In the First Meditation, the Cartesian meditator temporarily concludes that he cannot know anything, because he cannot discriminate dreaming from waking while he is dreaming. To resist the meditator’s conclusion, one could deploy an asymmetry argument. Following Bernard Williams, one could argue that even if the meditator cannot discriminate dreaming from waking while dreaming, it does not follow that he cannot do it while awake. In general, asymmetry arguments seek to identify an asymmetry between a bad case that is entertained (...) as a ground for doubt and a good case in which one takes oneself to know something. My aim in this paper is to consider how effective asymmetry arguments are as an anti-skeptical strategy. I conclude that although asymmetry arguments provide an effective response to dreaming skepticism, they fail as a response to brains-in-a-vat skepticism. (shrink)

The Knower Paradox has had a brief but eventful history, and principles of epistemic closure (which say that a subject automatically knows any proposition she knows to be materially implied, or logically entailed, by a proposition she already knows) have been the subject of tremendous debate in epistemic logic and epistemology more generally, especially because the fate of standard arguments for and against skepticism seems to turn on the fate of closure. As far as I can tell, however, no one (...) working in either area has emphasized the result I emphasize in this paper: the Knower Paradox just falsifies even the most widely accepted general principles of epistemic closure. After establishing that result, I discuss five of its more important consequences. (shrink)

For at least several decades, and arguably since the time of Descartes, it has been fashionable to offer scientific or quasi-scientific arguments for skepticism about human knowledge. I critique five attempts to argue for skeptical conclusions from the findings of science and scientifically informed common sense.

Philosophers have traditionally held that claims about necessities and possibilities are to be evaluated by consulting our philosophical intuitions; that is, those peculiarly compelling deliverances about possibilities that arise from a serious and reflective attempt to conceive of counterexamples to these claims. But many contemporary philosophers, particularly naturalists, argue that intuitions of this sort are unreliable, citing examples of once-intuitive, but now abandoned, philosophical theses, as well as recent psychological studies that seem to establish the general fallibility of intuition.In the (...) first two sections of this paper, I evaluate these arguments, and also the counter-arguments of contemporary defenders of tradition. In the next two sections, I sketch an alternative account of the role of philosophical intuitions that incorporates elements of traditionalism and naturalism - and defend it against other such views. In the final section, however, I discuss intuitions about conscious experience, and acknowledge that my view may not extend comfortably to this case. This may seem unfortunate, since so much contemporary discussion of the epistemology of modality seems motivated by worries about the mind-body problem, and informed by the position one wishes to endorse. But, as I argue, if conscious experience is indeed an exception to the view I suggest in this paper, it is an exception that proves - and can illuminate - the rule. (shrink)

Many contributors of the debate about knowledge by testimony concentrate on the problem of justification. In my paper I will stress a different point – the concept of testimony itself. As a starting point I will use the definitional proposal of Jennifer Lackey. She holds that the concept of testimony should be regarded as entailing two aspects – one corresponding to the speaker, the other one to the hearer. I will adopt the assumption that we need to deal with both (...) aspects. Nevertheless, I will show that her concept – which suggests regarding testimony as an act of communication conveying information – is too broad and, therefore, I will end up with a different twofold definition. (shrink)

A familiar form of scepticism supposes that knowledge requires infallibility. Although that requirement plays no role in our ordinary epistemic practices, Barry Stroud has argued that this is not a good reason for rejecting a sceptical argument: our ordinary practices do not correctly reflect the requirements for knowledge because the appropriateness-conditions for knowledge attribution are pragmatic. Recent fashion in contextualist semantics for 'knowledge' agrees with this view of our practice, but incorrectly. Ordinary epistemic evaluations are guided by our conception of (...) a person's standing with regard to the reasons that there are for and against the truth of a belief. Thus the objection from our ordinary practices is sound: fallibility is not an epistemological shortcoming, and a convincing sceptical argument must use only requirements which figure in ordinary epistemic practice. (shrink)

Modern-day heirs of the Cartesian revolution have been fascinated by the thought that one could utilize certain hypotheses – that one is dreaming, deceived by an evil demon, or a brain in a vat – to argue at one fell swoop that one does not know, is not justified in believing, or ought not believe most if not all of what one currently believes about the world. A good part of the interest and mystique of these discussions arises from the (...) contention that the seeds of such arguments lie in our ordinary epistemic practices, so that external world skepticism can arise “from within”. But is this contention correct? I doubt it. Taking skepticism seriously requires that we address this question head on. To do so, I will approach skeptical arguments from a certain vantage point. I will try to stand, as far as possible, with both feet squarely in ordinary life. I will start out with all of our ordinary commitments about what is the case, about what we know or have reason to believe, about when someone knows, is justified, or has good reason to believe something, and about how one should proceed in deciding what to believe. My question, then, will be this. From within that vantage point can I somehow be moved in a reasonable way to accept the conclusion that I know far less about the world around me than I thought, or that epistemically speaking, I really ought not believe much of what I have believed about the world around me? In order for such movement to take place, I will have to find reason from within my ordinary standpoint to discount or reject much of what I ordinarily accept. And of course, that reason will have to come from some.. (shrink)

I claim in this article that if my experience is such that it seems to me that there is an external object before me, then I have reason to believe that there is an external object before me. The sceptic argues that since my having the experience is compatible both with there being and with there not being an external object before me, I have no reason to believe that the former possibility obtains and not the latter. I respond that (...) the sceptic has ignored a relevant difference between the two possibilities: I can make sense of the former possibility but not of the latter. I examine two broad categories of sceptical possibilities (dreams and hallucinations), explain why I cannot make sense of them, and explain why my inability to make sense of them gives me reason to believe they do not obtain. (shrink)

Debates between Habermas and the poststructuralists - specifically, Derrida, Foucault and Lyotard - over the nature of critiques of Enlightenment rationality and modernity are investigated in order to argue for an agenda for critical theory beyond the 'French Fries and the Frankfurter'.1 Part I interrogates key elements of Habermas' theory of communicative rationality in his reconstruction of Enlightenment modernity and his critique of the poststructuralists. This orients the discussion toward an evaluation of Habermas' neo-Kantianism, theory of language (discourse ethics), and (...) the 'critique' he employs in his bid to defend and complete the project of modernity. Key Words: critical theory • Derrida • Enlightenment modernity • Foucault • Habermas • Lyotard • Marx • postmodernism debates. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to provide a new solution to the radical sceptical paradox. A sceptical paradox purports to indicate the inconsistency within our fundamental epistemological commitments that are all seemingly plausible. Typically, sceptics employ an intuitively appealing epistemic principle (e.g., the closure principle, the underdetermination principle) to derive the sceptical conclusion. This paper will reveal a dilemma intrinsic to the sceptical paradox, which I refer to as the self-hollowing problem of radical scepticism. That is, on the one (...) hand, if the sceptical conclusion turns out to be true, then the epistemic principle employed by sceptics would lose its foundation of plausibility; on the other hand, if the sceptical conclusion does not follow, then the sceptical problem would not arise. In either case, the so-called sceptical paradox cannot be a genuine paradox. This new solution has three theoretical merits: it is undercutting, less theory-laden, and widely applicable. (shrink)

Within the framework of the epistemological debate on disagreement, this paper aims to examine the sceptical thesis that holds that, if it is impossible to rationally choose among two excluding positions, the only sensible or rational thing to do is to suspend judgement. The idea that ordinary life does not constitute the source of scepticism is presented, which rules out real disagreement between epistemic pairs as its foundation. Sceptical scenes differ ontologically from everyday scenes, without such ontological difference entailing an (...) epistemic difference, since epistemic practices do not vary from one sceptical scene to other types of scenes. (shrink)

This paper addresses the epistemological problem of the myth of “the given” from an evidentialist and pragmatic perspective concerning the attribution of knowledge: if the evidence supporting p may be based on «the given» for S, how can “the given” be considered the basis of the evidence if it is a myth? The principal objective is to introduce a pragmatic solution to the above question. The main thesis is that there is a dogmatic relationship between the evidence necessary for the (...) legitimacy of our attribution of knowledge and «the given»; however, this dogma does not suggest that these attributions are irrational. (shrink)

Skeptical invariantism does not account for the intuitive connections between knowledge, assertion, and practical reasoning and this constitutes a significant problem for the position because it does not save corresponding epistemic appearances (cf. Hawthorne (2004:131-5)). Moreover, it is an attraction of fallibilist over infallibilist-skeptical views that they can easily account for the epistemic appearances about the connections between knowledge, assertion, and practical reasoning (cf. Williamson (2000:249-255)). Call this argument ‘the argument from the knowledge norm’. I motivate and develop a Humean, (...) pragmatist strategy for a skeptical response to ‘the argument from the knowledge norm’. Afterwards I outline a ‘toy’ version of pragmatic skepticism that can implement the strategy and save our everyday practice of assertion and practical reasoning. To this effect, I distinguish between assertibility conditions and truth conditions for ‘know’ and suggest that while assertibility conditions are pragmatic conditions sensitive to practical exigencies, truth conditions are semantic conditions sensitive only to truth. I briefly respond to three objections and conclude that pragmatic skepticism is resourceful enough to save our everyday practice of (fallibilist) assertion and practical reasoning and, hence, pay some due respect to corresponding epistemic appearances. (shrink)

In On Certainty, Wittgenstein formulates several criticisms against skepticism about our knowledge of the external world. My goal is to show that Wittgenstein does not here offer a convincing answer to the skeptical problem. First, I will present a strong version of the problem, understanding it as a paradoxical argument. In the second part, I will introduce and raise problems for two pragmatic responses against skepticism that appear in On Certainty. Finally, I will present some of Wittgenstein’s logical criticisms against (...) skepticism, which may initially be considered strong, because they seem to refute some skeptical assumptions. They concern Wittgenstein’s ideas that it is logically impossible to doubt and to be mistaken about Moorean propositions, and that these propositions don’t have a truth-value. But even these, I intend to show, do not really challenge skepticism, for they are not well grounded. (shrink)

On a common view of scenario-based sceptical arguments sceptical scenarios are error-possibilities, i.e. their point is to introduce the possibility of having only false beliefs. However, global error is impossible for purely logical/conceptual reasons: Even if one’s beliefs are consistent, the negations of one’s beliefs need not be consistent as well. My paper deals with the question of what the consequences of this result are. Two attempts at repairing scenario-based sceptical arguments within the framework of understanding sceptical scenarios as error-possibilities (...) are found wanting. Instead, what should be given up is the assumption that sceptical scenarios are error-possibilities. What is thought-provoking about the scenario of the brain in a vat is not that none of its empirical beliefs are true, but that all of its empirical beliefs fall short of knowledge at the same time. Hence, sceptical scenarios are not error-possibilities, but ignorance possibilities. If this is so, both the closure argument and the underdetermination argument commit a subtle mistake and should be replaced by slightly different arguments. The principle of excluded ignorance-possibilities turns out to be an epistemological principle that is faithful to scepticism’s tenets without misinterpreting sceptical scenarios as error-possibilities. (shrink)

What is the role of sceptical scenarios—dreams, evil demons, brains in a vat—in scep- tical arguments? According to the error view, sceptical scenarios illustrate the possibil- ity of massive falsity in one’s beliefs, whereas according to the ignorance view, they illustrate the possibility of massive ignorance not necessarily due to falsity. In this paper, the ignorance view is defended by surveying the arguments in favour of it and by replying to two pressing objections against it. According to the first objection, (...) the ignorance view illicitly introduces the kk-principle into sceptical arguments. In reply I argue that kk is not less plausible than its main rival, the closure principle. According to the second objection, relying on veridical ignorance-possibilities contradicts the transparency of belief. In reply I introduce a version of transparency that is consistent with the ignorance view. (shrink)

There’s the question of what there is, and then there’s the question of what ultimately exists. Many contend that, once we have this distinction clearly in mind, we can see that there is no sensible debate to be had about whether there are such things as properties or tables or numbers, and that the only ontological question worth debating is whether such things are ultimate (in one or another sense). I argue that this is a mistake. Taking debates about ordinary (...) objects as a case study, I show that the arguments that animate these debates bear directly on the question of which objects there are and cannot plausibly be recast as arguments about what’s ultimate. I then address the objection that, because they are easy answerable, questions about what there is cannot be a proper subject of ontological debate. (shrink)

Nihilism is the thesis that no composite objects exist. Some ontologists have advocated abandoning nihilism in favor of deep nihilism, the thesis that composites do not existO, where to existO is to be in the domain of the most fundamental quantifier. By shifting from an existential to an existentialO thesis, the deep nihilist seems to secure all the benefits of a composite-free ontology without running afoul of ordinary belief in the existence of composites. I argue that, while there are well-known (...) reasons for accepting nihilism, there appears to be no reason at all to accept deep nihilism. In particular, deep nihilism draws no support either from the usual arguments for nihilism or from considerations of parsimony. (shrink)

A Moorean fact, in the words of the late David Lewis, is ‘one of those things that we know better than we know the premises of any philosophical argument to the contrary’. Lewis opens his seminal paper ‘Elusive Knowledge’ with the following declaration.

Throughout the history of western philosophy, the Socratic injunction to ‘follow the argument where it leads’ has exerted a powerful attraction. But what is it, exactly, to follow the argument where it leads? I explore this intellectual ideal and offer a modest proposal as to how we should understand it. On my proposal, following the argument where it leaves involves a kind of modalized reasonableness. I then consider the relationship between the ideal and common sense or ‘Moorean’ responses to revisionary (...) philosophical theorizing. (shrink)

This paper presents a series of arguments aimed at showing that, for an important subclass of social rules—non‐summary rules—no adequate metaphysical account has been given, and it tentatively suggests that no such account can be given. The category of non‐summary rules is an important one, as it includes the rules of etiquette, fashion, chess, basketball, California state law, descriptive English grammar, and so on. This paper begins with behavioristic accounts of the conditions for the existence of such rules, and proceeds (...) through progressively more complex accounts, all the way to what are labeled ‘normative attitude accounts,’ which are prima facie plausible and particularly popular. In each case it is argued that the type of account under consideration cannot explain the existence of the relevant type of social rule. (shrink)

In this essay, we focus primarily on Moore’s “Proof of an External World” and Kant’s “Refutation of Idealism.” We are not exactly commenting on Clarke’s “The Legacy of Skepticism,” interpreting it, although what we do involves us in (some of) that. Instead of directly commenting on it, we do things with Legacy; we read Moore’s Proof and Kant’s Refutation with Clarke in mind. And by way of doing this, we bring onto the stage a post-Legacy Moore, and a post-Legacy Kant. (...) We do not claim to present Moore and Kant per se (to use Clarke’s term); we do not portray Moore and Kant as they are independently of “The Legacy of Skepticism.” We propose instead Moore and Kant as we read them after Legacy, i.e., in light of the pure/plain distinction. (shrink)

It is argued that the little everyday things of life often provide excellent entries into the intellectual problems of academic philosophy. This is illustrated with an analysis of four small stories taken from daily life in which people are in agony because they do not know what to do. It is argued that the crucial question in these stories is a philosophical question; not a closed request for empirical or formal information, but an open question about how best to conceive (...) of human experience. (shrink)

In this paper a candidate for a rational reconstruction of skeptical arguments is presented and defended against a competitor called ‘The Argument from Ignorance’. On the basis of this defense, Michael Williams’ claims that foundationalism and epistemological realism serve as presuppositions for skepticism are criticized. It is argued that rejecting these two theses, as his version of contextualism does, is not sufficient for answering the skeptical challenge.

Several recent contextualist theorists have proposed contextualizing the skeptic. Their claim is that oneshould view satisfactory answers to global doubts regarding such subjects as theexternal world, other minds, and induction as requirements for justification incertain philosophical contexts, but not in everyday and scientific contexts. Incontrast, the skeptic claims that a satisfactory answer to a global doubt in eachof these areas is a context-invariant requirement for justified belief. In this paper,I consider and reject the arguments Michael Williams develops in his bookUnnatural (...) Doubts that are intended to show that the skeptic's interpretationof the significance of global doubts is mistaken. In addition, I argue that Williams'general strategy in opposing the skeptic is extremely interesting and worth furtherinvestigation, even if his particular execution of it is unsuccessful. To this end, Iclarify the general strategy, distinguish it from a variety of others, and discuss itsprospects as an answer to the skeptic. (shrink)

This paper introduces and defends the paradigm response to external world skepticism. To understand it, consider an analogy. One of the hallmarks of being a bird is an ability to fly. A penguin lacks this hallmark and thus fails to be a paradigm bird. Likewise, there are various hallmarks of knowledge. Some of your external world beliefs lack some of these hallmarks, and thus fail to be paradigm cases of knowledge. Just as the inability of penguins to fly doesn’t prevent (...) them from being birds, likewise the lack of these hallmarks doesn’t prevent your beliefs from being knowledge. It just prevents them from being paradigm cases thereof. (shrink)

It is sometimes objected that anti-individualism, because of its assumption of the constitutive role of natural and social environments in the individuation of intentional attitudes, raises sceptical worries about first-person authority--that peculiar privilege each of us is thought to enjoy with respect to non-Socratic self-knowledge. Gary Ebbs believes that this sort of objection can be circumvented, if we give up metaphysical realism and scientific naturalism and adopt what he calls a “participant perspective” on our linguistic practices. Drawing on broadly Wittgensteinian (...) considerations, I argue that Ebbs is right about this, and I show how two likely objections to his view can be circumvented. I also argue that mere adoption of the participant perspective does not serve to refute external-world sceptic. (shrink)

In this paper, I review Quine's response to the normativity charge against naturalized epistemology. On this charge, Quine's naturalized epistemology neglects the essential normativity of the traditional theory of knowledge and hence cannot count as its successor. According to Quine, normativity is retained in naturalism as ‘the technology of truth-seeking’. I first disambiguate Quine's naturalism into three programs of increasing strength and clarify the strongest program by means of the so-called Epistemic Skinner Box. Then, I investigate two ways in which (...) the appeal to technology as normative enterprise can be made good. I argue that neither coheres with other aspects of Quine's philosophy, most notably the elimination of intentionality. Finally, I briefly consider a third reconstruction of the response, which involves an extension of the web of “belief” to practical know-how. I conclude that the normativity of Quine's (strong) naturalism cannot be found in the technology of truth-seeking. (shrink)

The paper explores Quine's ?naturalized epistemology?, investigating whether its adoption would prevent the description or vindication of normative standards standardly employed in regulating beliefs and inquiries. Quine's defence of naturalized epistemology rejects traditional epistemological questions rather than using psychology to answer them. Although one could persuade those sensitive to the force of traditional epistemological problems only by employing the kind of argument whose philosophical relevance Quine is committed to denying, Quine can support his view by showing how scientific inquiry need (...) not confront any evaluative issues which cannot be addressed in naturalistic terms. A survey of Quine's own epistemological writings supports this account of his position: naturalized epistemology, it is argued, requires acceptance of the shallowness of epistemic reflection, and traditional epistemology employs general epistemic norms and principles which Quine endeavours to show that we can do without. The closing sections of the paper argue that Quine can consistently resist recent criticisms by Alvin Plantinga in spite of the fact that an unsympathetic reader could reasonably be unimpressed by this resistance. Finally, an attempt is made to understand the normative role of Quine's empiricism and of his claim that prediction is the checkpoint of inquiry. (shrink)

The relationship between Legal Realism and Legal Positivism has been a recurrent source of debate. The question has been further complicated by the related difficulty of assessing the internal relationship between the two main original strands of Legal Realism: American and Scandinavian. This paper suggests considering American and Scandinavian Realism as instantiations of forward-looking and backward-looking rule skepticism respectively. This distinction brings into sharp relief not only the fundamentally different relationship between each of these two Realist schools and Legal Positivism (...) but also their equally different potentials as starting points for naturalizing jurisprudence. (shrink)

Epistemic closure has been a central issue in epistemology over the last forty years. According to versions of the relevant alternatives and subjunctivist theories of knowledge, epistemic closure can fail: an agent who knows some propositions can fail to know a logical consequence of those propositions, even if the agent explicitly believes the consequence (having “competently deduced” it from the known propositions). In this sense, the claim that epistemic closure can fail must be distinguished from the fact that agents do (...) not always believe, let alone know, the consequences of what they know—a fact that raises the “problem of logical omniscience” that has been central in epistemic logic. This paper, part I of II, is a study of epistemic closure from the perspective of epistemic logic. First, I introduce models for epistemic logic, based on Lewis’s models for counterfactuals, that correspond closely to the pictures of the relevant alternatives and subjunctivist theories of knowledge in epistemology. Second, I give an exact characterization of the closure properties of knowledge according to these theories, as formalized. Finally, I consider the relation between closure and higher-order knowledge. The philosophical repercussions of these results and results from part II, which prompt a reassessment of the issue of closure in epistemology, are discussed further in companion papers. As a contribution to modal logic, this paper demonstrates an alternative approach to proving modal completeness theorems, without the standard canonical model construction. By “modal decomposition” I obtain completeness and other results for two non-normal modal logics with respect to new semantics. One of these logics, dubbed the logic of ranked relevant alternatives, appears not to have been previously identified in the modal logic literature. More broadly, the paper presents epistemology as a rich area for logical study. (shrink)

This paper undermines a paradigmatic form of sceptical reasoning. It does this by describing, and then dialectically dissolving, the sceptical-independence presumption, upon which that form of sceptical reasoning relies.

The paper argues that in the Critique of Pure Reason Kant develops two anti-sceptical strategies. In the Fourth Paralogism (CPR A) he believes himself able to refute the sceptic by demonstrating that external perception is immediate. This strategy is rather unconvincing. In the Refutation of Idealism (CPR B) Kant promotes the material dependence of inner sense on outer sense. I show that Kant’s argument for material dependence has been widely overlooked, even though it is the strongest argument against external world (...) scepticism he develops, since it anticipates mental content externalism while preserving transcendental idealism and empirical realism. (shrink)

Realism takes many forms. The aim of this paper is to show that the “Critique of pure Reason” is the founding document of realism and that to the present-day Kant’s discussion of realism has shaped the theoretical landscape of the debates over realism. Kant not only invents the now common philosophical term ‘realism’. He also lays out the theoretical topography of the forms of realism that still frames our understanding of philosophical questions concerning reality. The paper explores this by analysis (...) of Kant’s methodological procedure to distinguish between empirical and transcendental realism. This methodological procedure is still of great help in contemporary philosophy, although it has its limits. (shrink)

Stroud has argued for many years that skepticism is conditionally correct. We cannot, he claims, both undergo a Cartesian-style examination of the extent of our knowledge as well as avoid skepticism. One reason Stroud's position appears quite plausible is the so-called "totality condition" imposed for this kind of examination: as inquiring philosophers we are called upon to assess all of our knowledge, all at once. However, in this paper I argue that Stroud's apparent understanding of the totality condition is mistaken. (...) Evidently, Stroud thinks that honoring the totality condition amounts to imposing the strong requirement that we initially assume that we don't know anything about external reality. However, there is a weaker requirement available: that we initially not assume that we know anything about external reality. I argue i) that the weaker conception of the totality condition is most suitable for the kind of philosophical examination that Stroud seems to have in mind; and ii) that according to this same conception skepticism is not conditionally correct. (shrink)

Many of our beliefs are acquired online. Online epistemic environments are replete with fake news, fake science, fake photographs and videos, and fake people in the form of trolls and social bots. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the threat that such online fakes pose to the acquisition of knowledge. I argue that fakes can interfere with one or more of the truth, belief, and warrant conditions on knowledge. I devote most of my attention to the effects of (...) online fakes on satisfaction of the warrant condition, as these have received comparatively little attention. I consider three accounts of the conditions under which fakes compromise the warrant condition. I argue for the third of these accounts, according to which the propensity of fakes to exist in an environment threatens warrant acquisition in that environment. Finally, I consider some limitations on the epistemic threat of fakes and suggest some strategies by which this threat can be mitigated. (shrink)

Two of the most orthodox ideas in epistemology are fallibilism and purism. According to the fallibilist, one can know that a particular claim is true even though one’s justification for that claim is less than fully conclusive. According to the purist, knowledge does not depend on practical factors. Fallibilism and purism are widely assumed to be compatible; in fact, the combination of these views has been called the ‘ho-hum,’ obvious, traditional view of knowledge. But I will argue that fallibilism and (...) purism are incompatible. The best explanation for fallibilism requires one to reject purism, while maintaining purism should lead one to reject fallibilism. It follows that the orthodox view of knowledge is deeply mistaken. (shrink)

There is a widespread assumption that ordinary language philosophy was killed off sometime in the 1960s or 70s by a combination of Gricean pragmatics and the rapid development of systematic semantic theory. Contrary to that widespread assumption, however, contemporary versions of ordinary language philosophy are alive and flourishing, but going by various aliases—in particular (some versions of) "contextualism" and (some versions of) "experimental philosophy". And a growing group of contemporary philosophers are explicitly embracing the methods as well as the title (...) of ordinary language philosophy and arguing that it has been unfairly maligned and was never decisively refuted. In this overview, I will outline the main projects and arguments employed by contemporary ordinary language philosophers, and make the case that updated versions of the arguments made by ordinary language philosophers in the middle of the twentieth century are attracting renewed attention. (shrink)

In his early essay, “Must We Mean What We Say”, Cavell argues that the claims of ordinary language philosophers regarding “what we say when” are not empirical generalizations about a given group of speakers but are rather to be understood as measuring the limits of what counts as a coherent act of thinking and speaking. Cavell’s charge against the skeptic about the external world is that he seeks to think and speak beyond these limits. In this paper I compare Cavell’s (...) response to the skeptic to Davidson’s. Both base their responses on a broadly Kantian approach that appeals to the conditions under which thinking or speaking about objects is possible. On this approach the skeptic isn’t giving a false answer to an intelligible question, but rather, the question to which the skeptic is giving an answer is shown to be in some way unintelligible. But while Davidson’s critique of the skeptic is based on the conditions of ascribing meaning to one’s words, and contents to one’s beliefs, Cavell’s critique is based on the failure of the skeptic to mean the words he uses in the way that he needs. This difference expresses an underlying disagreement about the meaning of “meaning”: for Davidson the world comes into view through the meaning of our words and concepts, through the contents of our beliefs; for Cavell, the world comes into view through the agreement in “criteria” that are a condition of applying words and concepts to the world. This difference illuminates what Cavell calls “the truth of skepticism”: the idea that “my relation to the world and to others in general is not one of knowing”. (shrink)