of Beliefs will show that B1 belongs in Your Book of Justified Beliefs.
1.17 The situation we face here is similar to the situation we faced earlier. We notice that there's a normative difference between two things (e.g. B1 and B2). The Principle of Sufficient Difference tells us that such a difference is possible only when there's some further difference that accounts for it (e.g. B1 is supported by justified beliefs and B2 is not). When we cite the factors that distinguish a justified belief like B1 from an unjustified belief like B2, the Supporting Justified Belief Rule tells us that the factors will be more justified beliefs (e.g. B645, B646, and B87). The Principle of Sufficient Difference will apply again to these new beliefs and the Supporting Justified Belief Rule will tell us that we need beliefs other than B645, B646, and B87 to justify B645, B646, and B87 (Figure 1.1). This could go on for a while, in a way that seems to threaten an infinite regress.
Figure 1.1 The Supporting Justified Belief Rule tells us that we need beliefs other than B645, B646, and B87 to justify B645, B646, and B87.
1.18 It is beginning to look as though demonstrating that B1 is justified (which we originally thought was obviously justified) is difficult to do. And this looks like a problem – what epistemologists call a regress problem. After all, repeated application of the Supporting Justified Belief Rule tells us to find more and more justified beliefs (threatening infinite regress), but perhaps the required stock of justified beliefs just isn't there.
1.19 One somewhat depressing move at this juncture is to abandon the attempt to show that B1 (or any other of your beliefs is justified) and simply accept skepticism about epistemic justification:
Skepticism about epistemic justification: no beliefs are justified.10
If skepticism is correct, Your Book of Justified Beliefs is (despite what you may think) empty; none of your beliefs, including B1 and other beliefs you originally took to be justified, are actually justified. Unfortunately, Your Book of Beliefs – the one the scientists gave you – is filled with entries. Its pages should be blank. Or so this view maintains.11
1.20 Although some serious thinkers have reached this skeptical conclusion,12 the very idea that your beliefs are unjustified en masse takes us a long way from common sense, which tells us that some of our beliefs are in much better shape than others. Plus, the skeptic hasn't offered any compelling positive argument for skepticism yet, so we shouldn't be too hasty to conclude that none of our beliefs are justified. After all, doesn't the Supporting Justified Belief Rule tell us that justification is within reach? All it takes to have justified beliefs like B1 is to have more justified beliefs like B645, B646, and B87. We haven't seen any reason yet to think that these beliefs aren't justified, have we?
1.21 In the remainder of this chapter, we'll articulate and critically discuss three non‐skeptical views: infinitism, coherentism, and foundationalism. In outline form, these views maintain the following:
Infinitism: all justified beliefs are justified because of support from further justifiers. The chain of justifiers justifies beliefs only when it forms an infinite series of non‐repeating justifiers. No belief can be justified without support from a further justifier that belongs to such a series.
Coherentism: all justified beliefs are justified because they belong to a coherent set of beliefs that support them (i.e. beliefs that are mutually supporting in that they lend deductive, inductive, or abductive support to other members). No belief can be justified without support from a further justified belief.
Foundationalism: all justified beliefs are justified because of support from further justified beliefs or because they are justified without such support. Any justified belief is either a properly basic belief or it derives its justification from such beliefs.
1.2 Infinitism and the Regress Problem
1.22 Infinitism tells us that a belief is justified iff it is appropriately supported by an infinite collection of non‐repeating justifiers (i.e. justified beliefs or available supporting reasons). This is tantamount to accepting the Supporting Justified Belief Rule and taking it to its logical conclusion without ceding to the skeptic.
1.23 For obvious reasons, infinitism looks like quite a difficult pill to swallow. The elephant in the room here is that the collection of non‐repeating justifiers must be infinite. Should a view that is premised upon such a seemingly overwhelming suggestion be dismissed out of hand? Perhaps not. As proponents of infinitism John Turri and Peter Klein have suggested, the principal reason that we should accept infinitism is that whatever problems infinitism faces, the problems that face the only two alternatives are worse.13 They state this overarching “process of elimination argument” for (non‐skeptical14) infinitism as follows:
Master Argument for Epistemic Infinitism
P1 (Premise 1). There are three possible, non‐skeptical solutions to the regress problem: foundationalism, coherentism, and infinitism.
P2. There are insurmountable difficulties foundationalism and coherentism.
P3. Infinitism faces no insurmountable difficulties.
P4. Not having insurmountable difficulties is better than not.
C (Conclusion). Therefore, infinitism is the best non‐skeptical solution to the regress problem.15
P1 is widely taken for granted by all parties to the dispute, and P4 is likewise uncontentious.16 P2 and P3 are where the action lies. Whether P2 is true requires a careful engagement with foundationalism and coherentism (which we will turn to in more detail later in this chapter). In abridged form, though, the crux of the infinitist's defense of (2) goes as follows: our beliefs cannot be justified by some finite set of justifiers (as per foundationalism and coherentism), because all such sets will either involve (i) a belief that's not supported by further beliefs or (ii) circles of justification. If the former, the inferential beliefs cannot be justified because the non‐inferential beliefs that they depend on seem arbitrary. If the latter, the beliefs cannot be justified because the circles of justification cannot confer justification upon these beliefs.
1.24 Let's suppose for a minute that P2 is correct, and that the above‐noted (and perhaps related) difficulties to foundationalism and coherentism really are insurmountable as the infinitist insists. Even if that were so, the Master Argument for Epistemic Infinitism establishes C only if P3 can be established – viz. only if the problems that face infinitism are not equally insurmountable. Before we turn to examine the problems that face foundationalism and coherentism, let's first see how well infinitism holds up to the objections it faces.
1.3
