Epistemic Infinitism, the Reason-Giving Game, and the Regress Skeptic

Epistemic infinitism is one of the logically possible responses to the epistemic regress problem, claiming that the justification of a given proposition requires an infinite and non-circular structure of reasons. In this paper, I will examine the dialectic between the epistemic infinitist and the regress skeptic, the sort of skeptic that bases his attack to the possibility of justification on the regress of reasons. I aim to show that what makes epistemic infinitism appear as well-equipped to silence the regress skeptic is the very same thing that renders it susceptible to a powerful skeptical assault by the regress skeptic

The Holism of Doxastic Justification

I argue against the orthodox view of doxastic justification, according to which a belief of a given subject is justified for her just in case the subject has a good reason for the belief and she also bases the belief on that reason. The orthodox view is false, I maintain, because there might be unjustified beliefs that are based on the good reasons that support them. The fault lies with the ‘particularism’ of the orthodox view, which is why it cannot handle those cases where certain ‘holistic’ considerations render an otherwise justified belief unjustified. Accordingly, I argue for a holistic constraint on doxastic justification: whether a subject that bases a particular belief on a reason that supports it is justified in having that belief depends on what she does, cognitively speaking, with that reason vis-à-vis a considerable portion of her other beliefs

On Understanding a Theory on Conscious Experiences

McGinn claims, among other things, that we cannot understand the theory that explains how echolocationary experiences arise from the bat’s brain. One of McGinn’s arguments for this claim appeals to the fact that we cannot know in principle what it is like to have echolocationary experiences. According to Kirk, McGinn’s argument fails because it rests on an illegitimate assumption concerning what explanatory theories are supposed to accomplish. However, I will argue that Kirk’s objection misfires because he misapprehends McGinn’s argument. Further, I will articulate and briefly assess some ways in which McGinn’s argument can be blocked

In Defense of Conditional Uniqueness

The Uniqueness Thesis (U), defended by the uniquer and rejected by the permissivist, asserts that, necessarily, there is at most one rational doxastic attitude one can take towards a proposition, given a particular body of evidence. U faces a well-known, paralyzing objection from the permissivist, which I call “the simplicity objection,” which rests on the idea that evidence is not the sole determinant of rationality. In this paper, after maintaining that the ongoing dialectic between the uniquer and the permissivist has led to an exaggeration of differences, I bring into focus another, non-equivalent yet substantive (non-trivial) thesis in the vicinity, which I call “the Conditional Uniqueness Thesis” (U*), according to which if evidence is the sole determinant of rationality, then U is true. The hope is to achieve a rapprochement between the uniquer and the permissivist by showing that U* is true. To this end, I examine the argument Roger White offers in favor of U, which I call “the argument from evidential support” (AES), and argue that it is both unpersuasive for the defender of the simplicity objection and unnecessarily strong for establishing its own conclusion. I then offer a sufficiently weakened version of AES, which I call AES*, and argue that AES* is sound, if interpreted as an argument for U*