = 50

Section 1

#1

CF =	You outlined the basic tenants of classical foundationalism , giving me something like the

following: Foundationalists hold that beliefs can be justified in one of two ways; they can

be self-justifying (basic) usually by being self-evident, or they can be justified by a chain

of reasoning terminating in only self-justified beliefs ( nonbasic ) and which transmits the

certainty of the basic beliefs to the inferred beliefs.	7pts

NE =	You clearly delineated one or more of the notions of naturalized epistemology we discussed in class.	7pts

YA =	You presented and argued for a position as to whether one could be a naturalized

epistemologist and a classical foundationalist .	11pts

______________

total	25pts

#2

RA =	You told me what the regress argument was, preferably by stating it.	4pts

SP =	You explicated Sosa 's position regarding the regress argument, namely that it fails to establish

the foundationalist conclusion since it fails to exclude infinite justificatory regresses.	4pts

CE =	You offered a clear and well-argued evaluation of Sosa 's position.	9pts

HC =	You discussed whether Sosa 's position would help the coherentist position, hopefully noting	8pts

that coherence theory does not gain much from Sosa 's position as it does not presuppose

an infinite justificatory regress and, in fact, is generally characterized as being circular.

You might well have noted that BonJour rejects the linear notion of justification which

underlies the regress argument.

_____________

total	25pts

Section 2

#2

KP =	You told me exactly how Kim views Quine's position, i.e., that it is version of the what

Kornblith calls the replacement thesis.	3pts

SP =	You told me exactly how Stroud views Quine's position, i.e., (1) that it accepts the basic

distinction between our beliefs about the world given our evidence and world's actual nature,

(2) that our evidence is consistent with many possible ontological pictures, (3) that Quine

sees the natural sceptical question as somehow significantly a scientific question.	3pts

KA =	You presented Kim's argument to the effect that Quine's project is (a) not really epistemology

and (b) not internally consistent in that it requires normative concepts for belief attribution.	7pts

SA=	You presented Stroud 's argument to the effect that (a) Quine's project fails to address

traditional epistemic worries that he acknowledges as legitimate (i.e., the justified elimination

of possibilities inconsistent with our having knowledge of the external world) and (b) that it

is not internally coherent in the sense that it would appeal to theories and evidence, the

epistemic status of which it already calls into question to reach conclusions that are causal

explanations of the genesis of beliefs as opposed to an explanation of why beliefs are justified.	7pts

RA =	You gave me a well-stated and well-reasoned evaluation of at least one of the arguments in which

you articulated what you believe is Quine's position.	5pts

_____________

total	25pts