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Ad Infinitum: New Essays on Epistemological Infinitism TURRI JOHN. and KLEIN PETER D., Eds. Oxford University Press, 2014. viii + 262 pp. $75.00 (hardcover)
Epistemological infinitism is an unorthodox view which is lately generating a lot of interest. Whereas foundationalism and coherentism have long ruled the roost when it comes to theories of justification, infinitism presents a long-neglected and often disparaged alternative. Ad Infinitum collects 14 essays on the topic by leading figures in contemporary epistemology, exploring arguments for and against the view and contrasting it with its rivals. Despite sometimes succumbing to the worst tendencies of contemporary analytic epistemology—the kind that invite criticisms of tediousness and scholasticism—the volume is a mostly engaging group of essays with several standouts. In what follows, I will briefly explain infinitism and then highlight what I take to be the high points of the collection.
Driving our theoretical options when it comes to theories of justification is the ancient Regress Argument—what Michael Williams (in this volume and elsewhere) calls “Agrippa’s Trilemma” (227). This is a sceptical argument which suggests that, in a dialectical or dialogical context, when you make an assertion or claim to knowledge, it is open to your interlocutor to ask how you know what you said is true. You can give reasons, but ultimately, the argument goes, one of three scenarios will occur:
i) You will cease giving reasons and rest dogmatically on an assumption.
ii) You will end up relying on a previous reason to justify a reason further down the chain, thus reasoning in a circle.
iii) The chain of reasons will go on ad infinitum.
In all of these cases, says the Agrippan sceptic, the claimant’s original assertion is not justified, because justification cannot come via brute assumption, circular reasoning, or infinite regress of reasons. Thus, our theoretical...