BonJour and Devitt's viewpoints are clearly contraposed they each have arguments that prevent a stalemate. BonJour's main arguments against Devitt's are that his view is circular, self-defeating, begs the question and is unable to explain intuitive examples. Devitt holds that BonJour's rationalism is also self-defeating and that it is particularly obscure, metaphysically absurd and leads to an vicious regress. Devitt claims that since his empiricism can explain phenomena correctly, then the particular obscurity of the a priori justification makes it a less viable theory. BonJour on the other hand will argue that the a priori is necessary to explain this phenomena and that is not particularly obscure. The crux of the debate is whether both theories can offer viable explanatory power, with obscurity being secondary to the issue. BonJour's arguments for the necessity of the a priori will be analyzed first, followed by Devitt's arguments against the necessity of the a priori. Despite both positions being radically different, there are arguments to analyze.…show more content… He argues that since the holistic empirical model does not offer any sort of a priori insight there is no reason to accept its key propositions as true (BonJour, and Devitt 105). In the holistic empirical model, claims are justified on the basis of satisfying criteria such as simplicity, explanatory adequacy, scope, fecundity and conservativism (BonJour, and Devitt 105). The proposition that a claim satisfying these conditions are true demands a reason for thinking that such a conditional proposition is itself true (BonJour, and Devitt, 105). If this demands an a priori reason then the argument is self-defeating. If the proposition appeals to its inclusion in the web of the belief then it is circular as well (BonJour, and Devitt 105). BonJour argues that the holistic, empirical approach is clearly
