Schelling

In this chapter, Friedrich Wilhelm von Schelling’s thought on the phenomenon of guilt is examined. The main point established is that on the one hand, Schelling can be seen to follow in Kant’s footsteps in that he, too, sees guilt as ultimately grounded in a free, intelligible act. On the other hand, Schelling goes beyond Kant in that he holds that for guilt (empirical or ontological) to be justified, it is necessary that the human being constitute or choose his or her own being in a timeless and free deed. In other words, Schelling endorses a version of the transcendental argument for freedom where guilt implies that the human being is a free causa sui. Schelling’s conception of the human being as causa sui enables him to address the problem of infinite regress that beleaguers Kant’s view.

On Otherness: An Analysis in the Context of Ibn Sına’s Theory of Relation

The mode of existence of relatives has been a matter of debate throughout the history of thought. Having evaluated the debate through the contrast between a first intelligible that has individuals in the external world and a second intelligible that has no counterpart at the individual level in the external world, Ibn Sīnā believed the relative to be a categorical accident with individuals that can be pointed at in the external world. In the Metaphysics of al-Shifā, Ibn Sīnā proposed a solution aimed at eliminating the objections based on the infinite regress against his view. The article tests the applicability of the model built in this solution to the meaning of otherness (al-mughāyara), the results of which reveal the incompatibility of otherness with this model as a problem. When examining the source of this problem, the following findings are noted: The categorical relative (al-muḍāf) and pure relation (iḍāfa) are not the same thing. Pure relation is a general concept upon which the categorical relative is based and to which it cannot be reduced, because the predicate of oneness (wahda) becomes valid for multiplicity (kathra) through pure relation. Otherness is a general predicate that is inherent in and coextensive with pure relation; in this way, otherness is included in the most general class of concepts that explain the order in the existence of all existents including the categorical relative. As Ibn Sīnā’s solution model in Metaphysics aims to explain the result of pure relation in essences, it cannot be applied to pure relation phases that prioritize results and transcend categories and thus cannot be applied to otherness.

The Problem with Impure Infinitism

It is generally believed that pure versions of infinitism face two problems, namely: 1) they are unable to distinguish between potential and actual series of justified reasons because they are defined strictly in terms of relations between beliefs in the series so that every succeeding belief is justified by the belief before it and so on ad infinitum and, 2) they are unable to mark the difference between a set of justified reasons that are connected to truth and one that is not because they are defined strictly in terms of a relation between beliefs in the series of reasons. However, Aikin argues that impure infinitism could surmount these problems without undermining the infinite regress condition because impure infinitism can solve the Modus Ponens Reductio, MPR, argument that threatens pure versions of infinitism. I argue that Aikin does not succeed because his impure infinitism faces some fatal consequences and any attempt to salvage it will undermine the infinite regress of justification

The Necessary Existence of Inference-Claims

In (2018) Gilbert Plumer argues against the existence of inference-claims on the grounds that they lead to the kind of vicious infinite regress illustrated in Carroll’s famous Achilles and the Tortoise paper (Carroll 1895). In Plumer’s view, it is not simply that neither arguments nor arguers do make inference-claims, but that they can’t do so, on pain of this regress. In further unpublished work Plumer has generalized from this result: it is a mistake to include reference to standards of argument assessment within the content of the argument. Inference-claims (i.e., sufficiency-claims) do not exist, and neither do relevance-claims or acceptability-claims, and all for much the same reason. I will argue that his arguments fail to show that inference-claims do not exist, because the regresses they lead to either are not vicious, not infinite, or can be avoided. Then I hope to show, on the grounds of what I call the ‘completeness’ of the argument, that inference-claims not only do exist but that they must exist. This is not to say that inference-claims are necessarily asserted in an act of arguing, but asserting them would not lead to the kind of harmful consequences Plumer supposes, any more than their mere existence would.

Infinite Regress: Wolff’s Cosmology and the Background of Kant’s Antinomies

Wolff’s relation to Leibniz and Kant’s relation to both are notoriously vexed questions. First, this paper argues that Wolff’s most serious departure from Leibniz consists in his (so far overlooked) rejection of the latter’s infinitism. Second, it contends that the controversies that surrounded Wolff’s early acceptance of infinite causal regress and prompted his conversion to finitism played a prominent role in shaping the theses of Kant’s Antinomies. Whereas Leibniz and the early Wolff considered infinite regress to provide support for the contingency of the world and the existence of God, Wolff’s enemies condemned it as Spinozistic. After Wolff, the claim that an infinite chain of causes is impossible became the standard view among both Wolffian and anti-Wolffian metaphysicians.

A Critique of Searle’s Linguistic Exceptionalism

John Searle’s social ontology distinguishes between linguistic and non-linguistic institutional facts. He argues that every instance of the latter is created by declarative speech acts, while the former are exceptions to this far-reaching claim: linguistic phenomena are autonomous, their meaning is “built in,” and this is necessary, Searle argues, to avoid “infinite regress.” In this essay I analyze Searle’s arguments for this linguistic exceptionalism and reveal its flaws. My method is to follow Searle’s argument closely and comprehensively so as to avoid, insofar as is possible, a selective reading of his argument in my favor. Against Searle’s position, I argue that linguistic phenomena are not exceptions to his general theory of institutional facts, for they too always require supplementary representations in order to exist. Language itself is analogous to all other institutions and infinite regress turns out to be unavoidable.

Do You Know That I Know That You Know…? Higher-Order Beliefs in Survey Data*

We implement a new survey of firms, focusing on their higher-order macroeconomic expectations. The survey provides a novel set of stylized facts regarding the relationship between first-order and higher-order expectations of economic agents, including how they adjust their beliefs in response to a variety of information treatments. We show how these facts can be used to calibrate key parameters of noisy-information models with infinite regress as well as to test predictions made by this class of models. We also consider a range of extensions to the basic noisy-information model that can potentially better reconcile theory and empirics. While some extensions like level-k thinking are unsuccessful, incorporating heterogeneous long-run priors can address the empirical shortcomings of the basic noisy-information model.

Proto-Transmedial Narrative Structures: Lewis Carroll’s A Tangled Tale

This paper explores A Tangled Tale, a collection of mathematical puzzles that Charles Ludwick Dodgson serialized in The Monthly Packet between 1880 and 1885. The hybrid narrative patterns that present mathematical questions by means of fictional storytelling are a unique form of scientific knowledge dissemination that anticipates the breakdown of narrative linearity and the emergence of multiform formats present in transmedia. An inquiry into the Rule of Three and infinite regress tie the knots of a tale that highlights crucial insights on the algorithmic foregrounding of the strategies of transmedia design. Such strategies can be seen as the intersection of narrative as well as mathematical expertise that turn the media galaxy into a cosmic affair.