When Infinite Regresses Are Not Vicious*

Abstract

Infinite regresses are notoriously suspect. Indeed, even the label as opposed to suggests that there might be problems lurking. But setting that verbal uneasiness aside, there remain many offered for distrusting regresses. I want to focus on one of them here, namely what Carl Gillett calls Structural Objection to my proposal that in order for a person, S, to be justified in believing a proposition, p, there must be an infinite set of propositions available to S that can be arranged in a non repeating series such that the first member, rx is a reason for p, and the second member, r2 is a reason for r1? and r3 is a reason for r2, etc., and no r? repeats in the series.1 I argued that this partial account of justification, what I call infinitism, offers a better solution than either foundationalism or coheren tism to the regress of reasons problem that is posed in The Outlines of Pyrrhonism by Sextus Empiricus.2 The I gave were based upon epis