to cite R at the appropriate point in the series.
1.34 But, as Podlaskowski and Smith (2011) argue, you (constituted as you are) don't actually have that second‐order disposition! As they put it:
Faced with an infinite chain of reasons to cite, it is more likely that, at some point along the chain, S has the disposition to offer a guess or become bored with the whole enterprise (instead of having the epistemically credible disposition to continue citing reasons). There is good reason to think, then, that for a great many cases, S does not possess the relevant second‐order dispositions whatsoever.
Some infinitists have attempted to get around this worry by appealing to a rather weak notion of a second‐order disposition that is needed for the relevant reasons to count as “available” to cite in the right order;25 for instance, as Turri says, “even if it's more likely that at some point you'll fail to correctly cite the next reason in the chain, due to a performance error [e.g., boredom], it doesn't follow that you lack any disposition to correctly cite the next reason” (p. 794).
1.35 Taking a step back from this dispute, we can see a dilemma materializing for the infinitist. If the sense in which the relevant reasons in the infinite series must be “available” to you (for propositional justification to be secured) is understood so weakly that cases like Podlaskowski and Smith's will not be problematic, then it's perhaps too weak for the availability of such an infinite series to contribute in a suitably significant way to (what is, according to the infinitist) doxastic justification.26 However, if “availability” is understood strongly enough that the infinite series available to you plausibly contributes to your doxastic justification, then objections like Podlaskowski and Smith's begin to look problematic again.
1.36 Let's set aside the Argument from Finite Minds and consider an entirely different kind of worry that infinitism faces, one that doesn't concern issues to do with human cognitive limitations. To this end, consider that one of the main motivations for infinitism is a desire to satisfy this principle:
Principle of Avoiding Arbitrariness: for all propositions, x, if x is warranted for a person, S, at t, then there is some reason, r1, available to S for x at t; and there is some reason, r2, available to S for r1 at t, etc., and there is no last reason in the series.
(Klein 2005, p. 136)
Infinitists want to satisfy this principle in the main because they think a belief that isn't supported by such a set of non‐circular reasons will be held on the basis of a foundational belief that is itself arbitrary, since no further belief would support it.
1.37 If a belief is supported by further beliefs that ultimately turn out to be unfounded, it can seem that the whole chain of beliefs is unfounded. For some beliefs, however, it doesn't seem that many reasons, if any, are required. Consider, for example, beliefs about your present sensations (e.g. your belief that your nose itches or that your head aches), beliefs about your present thoughts (e.g. your belief that you are currently thinking of New Jersey), and your perceptual beliefs (e.g. your belief that the page you're reading right now is covered with black marks). Even if you cannot think of any independent considerations to offer in support of these beliefs, these beliefs look like good candidates for justification and knowledge. Consider the belief that you're in pain, for example. It wouldn't be an arbitrary thing to believe if it's formed in response to the kinds of experiences you'd have when touching a hot iron or skinning your knee.27
1.38 One of the oddities of the infinitist view is that it will try to account for the fact that the beliefs just mentioned can be justifiably held by positing an infinite series of reasons where the reasons it posits seem to be more epistemically problematic than the belief that they're supposed to support. If you believe that you're in pain and someone asks you to identify a good reason to think that you are, you might come up with something. You might say that you're sweating and showing the standard physiological responses to pain, and you might point out that you need painkillers. But even if we have these reasons, they might seem otiose.
1.39 While considerations such as these might be good reasons for someone to believe that you're in pain, why would you need them to justifiably form this belief? How could such considerations account for the fact that it would be right for you to be much more confident that you're in pain than you are confident that any of the supporting reasons you've just mentioned are true?
1.40 This general idea is captured famously by Ludwig Wittgenstein in his posthumous On Certainty (1969) in the following passages, where Wittgenstein suggests it would not be promising to adduce what is less certain to one in the service of supporting what is more certain to one.
My having two hands is, in normal circumstances, as certain as anything that I could produce in evidence for it. That is why I am not in a position to take the sight of my hand as evidence for it.
(OC, §250)
If a blind man were to ask me “Have you got two hands?” I should not make sure by looking. If I were to have any doubt of it, then I don't know why I should trust my eyes. For why shouldn't I test my eyes by looking to find out whether I see my two hands? What is to be tested by what?
(OC, §125)
Wittgenstein, in making these remarks, is taking the proposition that one has hands to be (like the proposition that one is in pain) the sort of thing that you know if you know anything at all.28 And such bedrock certainties (what Wittgenstein calls “hinges”) are difficult to support by appealing to any kind of evidence that's more certain to one than these bedrock certainties themselves.
1.41 At some point – in the case of what is most obvious to us – it seems that the ability to just see that something is so using the finite reasons at hand should be enough for knowledge and justification if these epistemic standings are attainable. The intuitive force of this point is hard to ignore, and if this point is conceded, then it's unclear why there would have to be some further infinite set of reasons waiting in the wings for our beliefs to constitute knowledge or to be justifiably held. If you can just see that something is true, it wouldn't be right to describe your belief as being held on an arbitrary basis.
1.4 Coherentism
1.42 Think about your two books, Your Book of Beliefs and Your Book of Justified Beliefs. The Supporting Justified Belief Rule tells us that a belief in the first book, B1, earns a place in the second iff it's supported by other beliefs that have a place in the second book. If we adhere to this rule and there's a finite (but non‐zero) number of entries in Your Book of Justified Beliefs, infinitism must be mistaken. Let's now consider an alternative to infinitism, coherentism.
1.43 Imagine that you have Your Book of Beliefs in hand. A team of epistemologists has promised to send you a copy of Your Book of Justified Beliefs once they finish a thorough investigation of you, your beliefs, and your belief‐forming habits. Curiosity gets the better of you, so you start to wonder which entries in your book will be entries in theirs. The Supporting Justified Belief Rule tells you this much: if any of your beliefs is included in both books, it's because there's something in both books that supports it. You start to look for connections between the entries. You discover that you can group the entries into categories like this:
Entries that fit with a significant
