The epistemic regress problem targets our ability to provide reasons for our beliefs. If we need reasons for our beliefs, then we may also need to provide reasons for those reasons, and so on into regress. Because the epistemic regress problem is often cast as an attack on our ability to achieve justification, it is often thought that epistemic positions which do not rely on notions like justification escape without difficulty. The first goal of this dissertation is to establish the generality of the epistemic regress problem, beyond all technicalities regarding the nature of justification. To do this, I propose a new minimal epistemic standard, that we should hold no bald assertions to be epistemically acceptable. I then use this epistemic standard to construct two new forms of the epistemic regress problem. The first version of the problem is reminiscent of the classical problem in that it attacks our ability to locate any such reason. The second version of the problem attacks our ability to unite any such reason to a particular claim that it is supposed to support. The second goal of this dissertation is to argue that pragmatism fails as a solution to the epistemic regress problem. The pragmatist seeks to avoid the regress by provisionally accepting their beliefs to be evaluated later. In so doing, the pragmatist seeks to have reasonable beliefs, but only after having accepted them provisionally. After eliminating other theoretical alternatives that the pragmatist may use to bolster their position, I argue that the pragmatic solution is not successful because (1) it is committed to some foundational beliefs that are necessary to facilitate the evaluation of their provisional beliefs which fall prey to the regress, and (2) the employment of these criteria of evaluation encounters the regress in its second form. I conclude by advocating for an understanding of Pyrrhonian skepticism under whi (open full item for complete abstract)

This thesis will assess whether Laurence BonJour's foundationalism is a viable internalist theory of epistemic justification. BonJour's view seems to require a higher order awareness that the content of a basic belief accurately describes what is empirically given. One worry is that an analogue of Sellars' dilemma will arise with respect to this higher order state. A related concern is that such higher order states may not always be reliable. Where they are not reliable, it is hard to see how the basic belief would be epistemically justified. A similar concern arises with respect to non-basic beliefs. Only beliefs that follow from justified beliefs via objectively truth conducive inferences will be inferentially justified. However, whether or not a given inference is objectively truth conducive is a matter external to the agent. As such, it is difficult to see how a purely internalist view can account for the epistemic justification of non-basic beliefs.

I articulate and defend a new version of the coherence theory of epistemic justification. It is new, in part, because, unlike traditional varieties of coherentism, it is externalist—viz., it implies that justification supervenes, in part, on things that are neither mental nor supervenient on the mental. The theory, overall, has three distinguishing components. First, there is an explanationist component, which says that an inductive inferential relation is cogent only if it is explanatorily virtuous. In this respect, my account is in the spirit of both William Lycan's brand of coherentism, and the brand oft attributed to Gilbert Harman and Wilfrid Sellars. Second, there is a meta-perspectivalist component, saying (for starters) that S has good reason for thinking that p obtains only if from S's perspective it is likely that he is connected to p. This, when fully spelled out, has the result that S's belief system is coherent only if S has a view as to how he is connected to the outside world, and according to which the mechanisms involved (e.g., vision) are reliable. And third, there is a veridicality component, which requires that S's reasons be true, and that S's reasons for his reasons be true, and so on. This, together with the meta-perspectivalist component, requires that S be correct as to how he is reliably connected to the outside world. This is what makes my position externalist. I develop and argue positively for each of these three distinguishing components, thereby refuting my theory's chief rivals in the coherentist camp. I also argue against the three standard objections to coherentism: the Alternative-Systems Objection, the Isolation Objection, and the Experience Objection. Take the Experience Objection, for instance. It charges that foundationalist theories are superior to coherentist theories because, unlike coherentist theories, they allow a role for experiences (e.g., visual experiences) in justification. I argue that, initial appearances notwithst (open full item for complete abstract)