Many philosophers now argue that the doubts of the philosophical sceptic are unnatural ones, in that they are not forced on us by considerations that any reasonable person would have to accept as compelling but only arise if one has already accepted certain controversial theoretical commitments. In this article I defend the naturalness of philosophical scepticism against such criticisms. After defining "global ontological scepticism," I examine the work of a number of anti-sceptical philosophers—Michael Huemer, Michael Williams, and John McDowell. Although (...) McDowell does move the debate to a deeper level by interpreting scepticism as a challenge to the very possibility of the mind's apprehending reality by being in a rational rather than a merely causal relation to it, none of them succeeds in showing that global ontological scepticism is, in the relevant sense, unnatural. This is not to say that the sceptic is correct; simply that it has not been shown that we can reasonably dismiss the sceptical questions and thereby evade the need to engage seriously with the sceptical arguments. (shrink)

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)

One of the most influential arguments for the coherence theory of empirical justification is BonJours a priori argument from the internalist regress. According to this argument, foundationalism cannot solve the problem of the internalist regress since internalism is incompatible with basic beliefs. Hence, coherentism seems to be the only option. In my article I contend that this argument is doomed to failure. It is either too strong or too weak. Too strong, since even coherentism cannot stop the internalist regress in (...) any legitimate way. In order to demonstrate this claim I will discuss various coherentist strategies. Too weak, since, were coherentism able to stop the regress, the argument against foundationalism would collapse. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 7, Issue 2, pp 114 - 135 It is a commonly accepted assumption in contemporary epistemology that we need to find a solution to ‘closure-based’ sceptical arguments and, hence, to the ‘scepticism or closure’ dilemma. In the present paper I argue that this is mistaken, since the closure principle does not, in fact, do real sceptical work. Rather, the decisive, scepticism-friendly moves are made before the closure principle is even brought into play. If we cannot avoid the (...) sceptical conclusion, this is not due to closure’s holding it in place, but because we’ve already been persuaded to accept a certain conception of perceptual reasons, which both issues a standing invitation to radical scepticism and is endemic in the contemporary literature. Once the real villain of the piece is exposed, it will become clear that the closure principle has been cast in the role of scapegoat in this debate. (shrink)

In this paper I respond to P.D. Magnus’ critique of an earlier paper of mine on Thomas Reid’s theory of common sense. In the earlier paper (The Scottish Pragmatist? The Dilemma of Common Sense and the Pragmatist Way Out, Reid Studies 2, 1999, 47-57) I argued that Reid faces a dilemma between dogmatism and scepticism but that there are also hints in his work towards a pragmatist way out of the problem. P.D. Magnus, in a response to this paper (Reid’s (...) Dilemma and the Uses of Pragmatism, Journal of Scottish Philosophy 2, 2004, 69-72), criticizes me for misidentifying the kind of pragmatism one can find in Reid. In this paper I defend my interpretation of Reid and spell the relevant kind of pragmatism out in more detail. (shrink)

In the present article we subscribe to a form of meta-skepticism according to which the theory of knowledge is impossible. This form of meta-skepticism is based on two apparently necessary conditions: the identification of one or more of the assumptions of the theory of knowledge in order to criticize them; and the more or less explicit assumption that there is an alternative account of knowledge to the one attributed to the theory of knowledge in question. Once these preliminary issues have (...) been clarified, we will review different varieties of meta-skepticism in order to verify whether all of them, even the most austere, satisfy the previous two conditions. This will lead us to conclude, in the first place, that all varieties of meta-skepticism satisfy them and, secondly, that no type of meta-skepticism is free of epistemological implications. In the light of this conclusion, we will end up considering whether meta-skepticism stands its ground. (shrink)

Peter Strawson defends the thesis that determinism is irrelevant to the justifiability of responsibility-attributions. In this paper, I want to examine various arguments advanced by Strawson in support of this thesis. These arguments all draw on the thought that the practice of responsibility is inescapable. My main focus is not so much the metaphysical details of Strawsonian compatibilism, but rather the more fundamental idea that x being inescapable may be reason for us to regard x as justified. I divide Strawsonian (...) inescapability arguments into two basic types. According to arguments of the first type we cannot give up the practice. According to arguments of the second type we should not give up the practice. My reasons for revisiting these Strawsonian inescapability arguments are, first, to establish that these are different and to some extent conflicting arguments. Second, I hope to show that none of Strawson’s inescapability arguments are convincing. Third, I discuss the possibility that the practice of responsibility is inescapable in a different, more pessimistic sense than envisaged by Strawson. What may be inescapable under conceivable scenarios is the conflict of theoretical and practical considerations in the justification of the practice. (shrink)

En este trabajo se explora una conexión entre el contextualismo y el fiabilismo. El propósito es desarrollar las líneas centrales de un acercamiento contextualista para resolver la crítica internista de que las nociones fiabilistas de justificación y de conocimiento no son adecuadas porque no recogen las intuiciones correspondientes a que un sujeto que está justificado o que sabe es racional y epistemológicamente responsable. Se argumenta que esta crítica y el escepticismo pirrónico comparten un presupuesto común, a saber, la cláusula internista, (...) por lo que, si es posible limitar el alcance de esta cláusula a través del contextualismo distinguiendo dos contextos diferentes, entonces también es posible hacer uso de esta distinción para dar respuesta a la crítica internista al fiabilismo. In this paper, we explore a connection between reliabilism and contextualism. our purpose is to draw up a contextualist approach to solve the critique that the reliabilist notions of justification and knowledge are not satisfactory because there is no room for the intuitions that a subject who is justified or knows is rational and epistemologically responsible. We will argue that this critique and the Pyrrohnian skepticism share the same assumption, viz., the internalist clause. Thus, if it is possible to limit the scope of this clause using contextualism, making a distinction between two different contexts, then it is also possible to use this distinction to offer an answer to the internalist critique to reliabilism. (shrink)

It is claimed that the radical sceptical problem that is the focus of much of contemporary epistemological discussion in fact divides into two logically distinct subproblems --a formulation that turns on the closure principle, and a second formulation which turns on the underdetermination principle. The Wittgensteinian account of the structure of rational evaluation is set out, and it is shown how this proposal --at least when properly formulated--can deal with closure-based radical scepticism. It is also claimed, however, that this account (...) fails to gain any purchase on underdetermination-based radical scepticism. The antidote to this latter form of radical scepticism lies elsewhere--with, it is suggested, epistemological disjunctivism. (shrink)

© The Authors 2017. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Analysis Trust. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: [email protected] Blome-Tillmann’s Knowledge and Presuppositions proposes and defends a novel form of epistemological contextualism. As the title would suggest, the view’s novelty lies in its deployment of the pragmatic-theoretic concept of a conversational presupposition to delineate a role for context in shaping the meaning of our knowledge claims. Over the course of six dense, argument-filled chapters, Blome-Tillmann brings his (...) approach into focus and claims for it several advantages. While existing varieties of contextualism can account for widely shared intuitions about the truth values of knowledge ascriptions in various familiar thought experiments, the distinctive flexibility of Presuppositional Epistemological Contextualism, Blome-Tillmann argues, enables it to account as well for cases in which our intuitions diverge. This flexibility also allows for especially satisfying analyses of scepticism... (shrink)

1. Quassim Cassam's subtle book, The Possibility of Knowledge, 1 contains many insights. My goal here is not to attempt to give a sense of all that this book has to offer – which I suspect would be foolhardy in the extreme – but rather to explore one particular central theme of this book that I find especially interesting – viz. the application of the ‘multi-level’ response to ‘how possible?’ questions that Cassam offers to the problem of radical scepticism.2. A (...) central contention of Cassam's book is that we should re-cast sceptical problems in terms of ‘how possible?’ questions. Although it is not a sceptical problem that Cassam examines himself , consider how this re-casting would work as regards the problem of free will. The relevant ‘how possible?’ question would be: " How is free will possible?" There are two features of ‘how possible?’ questions that are important for our purposes. The first is that they are by their nature challenging in that they imply that there is a standing obstacle to the possibility in question. In the case of , this obstacle is the familiar one concerning determinism. The second is that they do not presuppose that the target thing – in this case free will – is impossible; rather, they simply ask how such a thing could be possible.These two features of ‘how possible?’ questions impose constraints on what would constitute a satisfactory response to such a question. On the one hand, it would clearly be pointless to respond to such a question by simply insisting – on the basis of commonsense, say – that the target thing is possible, since the question was not suggesting …. (shrink)

Verificationism has often seemed attractive to philosophers because of its apparent abilityto deliver us from scepticism. However, I argue that purely epistemological considerationsprovide insufficient reason for embracing verificationism over realism. I distinguish twotypes of sceptical problem: those that stem from underdetermination by the actual data,and those that stem from underdetermination by all possible data. Verificationismevades problems of the second sort, but is powerless in the face of problems of the firstsort. But problems of the first sort are equally pressing. Furthermore, (...) there is some reasonto think that the two types of problem have a common origin. Thus the desire to avoidscepticism provides insufficient reason for adopting verificationism. (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)

This paper seeks to evaluate the potential of the Newman objection to function as an immanent critique of Carnap's use of the Ramsey method of regimenting scientific theories. Stress is laid on the distinctive way in which ramseyfications are used by Carnap to formulate the analytic/synthetic distinction for the theoretical language and on the difference between the ontological and the epistemic readings of the Newman objection. While the former reading of the Newman objection is rejected as trading on an assumption (...) that Carnap did not share, the latter is accepted as critical. It is argued to turn on overlooking that the Ramsey sentence constitutes an idealization concerning which our normal expectations of what theories are like are bound to be frustrated. This idealisation need not reflect Carnap's considered view but can be regarded as adopted solely for the project of semantic explication. The distinctions drawn in the course of the argument also help to motivate Carnap's abstention from the discourse of realism and its denial. (shrink)

Consider the following proposition: It is possible that all of our perceptual experiences are ‘delusive.’ According to Gilbert Ryle, is demonstrably absurd. In this paper I address four questions: What is Ryle’s argument against?; How persuasive is it?; What positions are ruled out if is absurd?; and How does Ryle’s position compare with contemporary work on skepticism?

An anti-representationalist view of language and a deflationary view of truth, key themes in contemporary pragmatism and especially Richard Rorty, do not undermine the notion, in critical theory, of ideology as 'false consciousness'. Both Foucault and Marx were opposed to what Marxists call historical idealism and so they should be seen as objecting to forms of ideology-critique that do not sufficiently avoid such an 'Hegelian' perspective. Foucault's general views on the relations between truth and power can plausibly be construed in (...) a way that makes them compatible with a Marxian critical theory. (shrink)

This paper examines Nietzsche’s views on truth and knowledge in the context of both his rejection of the Kantian thing-in-itself and his perspectivism. It is argued that Nietzsche’s principal contention with the thing-in-itself centres round the dissociation of truth and justification. The paper argues that Nietzsche’s perspectivism, understood as an epistemic thesis, sows the seeds for the overcoming of this sceptical dissociation.

En el presente trabajo defiendo la concepción conversacionalista de la justificación epistémica en la caracterización que de la misma ha hecho y sigue haciendo Richard Rorty. Me detengo en un grupo de objeciones provenientes del campo pragmatista. Vertebro la exposición a partir de la crítica a Rorty sostenida por Susan Haack, incorporando luego las observaciones que Hilary Putnam y Jiirgen Habermas le han presentado al proyecto rortyano. La critica de dichas objeciones conduce a la asunción de una caracterización contextualista y (...) convencionalista de los criterios de corrección justificatoria. Un punto clave de mi defensa de la posición rortyana es desarticular las consecuencias antintuitivas que supuestamente se siguen de abandonar el veroteleologismo, esto es, la idea de que la verdad es la meta de la investigación. In this paper I defend the Rortyan conversationalist conception of epistemic justification against some objections which have been supported by some pragmatist philosophers. First, I propose a reconstruction ofthe argument that Susan Haack made against Rorty's conversationalism. Then, I point out Putnam's and Hahennas' criticisms to rortyan project. The objections that I present to all those critics lead me to as sume a contextualist and conventionalist characterization of the criteria for justificatory correction. Finally, dismantling the anti-intuitive consequences which supposedly follow from giving up veroteleologism is the main point ofmy defense ofthe Rortyan account. (shrink)