Results for 'external world skepticism'

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  1. External World Skepticism, Confidence and Psychologism about the Problem of Priors.Sharon Berry - 2019 - Southern Journal of Philosophy 57 (3):324-346.
    In this paper I will draw attention to an important route to external world skepticism, which I will call confidence skepticism. I will argue that we can defang confidence skepticism (though not a meeker ‘argument from might’ which has got some attention in the 20th century literature on external world skepticism) by adopting a partially psychologistic answer to the problem of priors. And I will argue that certain recent work in the epistemology (...)
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  2. An Argument for External World Skepticism from the Appearance/Reality Distinction.Moti Mizrahi - 2016 - International Journal for the Study of Skepticism 6 (4):368-383.
    In this paper, I argue that arguments from skeptical hypotheses for external world skepticism derive their support from a skeptical argument from the distinction between appearance and reality. This skeptical argument from the appearance/reality distinction gives the external world skeptic her conclusion without appealing to skeptical hypotheses and without assuming that knowledge is closed under known entailments. If this is correct, then this skeptical argument from the appearance/reality distinction poses a new skeptical challenge that cannot (...)
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  3. Epistemological solipsism as a route to external world skepticism.Grace Helton - 2021 - Philosophical Perspectives 35 (1):229-250.
    I show that some of the most initially attractive routes of refuting epistemological solipsism face serious obstacles. I also argue that for creatures like ourselves, solipsism is a genuine form of external world skepticism. I suggest that together these claims suggest the following morals: No proposed solution to external world skepticism can succeed which does not also solve the problem of epistemological solipsism. And, more tentatively: In assessing proposed solutions to external world (...)
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  4. The Sense-Data Language and External World Skepticism.Jared Warren - 2024 - In Uriah Kriegel (ed.), Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Mind Vol 4. Oxford University Press.
    We face reality presented with the data of conscious experience and nothing else. The project of early modern philosophy was to build a complete theory of the world from this starting point, with no cheating. Crucial to this starting point is the data of conscious sensory experience – sense data. Attempts to avoid this project often argue that the very idea of sense data is confused. But the sense-data way of talking, the sense-data language, can be freed from every (...)
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  5. On being a lonely brain‐in‐a‐vat: Structuralism, solipsism, and the threat from external world skepticism.Grace Helton - 2024 - Analytic Philosophy 65 (3):353-373.
    David Chalmers has recently developed a novel strategy of refuting external world skepticism, one he dubs the structuralist solution. In this paper, I make three primary claims: First, structuralism does not vindicate knowledge of other minds, even if it is combined with a functionalist approach to the metaphysics of minds. Second, because structuralism does not vindicate knowledge of other minds, the structuralist solution vindicates far less worldly knowledge than we would hope for from a solution to (...). Third, these results suggest that the problem of external world skepticism should perhaps be construed as two different problems, since the problem might turn out to require two substantively different solutions, one for knowledge of the kind that is not dependent on other minds and one for knowledge that is. (shrink)
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  6. The Equivocal or Question-Begging Nature of Evil Demon Arguments for External World Skepticism.Mylan Engel - 2005 - Southwest Philosophy Review 21 (1):163-178.
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  7. Lunacy and Scepticism: Notes on the Logic of Doubt Concerning the Existence of an External World.Sebastian Sunday Grève - 2022 - Topoi 41 (5):1023-1031.
    This article develops a logical (or semantic) response to scepticism about the existence of an external world. Specifically, it is argued that any doubt about the existence of an external world can be proved to be false, but whatever appears to be doubt about the existence of an external world that _cannot_ be proved to be false is nonsense, insofar as it must rely on the assertion of something that is logically impossible. The article (...)
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  8. Revisiting Moore’s Anti-Skeptical Argument in “Proof of an External World".Christopher Stratman - 2021 - International Journal for the Study of Skepticism.
    This paper argues that we should reject G. E. Moore’s anti-skeptical argument as it is presented in “Proof of an External World.” However, the reason I offer is different from traditional objections. A proper understanding of Moore’s “proof” requires paying attention to an important distinction between two forms of skepticism. I call these Ontological Skepticism and Epistemic Skepticism. The former is skepticism about the ontological status of fundamental reality, while the latter is skepticism (...)
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  9. Reasoning One's Way out of Skepticism.Susanna Rinard - 2018 - In Kevin McCain & Ted Poston (eds.), The Mystery of Skepticism: New Explorations. Boston: Brill. pp. 240-264.
    Many have thought that it is impossible to rationally persuade an external world skeptic that we have knowledge of the external world. This paper aims to show how this could be done. I argue, while appealing only to premises that a skeptic could accept, that it is not rational to believe external world skepticism, because doing so commits one to more extreme forms of skepticism in a way that is self-undermining. In particular, (...)
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  10. Skepticism about the internal world.Alex Byrne - 2015 - In Gideon A. Rosen, Alex Byrne, Joshua Cohen & Seana Valentine Shiffrin (eds.), The Norton Introduction to Philosophy. New York: W. W. Norton.
    Skepticism about the internal world is actually more troubling than skepticism about the external world.
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  11. Skepticism and Spatial Objects.Ali Hasan - 2018 - International Journal for the Study of Skepticism 8 (2):73-95.
    I defend external world realism. I assume that the principle of inference to the best explanation is justified: roughly, a hypothesis that provides a better explanation of the total evidence is more probable than one that does not. I argue that the existence of a world of spatial objects provides a systematic explanation of the spatial contents of visual experience, and that it provides a better explanation than traditional skeptical hypotheses. This paper thus pursues the explanationist strategy (...)
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  12. Center indifference and skepticism.David Builes - 2024 - Noûs 58 (3):778-798.
    Many philosophers have been attracted to a restricted version of the principle of indifference in the case of self‐locating belief. Roughly speaking, this principle states that, within any given possible world, one should be indifferent between different hypotheses concerning who one is within that possible world, so long as those hypotheses are compatible with one's evidence. My first goal is to defend a more precise version of this principle. After responding to several existing criticisms of such a principle, (...)
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  13. The self-defeating character of skepticism.Douglas C. Long - 1992 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 52 (1):67-84.
    An important source of doubt about our knowledge of the "external world" is the thought that all of our sensory experience could be delusive without our realizing it. Such wholesale questioning of the deliverances of all forms of perception seems to leave no resources for successfully justifying our belief in the existence of an objective world beyond our subjective experiences. I argue that there is there is a fatal flaw in the very expression of philosophical doubt about (...)
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  14. The insignificance of philosophical skepticism.Jonathan Dixon - 2022 - Synthese 200 (485):1-22.
    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 (...)
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  15. What is the Scandal of Philosophy?Roberto Horácio de Sá Pereira - 2018 - International Journal for the Study of Skepticism 8 (3):141-166.
    The central question of this paper is: what has Kant’s Refutation of Idealism argument proven, if anything? What is the real scandal of philosophy and universal human reason? I argue that Kant’s Refutation argument can only be considered sound if we assume that his target is what I call ‘metaphysical external-world skepticism.’ What is in question is not the ‘existence’ of outside things but their very ‘nature,’ that is, the claim that the thing outside us, which appears (...)
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  16. Russell’s Logical Construction of the External World.Peter J. Graham - 2018 - In Diego E. Machuca & Baron Reed (eds.), Skepticism: From Antiquity to the Present. New York: Bloomsbury Academic. pp. 454-466.
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  17. Why Wittgenstein Doesn’t Refute Skepticism.Raquel Albieri Krempel - 2019 - Discurso 49 (2).
    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 (...)
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  18. One more foiled defense of skepticism.Douglas C. Long - 1994 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 54 (2):373-375.
    This paper is a response to Anthony Brueckner's critique of my essay "The Self-Defeating Character of Skepticism," which appeared in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research in 1992. In this reply I contend that the three main avenues by which one might plausibly account for one's self-awareness are unavailable to an individual who is restricted to the skeptic's epistemic ground rules. First, all-encompassing doubt about the world cancels our "external" epistemic access via perception to ourselves as material individuals in (...)
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  19. Pragmatic Skepticism.Susanna Rinard - 2021 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 104 (2):434-453.
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Volume 104, Issue 2, Page 434-453, March 2022.
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  20. Skepticism, Invulnerability, and Epistemological Dissatisfaction.Chris Ranalli - 2013 - In C. Illies & C. Schaefer (eds.), Metaphysics or Modernity? Bamberg University Press. pp. 113-148.
    How should we understand the relationship between the contents of our color, causal, modal, and evaluative beliefs, on the one hand, and color, causal, modal, and evaluative properties, on the other? According to Barry Stroud (2011), because of the nature of the contents of those types of beliefs, we should also think that what he calls a “negative metaphysical verdict” on the latter is not one that we could consistently maintain. The metaphysical project aims to arrive at an improved conception (...)
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  21. Humean Skepticism and Entitlement.Santiago Echeverri - 2024 - In Scott Stapleford & Verena Wagner (eds.), Hume and contemporary epistemology. New York, NY: Routledge. pp. 183-205.
    Many philosophers have found in Hume’s skeptical doubts concerning the operations of the understanding the materials for an argument that generalizes from induction to other domains, like our beliefs in the external world, other minds, and the past. This chapter offers a novel reconstruction of that argument and identifies the principles that are responsible for its capacity to generalize beyond induction. Next, it presents a classical reading of Hume’s skeptical solution and shows that Crispin Wright’s entitlement theory is (...)
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  22. Doncaster pandas and Caesar's armadillo: Scepticism and via negativa knowledge.Levi Spectre & John Hawthorne - 2023 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 108 (2):360-373.
    The external world sceptic tells some familiar narratives involving massive deception. Perhaps we are brains in vats. Perhaps we are the victim of a deceitful demon. You know the drill. The sceptic proceeds by observing first that victims of such deceptions know nothing about their external environment and that second, since we cannot rule out being a victim of such deceptions our- selves, our own external world beliefs fail to attain the status of knowledge. Discussions (...)
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  23. Skepticism as a theory of knowledge.Jim Stone - 2000 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 60 (3):527-545.
    Skepticism about the external world may very well be correct, so the question is in order: what theory of knowledge flows from skepticism itself? The skeptic can give a relatively simple and intuitive account of knowledge by identifying it with indubitable certainty. Our everyday ‘I know that p’ claims, which typically are part of practical projects, deploy the ideal of knowledge to make assertions closely related to, but weaker than, knowledge claims. The truth of such claims (...)
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  24. Skepticism, logical independence, and epistemic priority.Kirk Ludwig - manuscript
    Radical skepticism about the external world is founded on two assumptions: one is that the mind and the external world are logically independent; the other is that all our evidence for the nature of that world consists of facts about our minds. In this paper, I explore the option of denying the epistemic, rather than the logical assumption. I argue that one can do so only by embracing externalism about justification, or, after all, by (...)
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  25. Skepticism: The Central Issues.Charles Landesman - 2002 - Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.
    This book presents and analyzes the most important arguments in the history of Western philosophy's skeptical tradition. It demonstrates that, although powerful, these arguments are quite limited and fail to prove their core assertion that knowledge is beyond our reach. Argues that skepticism is mistaken and that knowledge is possible Dissects the problems of realism and the philosophical doubts about the accuracy of the senses Explores the ancient argument against a criterion of knowledge, Descartes' skeptical arguments, and skeptical arguments (...)
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  26. Does Skepticism Presuppose Explanationism?James R. Beebe - 2017 - In Kevin McCain & Ted Poston (eds.), Best Explanations: New Essays on Inference to the Best Explanation. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. pp. 173-187.
    A common response to radical skeptical challenges to our knowledge of the external world has been that there are explanatory reasons (e.g., simplicity, coherence, explanatory power, conservatism) for favoring commonsense explanations of our sensory experiences over skeptical explanations. Despite the degree of visibility this class of response has enjoyed, it has often been viewed with skepticism [sic] by the epistemological community because of concerns about the epistemic merits of explanatory reasoning. I argue that skeptical challenges that employ (...)
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  27. McDowell's Conceptualist Therapy for Skepticism.Santiago Echeverri - 2009 - European Journal of Philosophy 19 (3):357-386.
    Abstract: In Mind and World, McDowell conceives of the content of perceptual experiences as conceptual. This picture is supposed to provide a therapy for skepticism, by showing that empirical thinking is objectively and normatively constrained. The paper offers a reconstruction of McDowell's view and shows that the therapy fails. This claim is based on three arguments: 1) the identity conception of truth he exploits is unable to sustain the idea that perception-judgment transitions are normally truth conducing; 2) it (...)
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  28. How to Undercut Radical Skepticism.Santiago Echeverri - 2017 - Philosophical Studies 174 (5):1299-1321.
    Radical skepticism relies on the hypothesis that one could be completely cut off from the external world. In this paper, I argue that this hypothesis can be rationally motivated by means of a conceivability argument. Subsequently, I submit that this conceivability argument does not furnish a good reason to believe that one could be completely cut off from the external world. To this end, I show that we cannot adequately conceive scenarios that verify the radical (...)
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  29. The moral skepticism objection to skeptical theism.Stephen Maitzen - 2014 - In Justin P. McBrayer & Daniel Howard-Snyder (eds.), The Blackwell Companion to The Problem of Evil. Wiley. pp. 444--457.
    Skeptical theism combines theism with skepticism about the ability of human beings to know God's reasons for permitting suffering. In recent years, it has become perhaps the most prominent theistic response from philosophers to the evidential argument from evil. Some critics of skeptical theism charge that it implies positions that theists and many atheists alike would reject, such as skepticism about our knowledge of the external world and about our knowledge of our moral obligations. I discuss (...)
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  30. Recognition, Skepticism and Self-Consciousness in the Young Hegel.Italo Testa - 2009 - Fenomenologia E Società 32 (2):117-132.
    The theory of recognition arises within Hegel's confrontation with epistemological skepticism and aims at responding to the questions raised by modern skepticism concerning the accessibility of the external world, of other minds, and of one's own mind. This is possible to the extent that the theory of recognition is the guiding thread of a critique of the modern foundational theory of knowledge and, at the same time, the point of departure for an alternative approach. In this (...)
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  31. Reasoning One’s Way Back into Skepticism.Mark Satta - 2023 - International Journal for the Study of Skepticism 13 (3):202-224.
    Susanna Rinard aims to show that it is possible to rationally persuade an external world skeptic to reject external world skepticism. She offers an argument meant to convince a skeptic who accepts her views on “several orthogonal issues in epistemology” to give up their external world skepticism. While I agree with Rinard that it is possible to reason with a skeptic, I argue that Rinard overlooks a variety of good epistemic grounds a (...)
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  32. Lonergan and perceptual direct realism: Facing up to the problem of the external material world.Greg Hodes - 2007 - International Philosophical Quarterly 47 (2):203-220.
    In this paper I call attention to the fact that Lonergan gives two radically opposed accounts of how sense perception relates us to the external world and of how we know that this relation exists. I argue that the position that Lonergan characteristically adopts is not the one implied by what is most fundamental in his theory of cognition. I describe the initial epistemic position with regard to the problem of skepticism about the external material (...) that is in fact implied by his theory of cognition, and I sort out some confusion about various forms of direct and representative perceptual realism. The paper concludes with a critique of Lonergan’s theory of description and explanation in empirical science that makes evident the difficulties into which he is led by lack of clarity in his theory of perception. (shrink)
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  33. La critique du critère de vérité épicurien chez Sextus Empiricus: un scepticisme sur le monde extérieur?Diego E. Machuca - 2013 - In Stéphane Marchand & Francesco Verde (eds.), Épicurisme Et Scepticisme. Roma: Università la Sapienza. pp. 105-127.
    It is generally agreed that one of the key differences between ancient skepticism and modern and contemporary skepticism is that the ancient skeptic does not call into question the existence of the external world, but only our ability to know the properties or qualities of external objects. In this paper, I argue that in Sextus Empiricus's attack on the Epicurean criterion of truth one finds evidence that the ancient Pyrrhonist also suspends judgment about the existence (...)
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  34. Why Moore Matters.Adam Leite - manuscript
    G.E. Moore’s writings on external world skepticism show us, in broad outline, how to dispense with external world skepticism in a way that is satisfying, intellectually responsible, and yet avoids engaging in constructive epistemological theory-building altogether. His work thus reveals something very important about the relation between epistemology and ordinary life, and also about what it would take to reach a satisfying resolution of certain sorts of perennial philosophical problems.
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  35. Abduction, Skepticism, and Indirect Realism.J. Adam Carter - 2024 - Philosophical Studies:1-18.
    Moore and Russell thought that perceptual knowledge of the external world is based on abductive inference from information about our experience. Sosa maintains that this ‘indirect realist’ strategy has no prospects of working. Vogel disagrees and thinks it can and does work perfectly well, and his reasoning (and variations on that reasoning) seem initially promising, moreso than other approaches. My aim, however, will be to adjudicate this dispute in favor of Sosa’s pessimistic answer, and in doing so, to (...)
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  36. Skepticism and Epistemic Closure: Two Bayesian Accounts.Luca Moretti & Tomoji Shogenji - 2017 - International Journal for the Study of Skepticism 7 (1):1-25.
    This paper considers two novel Bayesian responses to a well-known skeptical paradox. The paradox consists of three intuitions: first, given appropriate sense experience, we have justification for accepting the relevant proposition about the external world; second, we have justification for expanding the body of accepted propositions through known entailment; third, we do not have justification for accepting that we are not disembodied souls in an immaterial world deceived by an evil demon. The first response we consider rejects (...)
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  37. Structuralism as a Response to Skepticism.David J. Chalmers - 2018 - Journal of Philosophy 115 (12):625-660.
    Cartesian arguments for global skepticism about the external world start from the premise that we cannot know that we are not in a Cartesian scenario such as an evil-demon scenario, and infer that because most of our empirical beliefs are false in such a scenario, these beliefs do not constitute knowledge. Veridicalist responses to global skepticism respond that arguments fail because in Cartesian scenarios, many or most of our empirical beliefs are true. Some veridicalist responses have (...)
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  38. Skepticism and interpretation.Kirk Ludwig - 1992 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 52 (2):317-339.
    Donald Davidson has argued that attention to the necessarily public character of language shows that we cannot be massively mistaken about the world around us, and that consequently skeptical doubts about empirical knowledge are misplaced. The arguments Davidson advances rely on taking as the fundamental methodological standpoint for investigating meaning and related concepts the standpoint of the interpreter of another speaker, on the grounds that it is from the interpreter’s standpoint that we discover what constraints are placed on meaning (...)
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  39. Rene Descartes’ skepticism in Thomas Reid’s reading.Vinícius França Freitas - 2022 - O Que Nos Faz Pensar? 29 (48):55-82.
    The paper advances the hypothesis that René Descartes presents a skeptical system of philosophy in Thomas Reid’s reading. There is a sort of ‘involun-tary’ or ‘accidental’ skepticism that results from the adoption by Descartes of both a skeptical method and a skeptical principle. The first section shows to what extent the Cartesian method of doubt – which focuses on the reliability of the faculties of the mind - is a skeptical demand that cannot be satisfied. The second section shows (...)
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  40. In Defense of Truth: Skepticism, Morality, and The Matrix.Barry Smith & J. Erion Gerald - 2002 - In W. Irwin (ed.), Philosophy and The Matrix. Open Court. pp. 16-27.
    The Matrix exposes us to the uncomfortable worries of philosophical skepticism in an especially compelling way. However, with a bit more reflection, we can see why we need not share the skeptic’s doubts about the existence of the world. Such doubts are appropriate only in the very special context of the philosophical seminar. When we return to normal life we see immediately that they are groundless. Furthermore, we see also the drastic mistake that Cypher commits in turning his (...)
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  41. The Riddle of Hume's Treatise: Skepticism, Naturalism, and Irreligion.Paul Russell - 2008 - New York: Oxford University Press.
    JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY PRIZE for the best published book in the history of philosophy [Awarded in 2010] _______________ -/- Although it is widely recognized that David Hume's A Treatise of Human Nature (1739-40) belongs among the greatest works of philosophy, there is little agreement about the correct way to interpret his fundamental intentions. It is an established orthodoxy among almost all commentators that skepticism and naturalism are the two dominant themes in this work. The difficulty has (...)
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  42. Skeptical Hypotheses and Moral Skepticism.Joshua May - 2013 - Canadian Journal of Philosophy 43 (3):341-359.
    Moral skeptics maintain that we do not have moral knowledge. Traditionally they haven’t argued via skeptical hypotheses like those provided by perceptual skeptics about the external world, such as Descartes’ deceiving demon. But some believe this can be done by appealing to hypotheses like moral nihilism. Moreover, some claim that skeptical hypotheses have special force in the moral case. But I argue that skeptics have failed to specify an adequate skeptical scenario, which reveals a general lesson: such arguments (...)
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  43. Free Will and External Reality: Two Scepticisms Compared.Helen Steward - 2020 - Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 120 (1):1-20.
    This paper considers the analogies and disanalogies between a certain sort of argument designed to oppose scepticism about free will and a certain sort of argument designed to oppose scepticism about the external world. In the case of free will, I offer the ancient Lazy Argument and an argument of my own, which I call the Agency Argument, as examples of the relevant genre; and in the case of the external world, I consider Moore’s alleged proof (...)
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  44. Hume on External Existence: A Sceptical Predicament.Dominic K. Dimech - 2018 - Dissertation, University of Sydney
    This thesis investigates Hume’s philosophy of external existence in relation to, and within the context of, his philosophy of scepticism. In his two main works on metaphysics – A Treatise of Human Nature (1739–40) and the first Enquiry (first ed. 1748) – Hume encounters a predicament pertaining to the unreflective, ‘vulgar’ attribution of external existence to mental perceptions and the ‘philosophical’ distinction between perceptions and objects. I argue that we should understand this predicament as follows: the vulgar opinion (...)
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  45. The Self-Programming System: A Skepticism-conformed Computational Framework of the Mind (3rd edition).Fangfang Li & Xiaojie Zhang - manuscript
    How the mind works is the ultimate mystery for human beings. To answer this question, one of the most significant insights is Kant’s argument that we can only perceive phenomena but not the essence of the external world. Following this idea, we formulated a novel computational framework to model the mind based on two assumptions: 1) There is no presupposition of the existence of the external objective world and the main task of the mind is to (...)
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  46. The Skeptic and the Climate Change Skeptic.Alex Worsnip - 2021 - In Michael Hannon & Jeroen de Ridder (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Political Epistemology. New York: Routledge.
    Outside the philosophy classroom, global skeptics – skeptics about all (purported) knowledge of the external world – are rare. But there are people who describe themselves as “skeptics” about various more specific domains, including self-professed “skeptics” about the reality of anthropogenic climate change. There is little to no philosophical literature that juxtaposes the climate change skeptic with the external world skeptic. While many “traditional” epistemologists assume that the external world skeptic poses a serious philosophical (...)
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  47. Moral Error Theory and the Argument from Epistemic Reasons.Rach Cosker-Rowland - 2012 - Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy 7 (1):1-24.
    In this paper I defend what I call the argument from epistemic reasons against the moral error theory. I argue that the moral error theory entails that there are no epistemic reasons for belief and that this is bad news for the moral error theory since, if there are no epistemic reasons for belief, no one knows anything. If no one knows anything, then no one knows that there is thought when they are thinking, and no one knows that they (...)
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  48.  83
    Epistemic Barriers and Practical Dualism.Walter Barta - manuscript
    Here we will argue that Henry Sidgwick’s Dualism of Practical Reason, the paired imperative of being egoistic and/or utilitarian, follows from the epistemic barriers that arise when giving credence to skepticism about the external world, and particularly skepticism about other minds, and skepticism about reincarnation. We will argue that this is true whether we begin with the premises of universal utilitarianism or egoism.
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  49. Skeptical Arguments and Deep Disagreement.Guido Melchior - 2023 - Erkenntnis 88 (5):1869-1893.
    This paper provides a reinterpretation of some of the most influential skeptical arguments, Agrippa’s trilemma, meta-regress arguments, and Cartesian external world skepticism. These skeptical arguments are reasonably regarded as unsound arguments about the extent of our knowledge. However, reinterpretations of these arguments tell us something significant about the preconditions and limits of persuasive argumentation. These results contribute to the ongoing debates about the nature and resolvability of deep disagreement. The variety of skeptical arguments shows that we must (...)
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  50. (1 other version)The Point of Moore's Proof.Charles Raff - 2021 - International Journal for the Study of Skepticism 11 (1):1-27.
    The current standard interpretation of Moore’s proof assumes Moore offers a solution to Kant’s famously posed problem of an external world, which Moore quotes at the start of his 1939 lecture “Proof of an External World.” As a solution to Kant’s problem, Moore’s proof fails utterly. Similarly, a second received interpretation imputes an aim of refuting metaphysical idealism that Moore’s proof does not at all achieve. This study departs from the received interpretations to credit Moore’s stated (...)
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