The standard candidates for basic empirical knowledge either fail EER (e.g., knowledge of sense-data), or presuppose other knowledge on the part of the knower, and thus fail EIR (e.g., knowledge of appearances).  Such states count as cognitive states only because of their epistemic relations to other cognitive states.  Because he argues by cases, it is unclear whether some other candidates might satisfy both requirements.  There is no exhaustive list of all possible candidates for the given. Thus, the argument is not a conclusive, once-and-for-all refutation of foundationalism, but it is a significant challenge to it, putting the burden of proof on the defenders of a given.  If it works, one has to abandon any picture of knowledge acquisition as piecemeal and incremental.  Sellars’s argument, in combination with arguments by Quine and Davidson, among others, has put foundationalism on the defensive since, roughly, the mid-point of the 20th century.