The dialectics of infinitism and coherentism: inferential justification versus holism and coherence

Abstract

This paper formally explores the common ground between mild versions of epistemological coherentism and infinitism; it proposes-and argues for-a hybrid, coherentistinfinitist account of epistemic justification. First, the epistemological regress argument and its relation to the classical taxonomy regarding epistemic justification-of foundationalism, infinitism and coherentism-is reviewed. We then recall recent results proving that an influential argument against infinite regresses of justification, which alleges their incoherence on account of probabilistic inconsistency, cannot be maintained. Furthermore, we prove that the Principle of Inferential Justification has rather unwelcome consequencesformally resembling the Sorites paradox-as soon as it is iterated and combined with a natural Bayesian perspective on probabilistic inferences. We conclude that strong versions of foundationalism and infinitism should be abandoned. Positively, we provide a rough sketch for a graded formal coherence notion, according to which infinite regresses of epistemic justification will often have more than a minimal degree of coherence.

The Problem with Impure Infinitism

“…Although it does "cobble together" other sources of justification, only one source of justification is salient regarding the function apportioned to the non-doxastic support in the infinite structure of justification. So Aikin's impure view, in a sense, is not the same as Haack's foundherentism, which combines foundationalism and coherentism (Haack 1993); BonJour's weak foundationalism, which combines observational requirement into a coherentist structure (Bonjour 1985); or Herzberg, coherentism and infinitism which synthesises infinitism and coherentism (Herzberg 2014).…”

“…Herzberg has developed an account of coherentism and infinitism that synthesises the presence and strength of inferential support or connections with probabilistic consistency to generate a thesis he dubbed the dialectics of infinitism and coherentism. SeeHerzberg (2014).5 See footnote of(Aikin 2008: 181). Moreover, Fantl's version of infinitism does not specifically draw on the regress, so it is difficult to begin to pitch his brand of infinitism onto any of the options although Aikin does that.…”

A Graded Bayesian Coherence Notion

“…So far, our discussion has concentrated on potential objections to our proposal of a formal coherence concept and their refutations. But one could also strike a less defensive note: In a recent paper (Herzberg [38]), a weakness of stronger versions of both foundationalism and infinitism that arises from the Principle of Inferential Justification (cf. e.g.…”

“…Another possible name for the compatible-with relation would be "support", cf. Herzberg[38]. This term, however, is already defined in measure theory, whence we shall not use it in the sense of the compatible-with relation lest we create confusion.10 This is what de Finetti[15,16,17] already calls coherence.…”