The Epistemic Regress Problem,the Problem of the Criterion,and the Value of Reasons

There are important similarities between the epistemic regress problem and the problem of the criterion. Each turns on plausible principles stating that epistemic reasons must be supported by epistemic reasons but that having reasons is impossible if that requires having endless regresses of reasons. These principles are incompatible with the possibility of reasons, so each problem is a paradox. Whether there can be an antiskeptical solution to these paradoxes depends upon the kinds of reasons that we need in order to attain our epistemic goals. This article explains the problems and considers the ways in which two different conceptions of human flourishing support the value of different kinds of reasons. One conception requires reasons that allow an easy solution to these paradoxes. The other—rational autonomy—requires reasons that depend upon endless regresses. So we cannot have the kinds of fully transparent reasons required for rational autonomy.     

Positism: The Unexplored Solution to the Epistemic Regress Problem

As we trace a chain of reasoning backward, it must ultimately do one of four things: (i) end in an unjustified belief, (ii) continue infinitely, (iii) form a circle, or (iv) end in an immediately justified basic belief. This article defends positism—the view that, in certain circumstances, type‐(i) chains can justify us in holding their target beliefs. One of the assumptions that generates the epistemic regress problem is: (A) Person S is mediately justified in believing p iff (1) S has a doxastic reason q for p and (2) S is justified in believing q. Assumption (A) presupposes that reasoning is only justification transmitting, not justification generating. The article rejects (A) and argues that, in certain circumstances, reasoning itself is justification generating, even if that from which one is reasoning is not itself justified. It concludes by comparing positism with its infinitist, coherentist, and foundationalist rivals, acknowledging what is right about these other views.     

Metaphysical Infinitism and the Regress of Being

This article offers a limited defense of metaphysical “infinitism,” the view that there are, or might be, infinite chains of ontological dependence. According to a widespread presupposition, there must be an ultimate ground of being—most likely, a plurality of fundamental atoms. Contrary to this view, this article shows that metaphysical infinitism is internally coherent. In particular, a parallel with the debate concerning infinitism about epistemic justification is suggested, and an “emergence model” of being is put forward. According to the emergence model, the being of any given entity gradually arises out of an infinite series of progressively less dependent entities—it is not wholly transmitted, as it were, from a basic, ungrounded level to all the dependent ones in a step‐by‐step fashion. Some objections are considered and rebutted.     

Response to restrictive policies: Reconciling system justification and psychological reactance

Here we propose a dual process model to reconcile two contradictory predictions about how people respond to restrictive policies imposed upon them by organizations and systems within which they operate. When participants’ attention was not drawn to the restrictive nature of the policy, or when it was, but their cognitive resources were restricted, we found evidence supporting a prediction based on System Justification Theory: Participants reacted favorably to restrictive policies, endorsing them and downplaying the importance of the restricted freedom. Only when we cued participants to focus their undivided attention on the restrictive nature of the policy did we find evidence supporting a prediction based on psychological reactance: Only then did participants display reactance and respond negatively to the policies.     

No Justificatory Closure without Truth

It is well-known that versions of the lottery paradox and of the preface paradox show that the following three principles are jointly inconsistent: (Sufficiency) very probable propositions are justifiably believable; (Conjunction Closure) justified believability is closed under conjunction introduction; (No Contradictions) propositions known to be contradictory are not justifiably believable. This paper shows that there is a hybrid of the lottery and preface paradoxes that does not require Sufficiency to arise, but only Conjunction Closure and No Contradictions; and it argues that, given any plausible solution to this paradox, if one is not ready to deny Conjunction Closure (and analogous consistency principles), then one must endorse the thesis that justified believability is factive.     

How to be Conservative: a Partial Defence of Epistemic Conservatism

Conservatism about perceptual justification tells us that we cannot have perceptual justification to believe p unless we also have justification to believe that perceptual experiences are reliable. There are many ways to maintain this thesis, ways that have not been sufficiently appreciated. Most of these ways lead to at least one of two problems: the first is an over-intellectualization problem, whereas the second concerns the satisfaction of the epistemic basing requirement on justified belief. I argue that there is at least one Conservative view that survives both difficulties, a view which has the further ability to undercut a crucial consideration that has supported Dogmatist views about perceptual justification. The final section explores a tension between Conservatism and the prospect of having a completely general account of propositional justification. Ironically, the problem is that Conservatives seem committed to making the acquisition of propositional justification too easy. My partial defence of Conservatism concludes by suggesting possible solutions to this problem.     

Kant's Pragmatism

This article offers a definition of the term ‘pragmatic’, as it is used in Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. The definition offered does not make any reference to the affinities between Kant's pragmatism and the philosophies of the American or other pragmatists but draws its definiens entirely from the Kantian conceptual framework. It states that the term ‘pragmatic’ denotes imperatives, laws and beliefs of a specific type: an imperative is pragmatic if and only if it is concerned with the choice of means to individual or universal happiness; a law is pragmatic if and only if our willingness to presuppose it results from our obedience to a pragmatic imperative; and a belief is pragmatic if and only if it relates to the objective validity of pragmatic laws. This article also discusses two rival definitions of the term ‘pragmatic’ (as used by Kant) that have been brought forward by Sidney Axinn and Nicholas Rescher.     

What student psychotherapists want from an experiential group

A study of four thirty-week experiential groups, involving two group conductors and forty-one other group members showed that 90 per cent of students' expectations of change were exceeded, indicating increase in interpersonal learning and, over a longer period, emotional change. the culture of the groups was consistently positive and expressive. There was some evidence that conductors had a similar style which corresponded to that predicted by the group analytic method, and that both showed behaviours which were indicators of ‘good quality' therapy. There were substantial correlations between a positive culture and better than expectation outcome at the end of term one, and good psychodynamic practice by the conductors and outcome at the end of the course.     

Redeeming the penultimate: discipleship and Church in the thought of Søren Kierkegaard and Dietrich Bonhoeffer

There are striking parallels between the theologies of discipleship advanced by the Danish thinker Søren Kierkegaard and the German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Bonhoeffer's notion of ‘costly grace’ closely resembles Kierkegaard's critique of the misuse of the Pauline-Lutheran doctrine of justification by grace through faith alone. After the publication of Cost of Discipleship, however, Bonhoeffer's view of discipleship moves in a different direction from that of Kierkegaard. Whereas Kierkegaard takes discipleship to mean that the Christian must be in irrevocable conflict with the world, Bonhoeffer sees discipleship as living in the world and cultivating a ‘worldly holiness’. This article tracks the reasons why their initially similar theologies of discipleship result in Kierkegaard and Bonhoeffer developing different understandings of Christian discipleship and church. The discussion is organised around the distinction Bonhoeffer makes in his Ethics between the ‘ultimate’ and the ‘penultimate’. Kierkegaard emphasises the ultimate to such an extent that the penultimate is virtually eliminated and the Christian disciple is called upon to live in a state of constant eschatological opposition to the world. For Bonhoeffer on the other hand the penultimate is not to be condemned but to be transformed in the light of the ultimate. The article argues that the differing notions of discipleship advanced by Kierkegaard and Bonhoeffer arise from the different political contexts in which they were living and writing. Whereas Kierkegaard's historical situation prompted him to affirm the ultimate by confronting his contemporaries with New Testament Christianity's radical opposition to the world, Bonhoeffer's resistance to the Nazi régime prompted him to reflect on how the ultimate can be integrated into the penultimate and how the Christian disciple can engage with the world without being of the world.