PY1006 (2009-10)

REASONING AND KNOWLEDGE

LECTURE FOUR:

Regress Scepticism
(Student version)
15/2/2010
Dr. Patrick Greenough

1
1. Recap.

• In the last two lectures, we looked at a

particularly tricky form of scepticism
known as Error Scepticism:

Knowledge requires that you rule out all

possibility of error, one can never rule
out all possibility of error, therefore,
knowledge is impossible.

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2. Regress Scepticism.

• In the next two lectures, we are going to

look at a different form of scepticism,
namely Regress Scepticism.

• Just like Error Scepticism, this form of

scepticism results in the conclusion that
knowledge is unobtainable.

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2. Regress Scepticism.

• Regress Scepticism questions the ground

or foundation of our knowledge claims.

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2. Regress Scepticism.

(1) Knowledge that p requires that one is

justified in believing p on well-founded
grounds.

(2) There is no such thing as a well-

founded justification.

(3) Therefore, knowledge is unobtainable.

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3. The (potential) sources of knowledge.

• Many (but not all) philosophers have

thought that there are broadly two ways of
acquiring knowledge: directly or indirectly.

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3. The (potential) sources of knowledge.

• Get Indirect knowledge:

(i) By conducting a survey.

(ii) By conducting an experiment.
(iii) By constructing a mathematical proof.
(iv) By remembering some fact.
(v) By listening to the testimony of a witness.

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3. The (potential) sources of knowledge.

• Get Direct knowledge by:

(i) By directly perceiving appearances (e.g.

directly perceive that x looks red).
(ii) By grasping some self-evident truth.
(iii) By inspecting the contents of your mind.
(iv) By listening to the word of God
(Revelation).

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3. The (potential) sources of knowledge.

• Direct knowledge does not involve the

drawing of any inferences: it is immediate.

• It also does not depend on any collateral

information ….

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3. The (potential) sources of knowledge.

• Indirect knowledge does typically involve

the drawing of inferences: it is thus
mediate.

• …

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3. The (potential) sources of knowledge.

Example: My (indirect) knowledge that the

wall is red depends on the background
information that lighting conditions are
normal (such that the wall is not
illuminated by a red light bulb).

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3. The (potential) sources of knowledge.

Example: My (direct) knowledge that the

wall looks red (to me) does not depend on
the background information that lighting
conditions are normal since such
conditions do not affect how it looks.

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3. The (potential) sources of knowledge.

Question: But what’s an inference?

• Very roughly, an inference is kind of

mental act whereby a subject forms one
belief on the basis of a belief which is
already held.

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3. The (potential) sources of knowledge.

• …

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3. The (potential) sources of knowledge.

• …

• …

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4. Knowledge that p requires well-foundedness.

Question: When is the justification for

one’s belief well-founded?

Answer: Very roughly, when one’s belief is

held for the right sort of reasons.

• Actually, it’s easier to say when a belief is

not well-founded …

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4. Knowledge that p requires well-foundedness.

Question: In virtue of what is a belief

justified?

Question: How do we go about justifying

our beliefs?

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4. Knowledge that p requires well-foundedness.

Easy answer: by citing evidence.

• But the citing of evidence is simply the

offering up of another belief as justified.

• So, it follows, on this conception at least,

that beliefs can only be justified by other
beliefs.

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4. Knowledge that p requires well-foundedness.

• …

• …

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4. Knowledge that p requires well-foundedness.

• Let’s say that I really am justified in

holding this belief. On what grounds am I
justified?

• …

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4. Knowledge that p requires well-foundedness.

• But wait: if the only route to justify one

belief is via the prior justification one has
for another belief then it follows that all
justification is indirect.

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4. Knowledge that p requires well-foundedness.

• Worse still: if all justification is inferential

then it looks like there can be no
knowledge of any sort (direct or indirect).

• This is one form of regress scepticism.

• How so?

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5. Agrippa’s Trilemma.

• Suppose you believe that Bin Laden is

alive. But suppose that I challenge your
belief and ask you to justify it.

• You reply: ‘Because I saw a news item on

CNN which said so’. But suppose I
challenge the justification for this belief
and ask: ‘why do you believe the news
item is accurate?’
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5. Agrippa’s Trilemma.

• You reply: ‘Because CNN has been accurate

in the past’. But suppose I challenge this
belief and ask ‘Why do you believe that?’

• You reply: ‘The BBC ran a news article on

the integrity of CNN.’ But suppose I
challenge this belief and ask: ‘Why do you
believe that the BBC is reliable and
trustworthy?’

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5. Agrippa’s Trilemma.

• You reply: ‘my mother and father both

worked for the BBC and they told me as
much’.

• But suppose I challenge the

trustworthiness of your mother and
father….

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5. Agrippa’s Trilemma.

• This game, the why-game, might go on for

quite some time, but eventually, if the
challenge is repeated often enough, you
will be forced to do one of three things:

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5. Agrippa’s Trilemma.

a) At some point refuse to answer: that is,

make a dogmatic assumption.

b) At some point, repeat some previous

reason: that is, reason in a circle.

c) Keep trying to say something new, that

is: embark on an infinite regress.

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5. Agrippa’s Trilemma.

• You can think of the situation in terms of a

‘tree of justification’.

• There are three possible responses:

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5. Agrippa’s Trilemma.

(a) All the branches terminate (dogmatism).

(b) At least one branch contains a loop

(circularity).

(c) At least one branch is infinite (never get

to finish).

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5. Agrippa’s Trilemma.

• …

• …

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6. Examples.

• Example 1: Suppose I made the startling claim

that chickens can read minds. You find this
unbelievable and ask for my evidence. I cite the
evidence that I read it in a newspaper (The
Fortean Times). When challenged as to why we
should think the newspaper article is correct, you
simply refuse to cite any further evidence as you
simply strongly believe that the newspaper
publishes only the truth. Upshot: your justification
for your belief is not well-founded as it is a
dogmatic belief.
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6. Examples.

• Example 2: Suppose you reply instead that your

belief that chickens can read minds is justified
because the magazine Chicks publishes articles
by the well-respected poulterer Mr Welsomer.
Challenged again, you argue that one should
trust what Mr Welsomer tells you because your
favourite chicken Chickita has read Mr
Welsomer’s mind and found that all his beliefs
are true. Clearly, your belief is not well-founded
because in the chain of justification you have
used this very belief before: your justification is
not well-founded because it is circular.

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6. Examples.

• Example 3: Suppose that you attempt to justify

your belief by citing the testimony of person A,
who backs up Mr Welsomer’s claim, where
person A is backed up by person B, who is
backed up by person C. When you run out of
actual persons you start citing what imaginary
persons would say, and so on, and so on. This
may not be bad because it leads to an infinite
regress per se (that you never get to finish your
justification) but is bad because the regress of
reasons will become increasing arbitrary and ad
hoc.

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6. Examples.

• …
• Result: there can be no knowledge.

• …

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7. Re-stating the Trilemma.

• Actually, I’ve stated the trilemma in rather

unfair terms (thus stacking the odds in
favour of the regress sceptic).

• To each of the options (dogmatism,

circularity, infinite regress) there in fact
corresponds a ‘respectable’ theoretical
position. Namely:
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7. Re-stating the Trilemma.

(a) Foundationalism (Descartes, Aristotle, B.

Russell, A. Goldman).

(b) Coherentism (W. Sellars, K. Lehrer, L.

Bonjour, D. Davidson).

(c) Infinitism (C. S. Peirce, P. Klein).

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8. Thumbnail definitions.

Infinitism is the view that the an infinite

regress of justifications is no bad thing: the
fact that one can keep citing distinct
reasons just shows that the original belief
is justified (see next lecture).

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8. Thumbnail definitions.

Coherentism is the view that beliefs are

justified when they cohere with each other
—it doesn’t matter that they rely on each
other so long as they neatly interlock in
some appropriate way (see next lecture).

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8. Thumbnail definitions.

Foundationalism is the view that some

beliefs are basic in the sense that they are
justified but not in virtue of being justified
by other beliefs.

• Let’s think about this view some more.

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9. Foundationalism.

• …

40
9. Foundationalism.

• More particularly, the lesson of this

Trilemma is that there must be a special
sort of belief—basic beliefs which have a
special foundational property.

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9. Foundationalism.

• There’s a structure to knowledge: some

beliefs are non-basic and are justified by
other beliefs.

• Some beliefs are basic in the sense that

they are (or can be) justified but not in
virtue of being justified by other beliefs.

• …

42
9. Foundationalism.

Question: What is this special foundational

property that basic beliefs have?

• That depends on the sort of

foundationalism you prefer….

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9. Foundationalism.

• …

• …

44
9. Foundationalism.

• Immediately justified beliefs might be:

(i) Self-Evident beliefs: beliefs which are

known via immediate rational intuition.
(e.g. Descartes on the Cogito).

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9. Foundationalism.

(ii) Beliefs which are ‘self-justifying’

(certain ‘seemings’ may be self-justified).

(iii) Beliefs which are justified by particular

perceptual experiences (caused in the
right way, hooked up to the facts in the
right kind of way).

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9. Foundationalism.

• In the next lecture, we will look at some

arguments which purport to show that all
forms of foundationalism are hopeless.

• But that doesn’t mean that we shall

thereby re-instate Agrippa’s trilemma for
perhaps Coherentism or Infinitism may be
defensible ...
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 10. To sum up.

• We have:
(i) Encountered a new form of scepticism
(Regress Scepticism) which says that
knowledge requires well-foundedness, such
well-foundedness is unobtainable, therefore
knowledge is unobtainable.
(ii) Drawn a distinction between direct and
indirect kinds of justification/knowledge.
(iii) Given reasons to think that all justification
is indirect/mediate.

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10. To sum up.

(iv) In so doing, we have run into Agrippa’s

Trilemma: all attempts to show that a belief is well
founded issue in either dogmatism, circularity, or
an unacceptable regress.
(v) Seen how corresponding to these three
options there are ‘respectable’ theories:
Foundationalism, Coherentism, and Infinitism.
(vi) Seen that Foundationalism posits the
existence of basic beliefs which have some
special foundational property.
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