This essay argues that the Pyrrhonian regress argument presupposes a Prior Grounding conception of justification. This is contrasted with a Default and Challenge structure, which leads to a contextualist picture of justification. Contextualism is said to incorporate the best features of its traditionalist rivals — foundationalism and coherentism — and also to avoid skepticism. It is argued that we should not ask which conception is really true, but instead give up epistemological realism.

To solve the ancient Pyrrhonian problematic, it is not enough to show that knowledge and justified belief are possible. They must be shown to be actual. It is argued that the attempts by the main advocates of reliabilism, William Alston, Alvin Goldman, and Ernest Sosa, fail to solve the problematic because they fall under the Agrippan modes of circularity and hypothesis. There is also another sort of response implicit in their discussion. It is not to try to solve the problematic, (...) but to accept the Pyrrhonian moral and to settle for appearances. Finally, a version of Pyrrhonism is given, and it is suggested that reliabilism be understood as a case of this sort of Pyrrhonism. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is twofold: to discuss some challenging issues concerning Sextus’ works and outlook, and to offer an overview of the influence exerted by Sextan Pyrrhonism on both early modern and contemporary philosophy.