Abstract

Taking the Liar paradox as an object lesson, Benson Mates argues that the major problems of philosophy remain intractable: they will never be resolved to the satisfaction of every competent investigator. In particular, "every clever attempt to solve" the whole question of skepticism regarding the External World "seems only to reveal that it is even deeper and more fundamental than it previously appeared to be." But that remark suggests an uncharacteristic optimism that is otherwise absent from the main drift of the book, as if an ever deepening Socratic ignorance were at any rate available to us.