The Foundations of Knowing was first published in 1982. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.

This collection of essays on the foundations of empirical knowledge brings together ten of Roderick M. Chisholm's most important papers in epistemology, three of them published for the first time, the others significantly revised and expanded for this edition. The essays in Part I constitute a thoroughgoing defense of foundationalism—the doctrine that our justification for believing always rests upon a self-evident basis. In Part II, Chisholm applies foundationalist principles to various areas within the theory of knowledge, and in part III he presents a history of twentieth-century American epistemology.

"Roderick M. Chisholm's work has been most influential both in the development of epistemology and in the widespread application of his analytic method. I am sure this publication featuring the unification of his views will be of great value to those working on the central issues of philosophy." Hector-Neri Castañeda, Indiana University

Roderick Chisholm is Andrew W. Mellon Professor of the Humanities in the department of philosophy at Brown University. Among his books are Perceiving: A Philosophical Study, Theory of Knowledge, Person and Object,and The First Person (Minnesota, 1981).

On Metaphysics was first published in 1989.On Metaphysics brings together eighteen essays by a self-described analytic philosopher who is concerned with redirecting the linguistic emphasis in contemporary philosophy toward the traditional questions of metaphysics. The essays explore the most fundamental categories of reality: substance and attribute; parts and wholes; human freedom and the self; coming into being and passing away; and the nature of objective reference. Chisholm combines an “internal” approach to theory of knowledge with an “intentional” approach to metaphysics. The book thus presupposes that the self is better known to the self that is any other individual thing, and that our knowledge of ourselves provides us with the key to understanding the problems of ontology.Chisholm has made both minor and major revisions in many of the essays since their initial publication. “The Categories,” written expressly for this book, represents a summation of the ontology set forth in On Metaphysics.