Word.ws English Dictionary

foundationalism

foundationalism noun: the doctrine that beliefs derive justification from certain basic beliefs.

Noun

foundationalism (uncountable)

  1. The doctrine that beliefs derive justification from certain basic beliefs
    • A radical denial of foundationalism is offered by social constructivism (Ernest 1998 ), an approach that many researchers in mathematics education embrace.2008 March 21, Bernd Buldt, Benedikt Löwe, Thomas Müller, “Towards a New Epistemology of Mathematics”, in Erkenntnis, volume 68, number 3, →DOI

Origin of foundationalism

From foundational + -ism.

Words formed from foundationalism

Questions about foundationalism

What does foundationalism mean?
Foundationalism means the doctrine that beliefs derive justification from certain basic beliefs.
What part of speech is foundationalism?
Foundationalism is a noun.

Words near foundationalism in the dictionary

  1. foundational
  2. foundational belief
  3. foundational beliefs
  4. foundational witness
  5. foundational witnesses
  6. foundationalism
  7. foundationalist
  8. foundationalistic
  9. foundationalists
  10. foundationality
  11. foundationally

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: foundationalism (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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