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Who is Afraid of Epistemology’s Regress Problem?

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Abstract

What follows is a taxonomy of arguments that regresses of inferential justification are vicious. They fall out into four general classes: (A) conceptual arguments from incompleteness, (B) conceptual arguments from arbitrariness, (C) ought-implies-can arguments from human quantitative incapacities, and (D) ought-implies can arguments from human qualitative incapacities. They fail with a developed theory of “infinitism” consistent with valuational pluralism and modest epistemic foundationalism.

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Correspondence to Scott F Aikin.

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Aikin, S.F. Who is Afraid of Epistemology’s Regress Problem?. Philos Stud 126, 191–217 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-004-7803-4

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