This is a very brief essay I wrote for an epistemology course I’m taking. I suggest you read the article at the link below first, I’m arguing against it after all. The subject is concerning justification for our beliefs, something I believe inquiring into inevitably leads to something resembling foundationalism. Justification is just the concept of having a reason for believing what you do. So you might say something like “I belief there is a book on my desk.” To justify that belief you might say “I saw it there.” The justification here is that you perceived it, and you trust your perceptions, and so on. This is important because many conceptions of what knowledge is hinge on what you believe justification is (the most simple conception of knowledge being Justified True Belief).

All that to say, the idea of our knowledge being justified by “turtles all the way down” is fucking stupid. Gotta stop somewhere, even if that somewhere isn’t necessarily the big G. I’m not really arguing for foundationalism in this paper, more just trying my best to refute the argument Klein makes. Writing this made me realize that some people are in their high positions because boomers are fucking stupid. I know, big revelation. I hope that isn’t how I get into my desired position, whatever shape it ends up taking. Peter Klein if you read this I think you’re a twat.

The article: https://bigfatgenius.com/4340/Klein-Human_Knowledge_and_the_Infinite_Regress_of_Reasons.pdf

As always, to be read to: https://youtu.be/5pEIqF8sBzc?si=V3gWlQ0e800f8dV_

My objection:

Klein’s argument for “infinitism” fails in a particularly devious way which I believe even he overlooked. Holding true to two principles, unerringly, Klein’s infinitism ultimately undermines itself, as it eventually and inevitably will turn itself towards the foundation of those two principles of “obvious presuppositions of good reasoning.” (Klein 298), namely reason itself. Klein’s mistake, I argue, is failing to consider the direction in which this regress seemingly inevitably leads. The infinite regress of justificatory reasons does not simply extend indefinitely in arbitrary directions. Rather, given enough asking of “why” by the petulant, childlike philosopher, the regress will eventually set its sights on the foundations of rationality itself. Yet, as Kant’s critical philosophy suggests, reason cannot establish the legitimacy of its own foundations without confronting the limits of what reason can justify.

The main crux of Klein’s argument relies on two “principles” (one of which I believe he fails to adequately justify, but addressing that isn’t within the scope of this paper) which he calls the “Principle of Avoiding Circularity” (PAC) and the “Principle of Avoiding Arbitrariness” (PAA) (Klein 298-299). In short, justification for belief must be both non-circular (meaning non-repeating) and non-arbitrary (meaning infinitely available to further justification). Thus, we could state an infinitist view of justification as “an infinite chain of non-repeating reasons.” Importantly, as Klein addresses, this does not mean that a person must consciously possess an actual infinite number of reasons to justify a belief, merely that the chain must be infinitely available for extension. For Klein, justification need not and indeed apparently cannot arrive at some final, unquestionable foundation, provided one adheres to these two principles.

I argue that the infinite regress must always and indeed does always crash spectacularly into a final, unquestionable foundation beyond which it becomes incoherent. As I stated, Klein’s mistake is assuming that this infinitely extending chain extends randomly. It does not. As an analogy, I want to call to mind the “Wikipedia Philosophy Phenomenon.” If you haven’t heard of it, I ask you to go to wikipedia.com right now (this is reported to only work on the English, German, French and Russian editions of Wikipedia, so use one of those), go to a random article (there’s a button for this on the front page), and click the first hyperlinked word in that article. Then do it again on the article that comes up. Then do it again on the next article. Continue to do this and eventually where do you end up? The page for philosophy. Try it again with a different random article. It’ll happen again. My point here isn’t to demonstrate some divinitory quality of wikipedia, rather to illustrate the structure of what I believe happens when you try to infinitely regress justification. There’s a hierarchy to justifications. As another thought experiment, I want you to try, as genuinely as you can, to trace your justifications infinitely. Where do you inevitably end up? If you keep asking why each reason you give must be trusted, I have a pretty good inkling you eventually end up asking why you trust reason at all. Which just gives us Kant’s transcendental problem.

My main issue is with PAA. If every reason must remain open to further justification, then the demand cannot adequately contend with the rational standards with which it assesses those reasons. Even granting the retort that infinite regress can avoid asking about reason itself, that the regress does not inevitably lead in the direction of rationality, all that is is avoiding the question. What remains to be seen is what happens when we apply the demand for justification to the very standards by which we justify anything at all. Klein’s account doesn’t adequately answer this for me in the same way that foundationalism does. Especially because I’m of the belief that all inquiry into justification leads to the question of reason’s own legitimacy, though I admit I can’t really give a positive account of why that is, I can really just point to examples.

Ultimately, this argument is unconvincing to me. I believe it just avoids the question of justification, perpetually kicking the can down the road. Further, when that can eventually collides with a wall it can’t go through, Klein seemingly shrugs and says “eh, I didn’t like kicking that can anyways.” I remain unconvinced.

As a small aside why isn’t the second movement of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata as well known as the first and third? Is there a reason for that? Was he stupid?