According to Eric Olson, the Thinking Animal Argument (TAA) is the best reason to accept animalism, the view that we are identical to animals. A novel criticism has been advanced against TAA, suggesting that it implicitly employs a dubious epistemological principle. I will argue that other epistemological principles can do the trick of saving the TAA, principles that appeal to recent issues regarding disagreement with peers and experts. I conclude with some remarks about the consequence of accepting these modified principles, (...) drawing out some general morals in defending animalism. (shrink)

Philosophers often find themselves in disagreement with contemporary philosophers they know full well to be their epistemic superiors on the topics relevant to the disagreement. This looks epistemically irresponsible. I offer a detailed investigation of this problem of the reflective epistemic renegade. I argue that although in some cases the renegade is not epistemically blameworthy, and the renegade situation is significantly less common than most would think, in a troublesome number of cases in which the situation arises the renegade is (...) blameworthy in her disagreement with recognized epistemic superiors. I also offer some thoughts on what it would mean for philosophical practice for us to refrain from being renegades. Finally, I show how a new kind of radical skepticism emerges from modest theses regarding the renegade. (shrink)

Those of us who take skepticism seriously typically have two relevant beliefs: (a) it’s plausible (even if false) that in order to know that I have hands I have to be able to epistemically neutralize, to some significant degree, some skeptical hypotheses, such as the brain-in-a-vat (BIV) one; and (b) it’s also plausible (even if false) that I can’t so neutralize those hypotheses. There is no reason for us to also think (c) that the BIV hypothesis, for instance, is plausible (...) or probably true. In order to take skepticism seriously it’s sufficient to hold (a) and (b); one need not hold (c). Indeed, philosophers who accept (a) and (b) never endorse (c). Show me a philosopher who suspects that he is a brain in a vat and I’ll show you someone who is deranged! That’s one thing that bothers undergraduates in philosophy. They object: why on earth do some philosophers take the BIV hypothesis to pose any threat at all to our beliefs given that those very same philosophers think that there’s no real chance that the BIV hypothesis is true? Sure, the BIV hypothesis is formally inconsistent with my belief that I have hands, so if the former is true then my belief is false. But so what? Why should that bare inconsistency matter so much? Is this strange attitude amongst philosophers the result of some logic fetish infecting the philosophical community? It is sometimes said that the skeptical hypotheses are not only inconsistent with our beliefs but are explanatory of our experiences, which is supposed to make them more of a threat. But students aren’t fooled: although the skeptical hypotheses may attempt to explain why our experience is as it is, it’s the kind of attempt appropriate for science fiction movies that are all special effects and virtually no plot. No one with any sense of reality will take the evil demon hypothesis to be even tenuously explanatory. (shrink)

Several philosophers have recently argued that disagreement with others undermines or precludes epistemic justification for our opinions about controversial issues. This amounts to a fascinating and disturbing kind of intellectual scepticism. A crucial piece of the sceptical argument, however, is that our opponents on such topics are epistemic peers. In this paper, I examine the reasons for why we might think that our opponents really are such peers, and I argue that those reasons are either too weak or too strong, (...) implying absurd conclusions. Thus, there is not a compelling case for disagreement-based intellectual scepticism. (shrink)

: It is generally accepted that skeptical scenarios must be possible to raise legitimate skeptical doubt. I argue that if the possibility in question is supposed to be genuine metaphysical possibility, the skeptic's reasoning does not straightforwardly succeed. I first motivate the metaphysical possibility requirement on skeptical scenarios : it's a plausible position that several authors accept and that a family of prominent views—sensitivity, safety, relevant alternatives—are committed to. I argue that plausible constraints in modal epistemology show that justification for (...) believing that certain global skeptical scenarios are metaphysically possible rests on some justified beliefs about the external world, and that this undermines the skeptical argument. While there may still be local skeptical challenges, skeptics cannot appeal to the metaphysical possibility of skeptical scenarios to generate global external world skepticism. (shrink)

Philosophers defend, and often believe, controversial philosophical claims. Since they aren’t clueless, they are usually aware that their views are controversial—on some occasions, the views are definitely in the minority amongst the relevant specialist-experts. In addition, most philosophers are aware that they are not God’s gift to philosophy, since they admit their ability to track truth in philosophy is not extraordinary compared to that of other philosophers. In this paper I argue that in many real-life cases, such beliefs in controversial (...) claims are irrational. This means that most philosophers have irrational philosophical beliefs. (shrink)

_ Source: _Page Count 12 In his _Scepticism Comes Alive_, Bryan Frances contends that his “live skepticism” poses a genuine challenge to claims of knowledge in a way that classic “brain-in-a-vat” skepticism does not. This is mistaken. In this paper, I argue that Frances’s live skepticism dies on the horns of a dilemma: if we interpret a key premise in Frances’s skeptical argument template sociologically, then it undercuts itself, showing that there is no reason to accept it and the argument (...) fails. If we interpret that premise normatively, then the difference in the epistemic threat posed by live hypotheses compared to that of their moribund cousins evaporates, and with it, the purported distinctiveness of the live skeptical argument. (shrink)

I introduce and defend a view about knowledge that I call Moderate Skeptical Invariantism. According to this view, a subject knows p only if she is practically certain that p, where practical certainty is defined as the confidence a rational subject would have to have for her to believe that p and act on p no matter the stakes. I do not provide a definitive case for this view, but I argue that it has several explanatory advantages over alternative views (...) and I show how it can avoid two pressing problems commonly addressed to similar approaches. (shrink)

Bryan Frances’s recent argument is for the epistemic position called Live Skepticism. The Live Skepticism Argument (LSA) attempts to establish a restricted set of skeptical conclusions. The LSA’s “skeptical hypotheses” are scientific and philosophical positions that are “live actual possibilities” in an intellectual community. In order to “rule out” live hypotheses, an expert must know them to be false. However, since these are live hypotheses in this expert’s intellectual community—endorsed by others who have parallel levels of knowledge, intelligence, and understanding—this (...) expert is unable to rule them out. Consistent with the LSA is the outcome that people not exposed to these live hypotheses can know what these experts cannot. However, in this paper, I defeat the LSA by developing and defending a counterexample that focuses on the phenomenon of genius testimony. Everyone, including the LSA’s proponent, can and should allow that expertise comes in degrees. While in many cases a person’s intelligence, understanding, and knowledge are parallel to others in the field, there are some who are extraordinary in their intelligence, understanding, and knowledge (geniuses). If an expert meets with a genius, it is possible that the genius provides this individual with beliefs that can rule out a skeptical hypothesis. Therefore, an expert can have knowledge, even if the skeptical hypothesis is live and endorsed by others who have parallel levels of knowledge, intelligence, and understanding. After providing this counterexample, I present three potential objections, and show how people can know global warming exists and that smoking does not give someone cancer. I conclude by defending this counterexample from a likely reply by proponents of the LSA involving luck and knowledge. (shrink)

Does it make sense for people to hold one another responsible for what they do, as happens in countless social interactions every day? One of the most unsettling lessons from recent psychological research is that people are routinely mistaken about the origins of their behavior. Yet philosophical orthodoxy holds that the exercise of morally responsible agency typically requires accurate self-awareness. If the orthodoxy is right, and the psychology is to be believed, people characteristically fail to meet the standards of morally (...) responsible agency, and we are faced with the possibility of skepticism about agency. Unlike many philosophers, I accept the unsettling lesson from psychology. I insist, however, that we are not driven to skepticism. Instead, we should reject the requirement of accurate self-awareness for morally responsible agency. InTalking to Our SelvesI develop adialogictheory, where the exercise of morally responsible agency emerges through a collaborative conversational process by which human beings, although afflicted with a remarkable degree of self-ignorance, are able to realize their values in their lives. (shrink)

The Cartesian arguments for external world skepticism are usually considered to be significant for at least two reasons: they seem to present genuine paradoxes and that providing an adequate response to these arguments would reveal something epistemically important about knowledge, justification, and/or our epistemic position to the world. Using only premises and reasoning the skeptic accepts, I will show that the most common Cartesian argument for external world skepticism leads to a previously unrecognized self-undermining dilemma: it either leads to a (...) reductio ad absurdum, or to avoid this reductio the skeptic must accept that this argument is epistemically idle—it does not provide any support for external world skepticism. Either way, this Cartesian argument cannot legitimately threaten or even call into question our beliefs about the external world. And thus, either way, this Cartesian argument for external world skepticism is not epistemically significant—it is not a genuine paradox and adequately responding to it need not reveal anything epistemically important. (shrink)

In a previous article, I argued against the widespread reluctance of philosophers to treat skeptical challenges to oura prioriknowledge of necessary truths with the same seriousness as skeptical challenges to oura posterioriknowledge of contingent truths. Hamid Vahid has recently offered several reasons for thinking the unequal treatment of these two kinds of skepticism is justified, one of which isa prioriskepticism’s seeming dependence upon the widely scornedkkthesis. In the present article, I defenda prioriskepticism against Vahid’s criticisms.

This book takes purism about knowledge as the default position and defends it from the challenges of pragmatic encroachment. The book is divided into two parts, a negative and a positive one. The negative part critically examines existing purist strategies in response to pragmatic encroachment. The positive part provides a new theory of how practical factors can systematically influence our confidence and explores some implications of such influence.

This article examines the central epistemological issues tied to the recognition of disagreement.