ABSTRACT
This chapter presents some initial motivations for holding that something like flexible foundationalism is attractive as a view about the structure of epistemic justification. It shows how flexible foundationalism can be developed along different lines, some of which would be classified as contextualist in contemporary parlance, others of which would count as sensitive invariantist, relativist, or even expressivist. The chapter suggests that flexible foundationalism has fruitful applications to recent epistemological debates, using the internalism/externalism debate as a case study. Flexible foundationalists are no different – in particular, flexible foundationalism can be seen as stemming from dissatisfaction with traditional answers to the regress problem. The chapter discusses the routes to flexible foundationalism that have been typically seen as such by their proponents. Part of the appeal of flexible foundationalism is the idea that it can accept what is attractive about traditional forms of foundationalism without taking on their burdens.
