ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the contextualist alternative, highlighting the ways in which it departs from the, foundationalist's "absolute" and "objective" conception. A belief's epistemic status is not an intrinsic property but depends on the believer's epistemic system. Epistemic systems vary from culture to culture or within single cultures from one historical epoch to another. Relativism has a tendency to collapse into skepticism. Examples of cultural variation in epistemic procedures are not hard to come up with. Some cultures take tribal myths and traditions, or literal readings of sacred texts, to be the last word on the origins of the tribe and even the world. In practical terms, the danger of getting trapped in an infinite regress is remote. Non-basic beliefs depend for their justification on the evidence provided by basic beliefs, so foundational theories also recognize a range of distribution principles, which transmit positive epistemic status from basic to non-basic beliefs.
