Probabilistic Regresses and the Availability Problem for Infinitism

Abstract

Recent work by Peijnenburg, Atkinson, and Herzberg suggests that infinitists who accept a probabilistic construal of justification can overcome significant challenges to their position by attending to mathematical treatments of infinite probabilistic regresses. In this essay, it is argued that care must be taken when assessing the significance of these formal results. Though valuable lessons can be drawn from these mathematical exercises (many of which are not disputed here), the essay argues that it is entirely unclear that the form of infinitism that results meets a basic requirement: namely, providing an account of infinite chains of propositions qua reasons made available to agents.

Foundationalism with infinite regresses of probabilistic support

“…See Gwiazda (2010), Herzberg (2010), and Podlaskowski and Smith (2014). But my discussion is very different than Gwiazda's, Herzberg's, and Podlaskowski and Smith's discussions.…”