REFORMULATING EPISTEMIC JUSTIFICATION IN FOUNDATIONALISM AND COHERENTISM THROUGH A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF CONTEMPORARY EPISTEMOLOGICAL LITERATURE

Abstract

This research aims to reformulate the understanding of epistemic justification through a comparative analysis of revisional foundationalism and coherentism in the contemporary epistemological literature. The main focus of the research is directed at how basic assumptions regarding foundation, coherence, epistemic regression, and justification normativity are revised, what conceptual and metajustificative limitations remain, as well as how comparative synthesis allows for the formulation of a framework of justification that goes beyond classical dichotomies without falling into dogmatism or epistemic relativism. The method used is a non-systematic literature review of relevant Scopus indexed journal articles, with conceptual content analysis and argumentative comparison as the main techniques. The results show that foundationalism and coherentism are both significantly revised: foundations are understood as a fallible and revisable source of initial legitimacy, coherence is reconstructed as a multidimensional normative structure, and epistemic regression is treated as a reflexively managed structural phenomenon. However, the study also found that these revisions have not completely solved the problem of epistemic justification because they still leave metajustificative limitations, especially related to the basis of normativity. This study concludes that epistemic justification in contemporary epistemology is best understood as a dynamic and pluralistic normative process, and contributes by systematically mapping patterns of conceptual revision that go beyond the foundationalism–coherentism dichotomy.