 Regarding the epistemic instruments as self-established has the immediate advantage of avoiding two difficulties. Firstly we get around the infinite regress of establishing the instruments by other instruments, which then in turn need yet other instruments to establish them, and so forth. Unlike other forms of infinite regress which Nāgārjuna accepts (such as an infinitely extended chain of causes and conditions) this regress is vicious, since the burden of proof is transferred in its entirety to the preceding stage, as an epistemic instrument would have to establish all the succeeding ones. Secondly the self-establishment of the epistemic instruments allows the opponent to hold on to the assumption that everything knowable is established by such instruments. It might be attractive to give up this assumption in order to escape the vicious regress, but this then makes it necessary to give a special reason explaining why ordinary objects are by established epistemic instruments, but not the instruments themselves.