Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!rutgers!cmcl2!brl-adm!umd5!mimsy!flink
From: flink@mimsy.UUCP (Paul V Torek)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Infinite Regress -- what's wrong with it
Message-ID: <9981@mimsy.UUCP>
Date: 30 Dec 87 15:34:14 GMT
Reply-To: torek@umix.cc.umich.edu
Organization: U of Maryland, Dept. of Computer Science, Coll. Pk., MD 20742
Lines: 18
Summary: a proof I promised Matt Wiener

To support my claim that an infinite regress is not sufficient justification
for believing something, I present Pollock's proof that ANY proposition may
be "justified" using an infinite regress.

Let "<--" stand for "is justified by", and let "->" stand for the material
conditional.  Consider any proposition p, and any propositions q[i].  

	p <--  
	q1 , q1 -> p  <--
	q2 , q2 -> q1 , q2 -> (q1 -> p)  <--
	q3 , q3 -> q2 , q3 -> (q2 -> q1) , q3 -> (q2 -> (q1 -> p))  <--
	etc.

Sorry, I couldn't find any more detailed reference than "Pollock", which I
think means John L. Pollock; a reference might be available in _Knowledge
and Justification_ by that author (which I haven't read).
--
"It only hurts when I laugh" --Marx
Paul Torek					torek@umix.cc.umich.edu