ABSTRACT

In recent years, philosophical theories of reasoning in general, and logical inference in particular, have been heavily influenced by a regress argument, which purports to undermine a general conception of reasoning that has widespread acceptance among psychologists and cognitive scientists-what we call the intentional rule-following account. In this chapter, we highlight the virtues of the intentional rule-following account, provide a detailed reconstruction of the Regress argument, and show that it is unsound. Specifically, we argue that a range of received accounts of psychological processes in cognitive science have the resources to address the Regress.