The thing to be known is "explained" by identification with something else. What guarantees this something else? If it too has to be guaranteed by identification with something else, there is an infinite regress. To avoid this regress, we stop short and assert that this or that object or truth is directly known, by sense intuition, by rational intuition, as adirect de- liverance of consciousness, or in some other way. But what is such aprocedure except the essence of what Bentham called ipse dixitism? What is it but arbitrary dogmatism?