Abstract

Skepticism has had a problem for a long time: it seems self-defeating. If I can’t trust something, can I trust that I can’t trust it? Pyrrho thought that “No one knows anything - and even that’s not certain.” [1] Or at least, that was Pyrrho’s answer to the “self-defeat objection.” Whether this is convincing or not, it has been known that throughout philosophical history, having a skeptical bone in your body is a good thing. From Socrates saying “the only thing I know is that I know nothing,” [3] to Voltaire saying “Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.” [4] While skepticism has been through the wringer, a new challenger emerges, Conciliationism. Conciliationism accepts that skeptical bone and suggests that maybe instead of throwing away any possible certainty, we should accept everything from good sources. This still faces a “self-defeat objection.” If someone of sufficient worth philosophically disagrees with conciliationism itself, would you not need to incorporate that into your beliefs? If you do, then wouldn’t your conciliatory views be eaten away by those who disagree with it? Proponents of the “self-defeat objection” certainly think so. Christensen, however, doesn’t [2]. In this brief essay, I will discuss Christensen’s view on the “self-defeat objection” to conciliationism. I will then discuss how this view is flawed and can be rectified with consideratism, a modification to conciliationsim, suggesting an “Occam's Razor” type answer to the “self-defeat objection” of conciliationism.