Thinking a bit about infinite regresses in justification. My argument in a paper I published recently in this blog (otherwise unpublished and five years old...!) was that when I say I have a good reason (a good justification, a reliable process etc) I am somehow deferring and coupling, that is, deferring to a reason that I endorse and coupling my belief to an existing and accepted chain of reasons. The issue, of course, is whether I can buy the justification of my belief by coupling it to an infinite chain of reasons or by deferring to an infinite process. I don't know. But it is interesting to bite the bullett and claim that there is nothing else to justification than good deferral and good coupling. That is, deferral to a commonly accepted reason and coupling to a commonly accepted (infinite) chain. After all, justification always makes appeal to accepted reasons. These reasons can be out there in chains and processes and to justify could be no more than to accommodate a belief to them. If I am a good detector of red - because the chain that starts with me being a good detector of detectors of red and goes on to me being a good detector of detectors of detectors of red etc is out there to be used -, I can say I'm justified in spotting something red.
Been reading Bohn's recent papers on the possibility of junky worlds (and therefore of hunky worlds as hunky worlds are those that are gunky and junky - quite funky, as I said in the other post). He cites Whitehead (process philosophy tends to go hunky) but also Leibniz in his company - he wouldn't take up gunk as he believed in monads but would accept junky worlds (where everything that exists is a part of something). Bohn quotes Leibniz in On Nature Itself «For, although there are atoms of substance, namely monads, which lack parts, there are no atoms of bulk, that is, atoms of the least possible extension, nor are there any ultimate elements, since a continuum cannot be composed out of points. In just the same way, there is nothing greatest in bulk nor infinite in extension, even if there is always something bigger than anything else, though there is a being greatest in the intensity of its perfection, that is, a being infinite in power.» And New Essays: ... for there is nev...
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