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person1970s-present

Peter Klein

Disciplines:
epistemology

Summary

American epistemologist who developed infinitism — the view that epistemic justification consists in an infinite non-repeating chain of reasons — as an alternative to foundationalism and coherentism.

Core Contribution

Infinitism: for any justified belief, there is always a further reason available; justified belief requires an available infinite series of reasons; this is not problematic because the series is potential, not actually traversed. Provides a novel solution to Agrippa's trilemma.

Key Spikes & Highlights

  • Infinitism is the minority position among the three responses to the regress problem — most epistemologists are foundationalists or coherentists; Klein's systematic defense of infinitism is philosophically distinctive.

Notable Works & Achievements

Certainty: A Refutation of Scepticism

Human Knowledge and the Infinite Regress of Reasons

Historical Influences

Roderick Chisholm Alvin Goldman

Intellectual Lineage

Analytic Epistemology

Contemporaries & Peers

Ernest Sosa Laurence BonJour

Minds Influenced

No recorded minds influenced.

Intellectual Posterity

Infinitism

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