In the beginning, there was...

The infinite regress crops up more than one might think. Consider the following fairly common theological argument:

A: Where did you come from?
B: My parents.
A: And where did they come?
B: My grandparents?
A: And where did they come?
B: Great grandparents.
A: But you can go back and back and back and back, and eventually you will have a problem, no? So there must be a Creator.

This is, in essence, the 'Cosmological Proof' of Thomas Aquinas. A short version is the following:
1. Every being is either a dependent or a self-existent being.
2. Not every being can be a dependent being.
3. Therefore there must be a self-existent being.

Of course, this does not tell us anything about the nature of this self-existent being. Indeed, a deist can turn around and say "that may be true, but why should this self-existent being care about us at all? If I walk along the beach, I leave footprints in the sand. I don't deny that these footprints cannot be uncaused, and that I am the cause, but it doesn't mean that I care about them after the fact." And indeed, an atheist can go further and say "why not just claim that the universe itself is a self-existent being?" (This would include the 'oscillating universe' cosmological theory.

So although the infinite regress may be a weapon for an argument, one must be careful that it is not turned against oneself!

Another area in which the infinite regress poses problems is with respect to the notion of 'a priori' knowledge. That is, knowledge prior to experience. Descartes, a rationalist, required an a priori justification for existence in his famous 'cogito ergo sum' argument. The clashes between the ideas of contemporaries Leibniz (the same Leibniz whose name arises in mathematics) and Locke with regard to whether or not a priori knowledge was possible is, in some ways, a definitive characterization of the difference between rationalism and empiricism.

Let us consider another major problem that the infinite regress points to: that of determinism. If everything must have a cause, then how is liberty/free will possible? This is a very important question, since its being posed by Hume in the Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding was what 'woke Kant from his dogmatic slumber'. Hume had concluded

"Whatever definition we may give to liberty, we should be careful to observe two requisite circumstances; first, that it be consistent with plain matter of fact; secondly, that it be consistent with itself. If we observe these circumstances, and render our definition intelligible, I am persuaded that all mankind will be found of one opinion with regard to it[:] … liberty, when opposed to necessity, not to constraint, is the same thing with chance; which is universally allowed to have no existence."

In other words, we can be 'free' with respect to constraint (e.g. not in prison), but our actions are necessitated by something else, i.e. according to Hume free will is impossible. One can conceive of it in the following way: consider every second or millisecond or ample 'division of time' as a 'frame' of existence. Then every 'frame' is somehow dependent on the previous 'frame'. If I suddenly 'choose' to go for a walk, it is only because there was something in the previous 'frame' that prompted me to do so, whatever that may have been.

Kant took this problem very seriously, and eventually attempted to argue that sponte (that is, uncaused events) can arise in the realm of thought. This prompted the German idealists after him: Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, and Schopenhauer to name a few, to come up with a way to 'iron out' the problems with regard to Kant's notions of freedom, i.e. the 'uncaused cause', though Schopenhauer broke from this trend and, in his essay 'On the Freedom of the Will', sides with Hume and explains that there cannot be such a thing as free will. Kant is one of the most important philosophers in the history of modern philosophy. His ideas led the way to Hegel who led the way to Marx, et al, and to Schopenhauer who led the way to Nietzsche, et al. Schelling's is often considered to be the first person to coin the term 'unconscious' and his ideas are a major contribution to modern psychology.

So, we have a lot that we owe to the infinite regress, unless, of course, ignorance is, indeed, bliss. For one cannot even begin to ponder a world without Kant.

Where would we be now if Kant had remained asleep?