Epistemology and the Regress Problem

220 Pages·2010·1.394 MB·English

by  Scott Aikin

Epistemology and the
Regress Problem
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Scott F. Aikin

Epistemology and the
Regress Problem
Scott F. Aikin
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First published 2011
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Aikin, Scott F.
Epistemology and the regress problem / Scott F. Aikin.
p. cm. — (Outledge studies in contemporary philosophy ; 25)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Knowledge, Theory of. 2. Rationalism. I. Title.
BD161.A35 2011
121'.6—dc22
2010045781
ISBN 0-203-83324-4 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN13: 978-0-415-87800-5 (hbk)
Contents
Preface ix
Introduction 1
1 The Regress Problem 8
2 Infi nitism Defended 50
3 Meta-Epistemic Varieties of Epistemic Infi nitism 72
4 Foundationalism, Infi nitism, and the Given 112
5 Argumentation and Antidogmatism 158
Notes 181
Bibliography 193
Index 203

Preface
When I was a graduate student, I took a rough version of my defense of
epistemic infi nitism to a conference. I got about halfway through the paper
before I’d found that every person in the audience was shaking his or her
head back and forth vigorously in disagreement. I’ll tell you, it’s daunting to
see that. The question- and- answer session was brutal, but I held my own.
But I did not convince anyone that the view was right. In fact, everyone in
the audience still thought the view utterly wrong. A fellow graduate student
came to the session, and he talked with me later and said consolingly, “Isn’t
it a philosophical achievement when you can take a view that’s obviously
false and defend it so that it’s at least not quite so obviously false?”
That’s setting the bar pretty low for philosophical achievement, but
that’s at a minimum what I’m out to accomplish here. Infi nitism is a view
that, at least every time I talk about it with other philosophers, my stu-
dents, and even my family, is taken to be just obviously wrong. My fi rst
ambition here is to make it so that philosophers don’t immediately go to
the ‘that view is crazy’ response when thinking about infi nitism. How my
students and family members respond to the infi nitism proposal is a matter
to be handled by other means. There are lots of views in philosophy that
strike me as utterly ‘’round the bend. For example, divine command theory,
the view that God’s will explains various ethical truths. I simply can’t see
how the view could be true, but there are sophisticated defenses of it. And
despite the fact I think the view is wrong-headed, I’m willing to admit that
I may be missing something about it, and that divine command theorists
deserve a place at the table in discussions of meta- and normative ethics.
In some ways, the baseline objective in this book is to work out a way
for epistemic infi nitism to appear better than obviously wrong, for it to be
one respectable player in the discussion. And if it can’t do better than that,
perhaps having it just meet the there are non-stupid defenses of it mark is
still a worthwhile goal. There has been a small bloom of work considering
infi nitism’s independent merits in the journals. Infi nitism, especially in the
last 10 years, has come a very long way. Considering the view’s status since
Aristotle formulated a version of the regress problem in the Posterior Ana-
lytics, this is quite a sudden rise in fortunes. And I believe a book-length
defense of the view will improve its prospects.