Foundationalism with infinite regresses of probabilistic support
Synthese 195 (9):3899-3917 (2018)
Abstract
There is a long-standing debate in epistemology on the structure of justification. Some recent work in formal epistemology promises to shed some new light on that debate. I have in mind here some recent work by David Atkinson and Jeanne Peijnenburg, hereafter “A&P”, on infinite regresses of probabilistic support. A&P show that there are probability distributions defined over an infinite set of propositions {\ such that \ is probabilistically supported by \ for all i and \ has a high probability. Let this result be “APR”. A&P oftentimes write as though they believe that APR runs counter to foundationalism. This makes sense, since there is some prima facie plausibility in the idea that APR runs counter to foundationalism, and since some prominent foundationalists argue for theses inconsistent with APR. I argue, though, that in fact APR does not run counter to foundationalism. I further argue that there is a place in foundationalism for infinite regresses of probabilistic support.Author's Profile
DOI
10.1007/s11229-016-1289-4
Analytics
Added to PP
2016-12-22
Downloads
167 (#45,749)
6 months
17 (#55,466)
2016-12-22
Downloads
167 (#45,749)
6 months
17 (#55,466)
Historical graph of downloads since first upload
This graph includes both downloads from PhilArchive and clicks on external links on PhilPapers.
How can I increase my downloads?