A prominent Thomistic cosmological argument maintains that an infinite regress of causes, which exhibits a certain pattern of ontological dependence among its members, would be vicious and so must terminate in a first member. Interestingly, Jonathan Schaffer offers a similar argument in the contemporary grounding literature for the view called metaphysical foundationalism. I consider the striking similarities between both arguments and conclude that both are unsuccessful for the same reason. I argue this negative result gives us indirect reason to consider metaphysical infinitism as a genuine possibility, the view that chains of ontological dependence or ground can descend indefinitely.

一个著名的托马斯主义宇宙论论证认为，原因的无限回归，在其成员之间表现出某种本体论依赖模式，将是恶性的，因此必须终止于第一个成员。有趣的是，乔纳森·谢弗在当代基础文献中为称为形而上学基础主义的观点提供了类似的论据。我考虑了这两个论点之间惊人的相似之处，并得出结论，由于相同的原因，两者都不成功。我认为这个否定的结果给了我们间接的理由来将形而上学的无限主义视为一种真正的可能性，即存在论依赖或基础的链条可以无限下降的观点。