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The epistemic regress problem

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Abstract

The best extant statement of the epistemic regress problem makes assumptions that are too strong. An improved version assumes only that that reasons require support, that no proposition is supported only by endless regresses of reasons, and that some proposition is supported. These assumptions are individually plausible but jointly inconsistent. Attempts to explain support by means of unconceptualized sensations, contextually immunized propositions, endless regresses, and holistic coherence all require either additional reasons or an external condition on support that is arbitrary from the believer’s own point of view.

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Notes

  1. I use ‘implies’ to abbreviate ‘stands in the epistemically relevant logical or quasi-logical relation to.’

  2. A similar point is made by Sosa (1980, p. 13).

  3. In case the evidence that is available for a proposition consists of more than one proposition, we may represent it as the conjunction of the relevant propositions or as the set of those propositions.

  4. Post (1993, pp. 209–212) who follows Black (1988). Another account of the general structure of regress arguments along similar lines is given by Sanford (1975). I have modified Post’s formulation of the problem somewhat.

  5. The first-order versions of (1)–(3) are formally inconsistent only assuming that Reasons are Supported Requires an Endless Regress: (∀x)(∀y)(Sxy → (∃z)Syz) → (∀x)(∀y)(Sxy → ERSxy). This proposition is evident.

  6. Indeed, we have the stronger consequence that Reasons are Supported just in case any proposition’s being supported implies that there is an endless I-ordered sequence: \( {\text{(}}\forall x{\text{)(}}\forall y{\text{)(S}}xy \to {\text{(}}\exists z{\text{)S}}yz{\text{)}} \leftrightarrow {\text{(}}\forall x{\text{)(}}\forall y{\text{)(S}}xy \to {\text{ERS}}xy{\text{)}}{\text{.}} \)

  7. Elgin (2005, p. 157) presents a case to similar effect.

  8. See Post (1980) and Post (1987, pp. 84–92).

  9. I spell out this argument in greater detail in Cling (2004).

  10. Black (1988, p. 425).

  11. Moser (1985, pp. 141–210).

  12. I focus on Moser’s view because it is one of the most careful and complete defenses of intuitionist foundationalism. My argument, however, is intended to show that any view on which sensory states suffice for support is bound to fail.

  13. Moser (1985, p. 164).

  14. Moser (1985, p. 184).

  15. So beliefs have what Dretske (1981, pp. 172–174) calls the “second” and the “third orders” of intentionality.

  16. Cling (1991).

  17. Compare to the distinction between “objective” and “subjective intentionality” in Churchland (1979, p. 14).

  18. The contextualism I discuss is suggested in Wittgenstein (1969) and is akin to the view defended by Annis (1978), though Annis thinks unsupported reasons can be known. A subtle version of contextualism in the spirit of Wittgenstein is defended by Williams (1991). Some recent versions of contextualism have not focused on accounts of knowledge or justified belief per se but on the context-relativity of the truth conditions of sentences that attribute knowledge to a person, for example ‘Sam knows that the cat is on the mat.’ These accounts attempt to show that ordinary attributions of knowledge are not threatened by the skeptical doubts raised by skeptical hypotheses such as I am a brain in a vat because, in most contexts, the truth conditions for such attributions do not require the subject to be in a position to defeat such hyperbolic doubts. In the rare contexts in which one needs to be in a position to defeat such hypotheses, then ordinary knowledge attributions are false but—as I would put it—the kind of knowledge we would lack is different from the ordinary kind we still have. Such skeptical hypotheses raise the ordinary standards for knowledge. For such views, see DeRose (1994) and Lewis (1994). DeRose gives an account of the truth conditions for knowledge attributions in terms of the sensitivity of beliefs to changes in facts across relevant possible worlds and does not endorse an evidence requirement on ordinary knowledge while Lewis explicitly rejects an evidence requirement for knowledge. Even if DeRose succeeds in defending some types of knowledge against hyperbolic skeptical doubt, either his view does not provide a solution to the regress problem or, like Lewis’, the kind of knowledge that is immune to skeptical doubts can be arbitrary from the believer’s own point of view. In any case, since the reason requirement that generates the regress problem is weak—it can be satisfied without one having the ability to defeat hyperbolic skeptical hypotheses—it is not clear how semantic contextualism has the resources to solve the regress problem.

  19. I shall not enter the dense thicket of Wittgenstein exegesis. I only investigate an interesting epistemological view suggested by some of his remarks. I leave it to others to decide what Wittgenstein believed.

  20. Wittgenstein (1969, §151).

  21. Ribeiro (2001, §1.8).

  22. Moore (1959a, 1959b), Wittgenstein (1969, §58).

  23. I am grateful to an anonymous referee for helping me to see this point.

  24. Post (1993).

  25. The term ‘evidential ancestry’ is due to Klein (1999, p. 298).

  26. I am indebted to John Post for pointing out serious limitations of a previous version of No Required Circles.

  27. For example Chisholm (1977, pp. 82–84).

  28. Cling (2002).

  29. BonJour (2001).

  30. BonJour (1976).

  31. BonJour (1976, pp. 285–286, and 1985, pp. 89–93).

  32. BonJour (1976, p. 287).

  33. Sosa (1980, pp. 8–9), Klein (1999, pp. 317–318).

  34. Acquiring evidence for such a claim will also be non-trivial given the computational complexity involved in making determinations of coherence (Milgram 2000).

  35. Klein (1999).

  36. For more see Cling (2004).

  37. BonJour (1976, pp. 23–24) makes the stronger claim that finite minds could not have the infinite number of beliefs that such a regress requires. Klein (1999, pp. 306–310) shows that infinitism does not require this.

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Acknowledgements

I am very grateful for helpful comments on the topics covered in this paper to Scott Aiken, Daniel Allen, Curtis Bridgeman, Ed Damer, Catherine Elgin, Deborah Heikes, Peter Klein, Jonathan Kvanvig, Ben Letson, Stanislav Lioubomoudrov, Peter Markie, Brian Martine, John Post, Jeffrey Tlumak, and to the audiences at my 1995 Presidential Address to the Alabama Philosophical Society, “Epistemology and the Meaning of Life,” my presentation of a related paper at Emory and Henry College in 1997, and my presentation of a distant ancestor of this paper to the 2001 annual meeting of the Tennessee Philosophical Association. Thanks also to the students in my Summer 2002 section of Philosophy 101 who were required to read and comment on a very obscure ancestor of this paper. Special thanks to Aiken, Heikes, Kvanvig, Markie, Post, and Tlumak for detailed, penetrating comments on what I thought was the penultimate draft. I alone am responsible for errors that remain.

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  1. Philosophy, University of Alabama in Huntsville, 301 Sparkman Drive, Huntsville, AL, 35899, USA

    Andrew D. Cling

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Cling, A.D. The epistemic regress problem. Philos Stud 140, 401–421 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-007-9152-6

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