Convinced that both epistemology and philosophy have gone astray in the twentieth century, George Chatalian seeks to restore the classical tradition in both, in part by marshaling a mass of data about philosophical skepticism throughout the history of philosophy, data which taken as a whole are not to be found in any other work. Despite the extensive historical and linguistic investigations, however, the work is essentially a philosophical one. After outlining the theses he sees as central to (...) the epistemology of Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein, W. V. Quine and those more or less deeply influenced by them, and after tracing these claims to their deeper source in the analytic conception of philosophy, Chatalian assesses the claims such theses make about the Greek skeptics, sophists, and Plato. Such an assessment, Chatalian argues, exposes the false foundations of analytic epistemology. _Epistemology and Skepticism _outlines a complete epistemology in what, according to its author, is the classical sense. (shrink)

Sextus Empiricus was the voice of ancient Greek skepticism for posterity. His writings contain the most subtle and detailed versions of the ancient skeptical arguments known as Pyrrhonism, adding up to a distinctive philosophical approach. Instead of viewing philosophy as valuable because of the answers it gives to important questions, Sextus considered the search for answers itself to be fundamental and offered a philosophy centered on inquiry. Assuming the point of view of an active inquirer, Sextus developed arguments concerning (...) conflicting appearances, infinite regress in argument, dogmatic assertion of premises that are insufficiently justified, and many other ideas that fascinated later philosophers of knowledge across the centuries. He provided a unique perspective on topics of enduring relevance such as perception, language, logical consequence, belief, ignorance, disagreement, and induction. -/- While Sextus's importance to epistemology was appreciated by early modern and modern philosophers, he is underrepresented in contemporary discussions. In order to put Sextus back in the center of epistemology, these essays discuss his influence in the history of modern philosophy as well as contemporary engagements with Sextus's version of Pyrrhonian skepticism. The contributors investigate epistemology after Sextus, addressing four core themes of Sextus's skepticism: appearances and perception, the structure of justification and proof, belief and ignorance, and ethics and action. The arguments presented here bridge the divide between contemporary and ancient debates about knowledge and skepticism and will appeal to philosophers interested in epistemology and philosophy of mind as well as those interested in ancient philosophy and the history of philosophy more generally. (shrink)

This collection highlights the new trend away from rationalism and toward empiricism in the epistemology of modality. Accordingly, the book represents a wide range of positions on the empirical sources of modal knowledge. Readers will find an introduction that surveys the field and provides a brief overview of the work, which progresses from empirically-sensitive rationalist accounts to fully empiricist accounts of modal knowledge. Early chapters focus on challenges to rationalist theories, essence-based approaches to modal knowledge, and the prospects for (...) naturalizing modal epistemology. The middle chapters present positive accounts that reject rationalism, but which stop short of advocating exclusive appeal to empirical sources of modal knowledge. The final chapters mark a transition toward exclusive reliance on empirical sources of modal knowledge. They explore ways of making similarity-based, analogical, inductive, and abductive arguments for modal claims based on empirical information. Modal epistemology is coming into its own as a field, and this book has the potential to anchor a new research agenda. (shrink)

Relativism, the position that things are for each as they seem to each, was first formulated in Western philosophy by Protagoras, the 5th century BC Greek orator and teacher. This book focuses on the challenge to the possibility of expert knowledge posed by Protagoras, together with responses by the three most important philosophers of the next generation, Plato, Aristotle, and Democritus. In his book Truth, Protagoras made vivid use of two provocative but imperfectly spelled out ideas. First, that everyone is (...) a ‘measure’ of the truth, and that everyone is already capable of determining how things are, since the senses are the best and most credible guides to the truth. Second, given that things appear differently to different people, there is no basis on which to decide that one appearance is true rather than the other. Plato developed these ideas into a more fully worked-out theory, which he then subjected to refutation in the Theaetetus. Aristotle argued that Protagoras’ ideas lead to skepticism in Metaphysics Book G, a chapter which reflects awareness of Plato’s reaction in the Theaetetus. Finally, Democritus incorporated modified Protagorean ideas and arguments into his theory of knowledge and perception. There have been many important recent studies of these thinkers in isolation. However, there has been no attempt to tell a single, coherent story about how Democritus, Plato, and Aristotle responded to Protagoras’ striking claim, and to its perceived implications about knowledge, perception, and truth. This book offers a new account of this important chapter in the development of Greek epistemology. (shrink)

Mi-Kyoung Lee has produced an engaging study of the development of skepticism in ancient Greece. Although arguments against the possibility of knowledge — and responses thereto — were common during the Hellenistic period, the great works of the Classical period hardly give skepticism a second thought. Were great minds like Plato and Aristotle blithely unaware of the threat posed by skepticism? Lee’s answer is that the questions and arguments of Hellenistic period skeptics were not unprecedented, for a (...) nascent form of skepticism had already been debated in the Classical period. The relativism of Protagoras’ measure doctrine — “Man is the measure of all things” — was a challenge to Classical epistemologies, for it implied that no one could ever be mistaken about anything. Plato, Aristotle, and Democritus all recognized this challenge, and their responses to it shaped the debate over skepticism in the Hellenistic period. (shrink)

Skepticism has been (and remains) a central concern of the theory of knowledge. Indeed, some philosophers think that, without the problem of skepticism, we would not know what to make of the idea of distinctively philosophical theories of knowledge. However, a philosopher who thinks along these lines is likely to have in mind a rather special form of skepticism. Let us call it philosophical skepticism. Philosophical skepticism has a long history. Indeed, it is almost coeval (...) with systematic philosophy itself. (shrink)

The epistemological debate about radical skepticism has focused on whether our beliefs in apparently obvious claims, such as the claim that we have hands, amount to knowledge. Arguably, however, our concept of knowledge is only one of many knowledge-like concepts that there are. If this is correct, it follows that even if our beliefs satisfy our concept of knowledge, there are many other relevantly similar concepts that they fail to satisfy. And this might give us pause. After all, (...) we might wonder: What is so great about the concept of knowledge that we happen to have? Might it be more important, epistemically speaking, to investigate whether our beliefs satisfy some other relevantly similar concept instead? And how should questions such as these even be understood? This paper discusses the epistemological significance of these issues. In particular, a novel skeptical stance called ‘meta-skepticism’ is introduced, which is a kind of skepticism about the idea that some knowledge-like concepts are epistemically more important than others. It suggested that it is unclear whether this form of skepticism can be avoided. (shrink)

After presenting the current situation of epistemological research in Latin America and part of its history, this entry will address five topics: skepticism (especially in its Pyrrhonian stripe), core epistemology, formal epistemology, Wittgenstein’s thought in connection with epistemology and skepticism, and epistemology of law. It should be noted from the outset that the entry does not purport to provide a comprehensive account of epistemology in Latin America, but rather to paint a general (...) picture of it by focusing on the main issues that have been discussed within that field. (shrink)

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, I (...) argue that existing formulations of the principle are crucially ambiguous, and I go on to defend a particular disambiguation of the principle. According to the disambiguation I defend, how we should apply this restricted principle of indifference sensitively depends on our background metaphysical beliefs. My second goal is to apply this disambiguated principle to classical skeptical problems in epistemology. In particular, I argue that Eternalism threatens to lead us to external world skepticism, and Modal Realism threatens to lead us to inductive skepticism. (shrink)

This chapter serves as an opinionated introduction to the problem of convergence (that there is no clear convergence to the truth in philosophy) and the problem of peer disagreement (that disagreement with a peer rationally demands suspending one’s beliefs), and some of the issues they give rise to, namely, philosophical skepticism and progress in philosophy. After introducing both topics and surveying the various positions in the literature we explore the prospects of an alternative, hinge-theoretic account.

Epistemological disjunctivism (ED) has been thought to solve the conditionality problem for epistemic externalism. This problem arises from externalists’ characterization of our epistemic standings as conditional on the obtaining of worldly facts which we lack any reflective access to. ED is meant to avoid the conditionality problem by explicating subjects’ perceptual knowledge in paradigmatic cases of perceptual knowledge via their possession of perceptual reasons that are both factive and reflectively accessible. I argue that ED’s account of reflectively accessible factive perceptual (...) reasons is also prey to the conditionality problem. After that, I submit that Stroud’s influential formulation of the conditionality problem relies on a methodological requirement that is potentially dissociable from ED. So, it is possible to put ED in the service of a more modest anti-skeptical strategy. I close by suggesting that this modest anti-skeptical strategy successfully undercuts the underdetermination-based skeptical paradox. Nevertheless, it does not have substantial advantages over some forms of epistemic externalism. (shrink)

_Skepticism and Cognitivism_ addresses the fundamental question of epistemology: Is knowledge possible? It approaches this query with an evaluation of the skeptical tradition in Western philosophy, analyzing thinkers who have claimed that we can know nothing. After an introductory chapter lays out the central issues, chapter 2 focuses on the classical skeptics of the Academic and Pyrrhonistic schools and then on the skepticism of David Hume. Chapters 3 through 5 are devoted to contemporary defenders of skepticism—Keith (...) Lehrer, Arne Næss, and Peter Unger. In chapter 6, author Oliver A. Johnson dons the mantle of skeptic himself and develops and adds theories to the skeptical arsenal. He closes with an examination of the relationship between skepticism and cognitivism, reaching and defending conclusions on the nature and extent of possible human knowledge. (shrink)

According to epistemological disjunctivism (ED), in paradigmatic cases of perceptual knowledge, a subject, S, has perceptual knowledge that p in virtue of being in possession of reasons for her belief that p which are both factive and reflectively accessible to S. It has been argued that ED is better placed than both knowledge internalism and knowledge externalism to undercut underdetermination-based skepticism. I identify several principles that must be true if ED is to be uniquely placed to attain this goal. (...) After that, I use those principles to formulate a diachronic skeptical argument. This argument yields the counterintuitive conclusion that understanding a global skeptical hypothesis is all it takes for a rational subject to lose all her perceptual knowledge of the world. Next, I show that a popular Austinian move must reject one or another of the principles that underlie ED. I close by delineating a novel strategy that can block the diachronic skeptical argument while preserving all the principles. The key idea is that perceptual knowledge is grounded in primitive, perceptual and recognitional abilities. This view sheds new light on some puzzling features of global skepticism that have been noted by Descartes and Hume, among others. (shrink)

I distinguish two varieties of ancient skepticism on the basis of their competing attitudes towards reason. Pyrrhonian skeptics, according to Sextus Empiricus, not only doubt our ability to arrive at true beliefs, but also the value of doing so, whereas the Academics, as portrayed by Cicero, are committed to the view that true beliefs are as beneficial as they are difficult to acquire. Next, I examine Academic epistemology, focusing on one of Cicero's most important and problematic philosophical coinages---probabilitas (...) . He offers this term as the Academic's fallible criterion of judgment and as an alternative to the Stoic criterion which even more problematically guarantees certainty. The Academic, following Plato's Socrates, subjects his beliefs to close scrutiny in order to see whether they can survive refutation. By seeking out these 'dialectical survivors' the Academic seeks to eliminate the false beliefs from the set of beliefs that seem probabile. ;After discussing Academic epistemology, I examine some ethical implications of this view. The Stoics claim that no amount of non-moral goods can add to the eudaimonia of the sage, for he is in possession of the only genuine good, virtue. And virtue, for the Stoics is the healthy state of the psyche which results from deep, systematic knowledge. Here again, Cicero offers an Academic alternative. He maintains the Stoic's naturalistic ethical formula that a virtuous life is one lived in accordance with nature, but his interpretation reflects his epistemic modesty. To live in accordance with nature turns out to mean 'insofar as it is morally intelligible'. ;Finally, I argue for the plausibility of Cicero's claim to practice a method which originates with Socrates and after its revival in the third century BCE continuosly flourished to his own age . I conclude that Cicero's account of the Academy is both historically plausible and philosophically interesting; and thus Cicero should be taken seriously as a philosopher in his. own right and not merely as a doxographer. (shrink)

The epistemological views of medieval philosophers Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, and William of Ockham are considered in turn. First, Augustine’s refutation of skepticism from the Contra Academicos and his positive account of knowing Divine Ideas from the De Magistro are outlined, after which there is a brief discussion of his Vital Attention theory of sensation. Second, Aquinas’s account of self-evident propositions, sensation, concept formation, knowledge of singulars, and self-knowledge from the Summa Theologiae is covered. Third, Ockham’s picture of scientific (...) knowledge from his Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics is followed by an examination of his theories concerning evidentness, intuitive cognition, and abstractive cognition from his Ordinatio. (shrink)

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 close in (...) spirit to it. After that, it develops two objections to entitlement theory: it relies on the truth of deeply contingent propositions that are not a priori rational, and it does not manage to redefine the concept of epistemic rationality while offering an effective anti-skeptical response. The chapter concludes with a constructive suggestion: some passages that support a non-classical reading of Hume’s positive views on induction offer the materials to reject the steps of the skeptical argument that cause trouble for entitlement theory. (shrink)

My topic is moderate modal skepticism in the spirit of Peter van Inwagen. Here understood, this is a conservative version of modal empiricism that severely limits the extent to which an ordinary agent can reasonably believe “exotic” possibility claims. I offer a novel argument in support of this brand of skepticism: modal skepticism grounds an attractive (and novel) reply to Humean skepticism. Thus, I propose that modal skepticism be accepted on the basis of its theoretical (...) utility as a tool for dissolving philosophical paradox. (shrink)

Transcendental arguments offer a particularlypowerful strategy for combating skepticism. Such arguments, after all, attempt to show thata particular skepticism is not simply mistakenbut inconsistent or self-refuting. Whilethus tempting to philosophers struggling withskepticism of various sorts, the boldconclusions of these arguments have longrendered them suspicious in the eyes of many. In fact, in a famous paper from 1968 BarryStroud develops what is often taken to be adecisive case against transcendental argumentsin general.Recent work in the area of practical reason,however, (...) suggests that such arguments stillhave their defenders. Theorists such as JamesDreier and Christine Korsgaard have reliedexplicitly on transcendental arguments tojustify certain principles of practical reason. Can such arguments overcome Stroud's objection? In what follows, I argue that they can. However effective Stroud's general criticismmay be in other areas, it does not apply in therealm of practical reason. Nevertheless, thereare strict limits on how far transcendentalarguments can take us. In particular, despiteKorsgaard's efforts, they cannot succeed inestablishing a rational foundation formorality. (shrink)

There are some tantalizing suggestions that Pyrrhonian skepticism has its roots in ancient India. Of them, the most important is Diogenes Laertius’s report that Pyrrho accompanied Alexander to India, where he was deeply impressed by the character of the “naked sophists” he encountered (DL IX 61). Influenced by these gymnosophists, Pyrrho is said to have adopted the practices of suspending judgment on matters of belief and cultivating an indifferent composure amid the vicissitudes of ordinary life. Such conduct, and the (...) attitudes that it embodied, became inspirations to later skeptical thinkers. It is a fact that practices of the sort attributed to Pyrrho are richly evident in a number of ancient Indian philosophical and ascetic movements. On this basis, attempts have been made to determine the identity of these gymnosophists and, further, to pinpoint the dialectical tropes within Pyrrhonism that may have their basis in Indian thought. But despite these attempts, and in the absence of any new discoveries, these suggestions will likely remain just that. The paucity of the historical data and the problematic nature of the data itself prevent us from reconstructing a solid bridge between ancient India and Greek skepticism that may serve as the basis of robust historical theorizing. Classical India does, however, lay claim to a sophisticated and diverse culture of epistemological reflection, which includes a number of innovative skeptical thinkers deserving study on their own merits. This chapter is meant to provide such a study, or perhaps more accurately, a prolegomena for such. After some initial ground-laying, I will discuss three leading Indian skeptics and situate them historically and conceptually within the network of competing schools that comprise classical Indian philosophy. They are Nāgārjuna (c. 150 CE), the founder of Madhyamaka Buddhism, Jayarāśi (c. 800), associated with the Indian materialist tradition, and Śrīharṣa (c. 1150), a thinker connected to the school of Nondual (Advaita) Vedānta. (shrink)

Quine's attitude toward external world skepticism remains, to this day, less than completely clear. As one might except, Quine seems to dismiss such concerns in most of his work as beneath refutation. But, occasionally Quine seems to adopt an alternative stance, a stance from which he aims to address the issue, not simply ignore it. This is particularly true of Quine's brief but pithy “Response to Stroud,” wherein he seeks to defend the adequacy of epistemology naturalized qua knowledge (...) theory against Stroud's complaint that epistemology, so reconstituted, ignores perfectly intelligible reason for skeptical disquiet. Herein, I expand upon an interpretive suggestion of Dirk Koppelberg's upon which the skeptic's challenge is undermined by the incoherence of the notion of “transcendent” objectivity required for its formulation. After some motivational remarks I try to reconstruct a Quinean antiskeptical critique making use of Koppelberg's strategic suggestion. In then argue that this argument is fatally compromised by tensions internal to Quine's own system, tensions arising from the essential nature of Quine's realism. I close with some morals and conclusions. (shrink)

The traditional problems of epistemology have often been thought to be properly solved only by the provision of an argument, with premises justified by rational intuition and introspection, for the probable truth of our beliefs in the problematic domains. Following the lead of Thomas Reid, a sizable number of contemporary epistemologists, including many proponents of so-called "Reformed epistemology" regarding religious belief, reject as arbitrary the preferential treatment of reason and introspection implicit in the traditional view of the problems. (...) These "Reidians" insist that the traditional problems cannot be solved in the expected manner, but they go on to suggest that this result is of little significance because similar skeptical questions can be raised regarding a priori and introspective justification. After making clear the significance of the Reidian objection, I endeavor to defend the traditional preference for rational intuition over our other sources of belief by demonstrating that the usual skeptical worries cannot be equally raised against a priori justification. Then, after a brief consideration of some unduly neglected passages in Reid's writings in which he appears to concede that the traditional partiality to reason and introspection is not, in fact, arbitrary, I argue that it is the Reidians who are guilty of arbitrary partiality. (shrink)

The traditional problems of epistemology have often been thought to be properly solved only by the provision of an argument, with premises justified by rational intuition and introspection, for the probable truth of our beliefs in the problematic domains. Following the lead of Thomas Reid, a sizable number of contemporary epistemologists, including many proponents of so-called "Reformed epistemology" regarding religious belief, reject as arbitrary the preferential treatment of reason and introspection implicit in the traditional view of the problems. (...) These "Reidians" insist that the traditional problems cannot be solved in the expected manner, but they go on to suggest that this result is of little significance because similar skeptical questions can be raised regarding a priori and introspective justification. -/- After making clear the significance of the Reidian objection, I endeavor to defend the traditional preference for rational intuition over our other sources of belief by demonstrating that the usual skeptical worries cannot be equally raised against a priori justification. Then, after a brief consideration of some unduly neglected passages in Reid's writings in which he appears to concede that the traditional partiality to reason and introspection is not, in fact, arbitrary, I argue that it is the Reidians who are guilty of arbitrary partiality. (shrink)

This collection highlights the new trend away from rationalism and toward empiricism in the epistemology of modality. Accordingly, the book represents a wide range of positions on the empirical sources of modal knowledge. Readers will find an introduction that surveys the field and provides a brief overview of the work, which progresses from empirically-sensitive rationalist accounts to fully empiricist accounts of modal knowledge. Early chapters focus on challenges to rationalist theories, essence-based approaches to modal knowledge, and the prospects for (...) naturalizing modal epistemology. The middle chapters present positive accounts that reject rationalism, but which stop short of advocating exclusive appeal to empirical sources of modal knowledge. The final chapters mark a transition toward exclusive reliance on empirical sources of modal knowledge. They explore ways of making similarity-based, analogical, inductive, and abductive arguments for modal claims based on empirical information. Modal epistemology is coming into its own as a field, and this book has the potential to anchor a new research agenda. (shrink)

In his defense of a coherence theory of truth and knowledge, Donald Davidson insists that (i) we must take the objects of a belief to be the causes of that belief, and (ii) given the nature of beliefs, most of our be-liefs are veridical. As result, a response to skepticism is provided. If most of our beliefs turn out to be true, global skepticism is ultimately incoher-ent. In this paper, I argue that, despite the many attractions that a (...) co-herence theory has, a response to skepticism is not among them. After distinguishing three forms of skepticism (global skepticism, Pyrrhonian skepticism and lottery skepticism), I argue that none of them is affected by Davidson’s strategy. (shrink)

Introduction to Philosophy: Epistemology engages first-time philosophy readers on a guided tour through the core concepts, questions, methods, arguments, and theories of epistemology—the branch of philosophy devoted to the study of knowledge. After a brief overview of the field, the book progresses systematically while placing central ideas and thinkers in historical and contemporary context. The chapters cover the analysis of knowledge, the nature of epistemic justification, rationalism vs. empiricism, skepticism, the value of knowledge, the ethics of (...) belief, Bayesian epistemology, social epistemology, and feminist epistemologies. Along the way, instructors and students will encounter a wealth of additional resources and tools: chapter learning outcomes, key terms, images of philosophers and related art, useful diagrams and tables, boxes containing excerpts and other supplementary material, questions for reflection, suggestions for further reading, and a glossary. For an undergraduate survey epistemology course, Introduction to Philosophy: Epistemology is ideal when used as a main text paired with primary sources and scholarly articles. For an introductory philosophy course, select book chapters are best used in combination with chapters from other books in the Introduction to Philosophy open textbook series (edited by Christina Hendricks). (shrink)

There are two main questions in epistemology: What is knowledge? And: Do we have any of it? The first question asks after the nature of a concept; the second involves grappling with the skeptic, who believes that no one knows anything. This collection of original essays addresses the themes of knowledge and skepticism, offering both contemporary epistemological analysis and historical perspectives from leading philosophers and rising scholars. Contributors first consider knowledge: the intrinsic nature of knowledge -- in (...) particular, aspects of what distinguishes knowledge from true belief; the extrinsic examination of knowledge, focusing on contextualist accounts; and types of knowledge, specifically perceptual, introspective, and rational knowledge. The final chapters offer various perspectives on skepticism. Knowledge and Skepticism provides an eclectic yet coherent set of essays by distinguished scholars and important new voices. The cutting-edge nature of its contributions and its interdisciplinary character make it a valuable resource for a wide audience -- for philosophers of language as well as for epistemologists, and for psychologists, decision theorists, historians, and students at both the advanced undergraduate and graduate levels. Contributors: Kent Bach, Joseph Keim Campbell, Joseph Cruz, Fred Dretske, Catherine Z. Elgin, Peter S. Fosl, Peter J. Graham, David Hemp, Michael O'Rourke, George Pappas, John L. Pollock, Duncan Pritchard, Joseph Salerno, Robert J. Stainton, Harry S. Silverstein, Joseph Thomas Tolliver, Leora Weitzman The hardcover edition does not include a dust jacket. (shrink)

Epistemological objections to moral realism allege that realism entails moral skepticism. Many philosophers have assumed that theistic moral realists can easily avoid such objections. In this article, I argue that things are not so easy: theists run the risk of violating an important constraint on replies to epistemological objections, according to which replies to such objections may not rely on substantive moral claims of a certain kind. Yet after presenting this challenge, I then argue that theists can meet (...) it, successfully replying to the objections without relying on the problematic kinds of substantive moral claims. Theists have a distinctive and plausible reply to epistemological objections to moral realism. (shrink)

‘Fake news’ has become an increasingly common refrain in public discourse, though the term itself has several uses, at least one of which constitutes Frankfurtian bullshit. After examining what sorts of fake news appeals do and do not count as bullshit, I discuss strategies for overcoming our openness to such bullshit. I do so by drawing a parallel between openness to bullshit and naïve skepticism—one’s willingness to reject the concept of truth on unsupported or ill-considered grounds—and suggest that (...) this parallel indicates three principles for how we ought to combat our openness to fake news and other bullshit. First, the root causes of bullshit openness are not monolithic; we should adopt anti-bullshit strategies in recognition of this fact. Second, our efforts to overcome bullshit openness should be collaborative efforts to create an environment that allows for sustained interrogation of our bullshit openness, rather than a confrontational provision of contrary evidence, despite the fact that such strategies are more time-intensive. Third, social media is unlikely to be a fertile ground on which we will make meaningful progress in the fight against bullshit because of the inherent nature of social media platforms as spaces for short, declarative, confrontational claims. (shrink)

We provide an overview of three ways in which the expression “Historical epistemology” (HE) is often understood: (1) HE as a study of the history of higher-order epistemic concepts such as objectivity, observation, experimentation, or probability; (2) HE as a study of the historical trajectories of the objects of research, such as the electron, DNA, or phlogiston; (3) HE as the long-term study of scientific developments. After laying out various ways in which these agendas touch on current debates (...) within both epistemology and philosophy of science (e.g., skepticism, realism, rationality of scientific change), we conclude by highlighting three topics as especially worthy of further philosophical investigation. The first concerns the methods, aims and systematic ambitions of the history of epistemology. The second concerns the ways in versions of HE can be connected to versions of naturalized and social epistemologies. The third concerns the philosophy of history, and in particular the level of analysis at which a historical analysis should aim. (shrink)

Though most of analytic philosophy is based upon intuitions, some philosophers are beginning to question whether intuitions are an appropriate basis for philosophical theory. This paper responds to the arguments of some contemporary philosophers who hold that intuitions should not be treated as evidence for anything other than our contingent psychological constitution. It begins with a demonstration that skeptical arguments by Gilbert Harman and Alvin Goldman are variations on an argument with the potential to undermine the use of intuitions in (...) much philosophical inquiry. After a demonstration that Nicholas Sturgeon’s response to Harman’s argument is inadequate, it argues that all of the instances of the skeptical argument are unsuccessful because they are epistemically self-defeating. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 39.1 (2001) 101-134 [Access article in PDF] Getting Maimon's Goad:Discursivity, Skepticism, and Fichte's Idealism Peter Thielke The image of J. G. Fichte has of late displayed a rather substantial, and even remarkable, transformation. Where before Fichte was viewed—and most often dismissed—as advancing an unpalatable type of metaphysical idealism, in recent years several new perspectives on Fichte have emerged, each claiming to improve (...) on the old, standard picture. 1 The transformation of Fichte's image has been accompanied—or, more precisely, has been made possible—by a renewed interest in the relatively forgotten figures in the interregnum between Kant and Hegel. Fichte's thought is now understood in the context not only of Kant's transcendental idealism, but of, among others, Reinhold's Elementarphilosophie, Aenesidemus-Schulze's skepticism, Jacobi's intuitionism, and Beck's Standpunktslehre. By casting Fichte in this light, a more nuanced understanding of his project has been developed, one that does not simply follow the [End Page 101] traditional view of the Wissenschaftslehre as a full-blown metaphysical idealism in which the world of objects is understood as the product of an Absolute I.But while this 'contextual' approach has led to a renewed appreciation of the Wissenschaftslehre, I will suggest that the new focus on Fichte's historical milieu is incomplete. A lacuna in the current understanding of Fichte can be traced to a neglect of Salomon Maimon, an idiosyncratic and rather obscure critic of Kant. In this paper, I will argue that taking Maimon's skepticism into account when interpreting Fichte's idealism requires a rethinking of Fichte's project. In particular, in order to respond to Maimon's skepticism—an avowed project of the Wissenschaftslehre—Fichte's position must advance an idealist metaphysics, one in which the content of cognition is taken to be constituted by an act of the absolute I. This claim, of course, might seem rash, since it threatens to saddle Fichte with a gratuitous form of absolute idealism. It thus seems to run counter to recent attempts to make Fichte into a figure appealing to modern eyes. Such a concern, however, is I think misplaced. Instead, I will argue that Fichte's idealism, although perhaps ultimately unsuccessful, nevertheless should be of great interest precisely because it stands as an important attempt to provide an answer to a question—the nature of 'givenness'—that remains central to epistemology. 2The paper is divided into five parts. The first presents the historical evidence for Maimon's influence on Fichte. Part 2 offers a discussion of what I call 'Maimon's challenge' to the Kantian notion of 'discursive' cognition, as well as the ways in which this served as a goad to the development of the Wissenschaftslehre. In Part 3 I turn to a close reading of §1 of the Grundlage of 1794, where I try to show how a recognition of Maimon's challenge can help make sense of the foundations of the Wissenschaftslehre's project, and in particular the 'category of reality,' an otherwise highly obscure step in Fichte's argument. Part 4 offers a short discussion of the ways in which a Maimonian-minded account of §1 contributes to the understanding of the Grundlage as a whole. Finally, I conclude in Part 5 with some brief remarks about the broader philosophical implications of Fichte's response to Maimon's challenge: Fichte, I will argue, offers the first (but not the last) attempt at answering a type of Maimonian skepticism that remains viable even today. [End Page 102] 1. The Skeptical Goad Salomon Maimon, perhaps more than any other figure in German philosophy, embodied the Enlightenment notion of a Selbstdenker. He was born in Lithuania in 1753, to a rural Jewish family. 3 After marrying at eleven and becoming a father at fourteen, in his early twenties he fled from his family, after which he wandered the German countryside, until he was finally was able to establish himself in Berlin in 1779. Here he was taken in by Moses... (shrink)

Previous research associates free will skepticism with adverse well-being effects. However, it is doubtful that skeptical participants in these studies disbelieved in the incompatibilist notion of what it means to have free will. This is one of the first studies to exclusively examine such skeptics. A sample of 167 participants who claimed to believe that there is no free will responded to an online survey. After examining whether participants in fact disbelieved in the incompatibilist concept, they were asked (...) to describe how their skepticism is affecting their personal life and well-being. Reoccurring themes were identified through thematic analysis. Positive consequences were most commonly reported, including increased compassion for others and oneself, being less controlling and more relaxed, as well as having more control through environmental awareness. Other participants felt unaffected by their disbelief and most frequently mentioned the persisting feeling of having free will as a reason. The most common negative implications were to feel less effective as an agent and to miss a sense of purpose. These findings may shed new light on how to handle the issue of free will in the public sphere as well as inform future research investigating incompatibilist free will skepticism. (shrink)

This article follows Ludwig Wittgenstein, Stanley Cavell, and Gregory of Nyssa in a journey of epistemic dispossession. It begins by tracing two ways of wandering off this trail, two epistemological sirens that tempt wayfarers from a path of epistemic dispossession. These are skepticism and anti‐skepticism, elaborated by Wittgenstein and Cavell as joined in their enthronement of epistemically‐anchored certainty. Following Wittgenstein and Cavell into an exploration of the forms of life and death that sustain and are sustained by grasping (...) at such certainty, this article yet identifies two sources of un‐peace in their projects. One is an ill‐confessed threat that looms over their work, and the other is the inhuman difficulty of resisting the skeptical temptations of isolation and domination after this threat is named. It is the threat of death, which becomes, under the skeptic's anxiety, the threat of murder. That is, the skeptic denies finitude in such a way that he refuses to come to terms with the way that death attends life, and such refusal introduces as a skeptical temptation the further threat of murder. The difficulty of resisting skeptical temptations rides on the incompleteness of epistemic dispossession, which will always undo itself unless deepened into a more radical form of dispossession. Such forms of dispossession are suggested by Cavell and perfected in Gregory's descriptions of his sister Macrina. Macrina illumines epistemic dispossession as a form of love that refuses certain relationships to property. Yielding a vision for how dispossession might meet the threat of murderousness, Macrina's life thus interprets relationships of property, love, and death that complete epistemic dispossession. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Review Article:Knowledge, Ideology, and Skepticism in Ancient Slave StudiesKyle HarperNiall McKeown. The Invention of Ancient Slavery? Duckworth Classical Essays. London: Duckworth, 2007. 174 pp. Paper, $24.Ulrike Roth. Thinking Tools: Agricultural Slavery between Evidence and Models. BICS Supplement 92. London: Institute of Classical Studies, 2007. x + 171 pp. 10 figs. Paper, £28.Enrico Dal Lago and Constantina Katsari, eds. Slave Systems: Ancient and Modern. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. (...) xiv + 375 pp. Cloth, $99.Page DuBois. Slavery: Antiquity and Its Legacy. Ancients and Moderns. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. xi + 154 pp. Paper, $24.95.This recent harvest of books on ancient slavery shows that, thirty years after Moses Finley's Ancient Slavery and Modern Ideology, the central themes of that seminal study remain lively topics in classical studies. The nature of slavery and the long-term dynamics of ancient slave systems are still vigorously contested. Above all, these newer works reflect an abiding and shared sense of epistemological limits: even as our understanding of ancient slavery grows (and it does), the extent of our ignorance and the decisive role of our starting assumptions come into clearer focus.Niall McKeown's The Invention of Ancient Slavery? most clearly exemplifies this tone of pervasive skepticism. Published in the Duckworth Classical Essays series, it is a short and insightful survey of the historiography of ancient slavery. Each of the book's seven chapters is a case study of a historian or historical school. McKeown writes "in the shadow of the postmodern challenge" (8), and his project throughout is principally deconstructive. Chapter 1 begins by exposing the contemporary preoccupations which underwrote the view of slavery proposed by Tenney Frank, for instance, in his notorious 1916 account of "race mixture" in the Roman empire. The chapter juxtaposes more recent studies based on epigraphic evidence, especially Joshel's important study on labor and identity. The virtue of [End Page 160] The Invention of Ancient Slavery? is its constant skepticism, but consequently all arguments about ancient slavery are presented as the result of prior convictions: "The way we choose to interpret ancient slavery has much to do with the way we want to interpret it" (28-29).The second chapter considers the Mainz Academy's Forschungen zur antiken Sklaverei and the French tradition of research centered in Besançon. McKeown describes the deep division between Anglophone scholars and their German counterparts, inspired not least by Finley's blistering critique of Joseph Vogt. McKeown identifies the genesis of his own book in the surprise he experienced upon discovering that his "liberal Anglophone" outlook was simply the "reverse image" of the Mainz Academy's broadly shared assumptions (31). McKeown is trying to unsettle the "lazy orthodoxies" (41) of the British/American tradition, but the problem with any basically empiricist model (such as the study of Kudlien which McKeown highlights) is precisely that it fails to overcome the blind spots of ancient and modern ideology alike. McKeown contrasts Kudlien's study with the work of Garrido-Hory; she reaches more pessimistic conclusions about ancient slavery, so McKeown argues, not because the evidence demands it, but because she is prepared by her starting premises to find such conclusions.Chapter 3 examines Marxist approaches to ancient slavery. As McKeown notes, Marxism can mean many different things. Shtaerman and Trofimova, for instance, described the long-term history of slavery in rather orthodox terms of continuous class struggle. McKeown suggests that Shtaerman and Trofimova's work is "perhaps the most sophisticated and wide-ranging argument ever produced on ancient slavery" (54-55), but this view will not be shared by all. Their work is by far the best of a large body of Soviet scholarship on ancient slavery, and it was produced under considerable analytical constraints, but McKeown's chapter is a devastating critique. In the space of about sixteen inspired pages, McKeown manages to undermine the foundations of the orthodox Marxist metanarrative of ancient slavery. One wishes, however, for some consideration of the Italian neo-Marxist scholarship emanating from the Istituto Gramsci; this is easily the most important tradition not submitted to McKeown's acute critical gaze.Keith Bradley, whose work is placed in its context as a polemic... (shrink)

I begin by making some brief remarks about commonsense particularism. Commonsense particularists hold that we know pretty much what we think we know and hold that some of these beliefs are more reasonable than competing skeptical principles. However, commonsense philosophers often differ about what justifies these particular beliefs. Michael Bergmann holds that that our commonsense epistemic beliefs depend for their justification on epistemic intuitions or epistemic seemings. After a brief description of his views, I raise some questions about the (...) nature and epistemic role of these epistemic seemings. (shrink)

The book collects seventeen new research papers on themes in Indian philosophy, contributed by contemporary scholars from around the world. The principal themes are knowledge and logic, consciousness, existence, and the self. The editor explains that the studies discuss Indian sources in their own context, rather than trying to be comparative or make connections to other traditions. This unfortunate directive is fortunately ignored by the strongest papers. Claus Oetke shows that despite their investigations of inference and syntax, Indian analysts had (...) little interest in formal structure per se. They investigated ways to exploit the formal structure in ordinary cases for the establishment of metaphysical tenets. Metaphysical aspirations rather than sheer formal analysis were the overriding concern. Another contributor describes Indian thought as “relentlessly empiricist in orientation.” Scripture is acknowledged for transcendent things like Dharma and Brahman, “but it is the senses that hold sway over the natural world.” Logic is not enough for inference, which must be grounded in perception. The fourth-century Buddhist Vasubandhu defines inference in terms of perception. The basis of inference is the observation of an object not occurring without the inferred object for one who knows the connection. Eli Franco explains how skepticism invaded Indian thought with the Madhyamaka movement in latter Buddhism, beginning with the great founder Nagarjuna. He denies any means to knowledge, using arguments that often resemble those of Western skepticism. Skepticism about means to knowledge became associated with the later materialist Lokayata school, from ninth century. Indian materialism is an anomaly somewhat like the Chinese rationalism of the Mohists. Pradeep Gokhale provides an overview of the school, which he describes as “a rationalist philosophical movement which attempted to solve individual and social issues merely on empirical, rational, and practical grounds without taking recourse to religion.” Like Epicurus, this materialism is a physical theory demystifying traditional morality and religion, which are replaced by hedonism. Consciousness originates in body and does not exist independent of matter. It is not originally in the elements but arises from them, as intoxication, not originally in molasses, arises by fermentation. Religion is a human creation. Other worlds do not exist. Nothing that we do makes a difference to future lives, which do not exist. Fallacious ideas like life after death vitiate sacrifice and morality. The path to liberation is to follow natural pleasure. Joel Feldman discusses the Buddhist doctrine of momentariness. Things do not endure. The experience of enduring things is a delusive result of imagining things to have a universal character when actually they are merely grouped together according to our desires by means of their exclusion from things that do not fulfill our purposes. We impose this vast delusion on what are in truth momentary self-characterized particulars, each with its own self-nature, producing an effect and then annihilating in a moment by that very self-nature. Destruction is never the work of an external cause. If a thing can self-destruct, then it must be destroyed immediately by its own self-nature as soon as it begins to exist. Papers by Alex Watson and Roy Tzohar survey the spectrum of Indian views on the self. Consciousness as light is an ancient image in Indian thought described in a contribution by Matthew MacKenzie. Isabelle Ratié explains the metaphor of the mirror in Indian thought about consciousness. For Brahminical tradition mirror images are sheer illusion. For the later Buddhists the perceived universe is comparable to an optical refection. The characteristic of reflecting entities like a mirror is the capacity to manifest themselves as something else while remaining what they are, and this is exactly like consciousness, which manifests itself in all the images of phenomenal nature. In all of these papers Indian ideas are repeatedly compared with ideas in Sartre, McGinn, Dretske, Searle, Husserl, Merleau-Ponty, Heidegger, Wittgenstein, and Sellars. (shrink)

The dissertation falls into two sections. Part I deals with classical pragmatist arguments against the correspondence theory of truth; Part II , with neo-pragmatist arguments against the possibility of a substantive theory of knowledge. The goal of Part I is to reconstruct and evaluate the main anti-correspondence arguments employed by the classical pragmatists and contemporary neo-pragmatists . Here we offer detailed critical and historical discussions of two arguments in particular: the comparison objection, which claims that the idea that truth is (...) a matter of correspondence with the facts leads directly to skepticism; and the constructivist or anti-realist objection, according to which the correspondence theory is tenable only if realism is defensible, and thus cannot survive the latter position's fall from grace. After considering these objections, we address what James and Dewey had to say about the nature of the correspondence relation itself, and urge that their position has been badly misunderstood by foes and friends alike. Part II deals with the misgivings neo-pragmatists have about the very idea of a philosophical "theory of knowledge." Within analytic philosophy, the most familiar and aggressive expression of this anti-epistemology attitude is Richard Rorty's Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature. However, Rorty is far from alone in declaring epistemology moribund: philosophers in both the Anglo-American and Continental traditions have been busy composing obituaries for some time now. Our primary aim in Part II is to refute two main arguments central to the neo-pragmatist anti-epistemology case: the arguments against "foundations", a heterogeneous family of four objections to the idea of epistemology as 'foundational'; and the anti-representationalist argument, according to which skepticism and epistemology itself are said to rest on an untenable representationalist conception of thought or language. (shrink)

In everyday life, we often understand skepticism as a position that one may set aside because of its absurdity or incoherence. In Greek philosophy, skepticism was rather an inquiring attitude that led to the suspension of judgment and, as a result, the freedom from distress. In Modern philosophy, many philosophers viewed skepticism as a phase of thought that had to be overcome before laying firm foundations for the sciences. These pictures differ from the outlook that dominates current (...) analytic epistemology, where skepticism has normally been understood as a series of paradoxes that arise when we reflect on the workings of ordinary epistemic concepts like KNOWLEDGE and EPISTEMIC JUSTIFICATION. A skeptical paradox emerges when we identify a condition that seems to be necessary to have knowledge or epistemic justification, while it also seems that that condition cannot be met. This chapter explains why the picture of skepticism as a series of paradoxes is central to contemporary analytic epistemology and identifies some of the main features of skeptical paradoxes about the external world. After identifying two types of replies, it presents two influential paradoxes based on the closure and underdetermination principles, identifies some relevant differences between the two paradoxes, and critically examines some attempts at solving them. (shrink)

Philosophers have recognized for some time the usefulness of semantic conceptions of truth and belief. That the third member of the knowledge triad, evidence, might also have a useful semantic version seems to have been overlooked. This paper corrects that omission by defining a semantic conception of evidence for science and mathematics and then developing a semantic conception of knowledge for these fields, arguably mankind’s most important knowledge repository. The goal is to demonstrate the advantages of having an answer to (...) the more modest question “What is necessary and sufficient for introducing a knowledge predicate into scientific and mathematical languages?” – as contrasted with the ambitious Platonic question “What is knowledge?” After presenting the theory, the paper responds to a wide range of objections stemming from traditional philosophical concerns. (shrink)

When it comes to Quine's position on the naturalization of epistemological inquiry, it is generally considered that as the first and most important step, that position implies the abandonment of Cartesianism and the skepticism it implies. However, here we will argue that such a diagnosis is inappropriate, and that, in principle at least, Quine's attitude towards skepticism, even of the Cartesian type, is much more flexible than is usually thought, and perhaps even than Quine himself thought. In this (...) regard, we will try to show how Quine was actually the one who accepted what Barry Stroud called the 'conditional correctness of skepticism (Cartesianism)' and not the logical positivists, and that the main reason for this is that he recognized the autonomy of the discourse (‘epistemology’s meta-context’) established by Descartes. (shrink)

Less than a century after Plato’s death, the Academy’s scholarch Arcesilaus of Pitane inaugurates a peculiar oral phase of Academic philosophy, deciding not to write philosophical works or openly teach his own doctrines. Scholars often attribute a radical change of direction to the school under his headship, taking early Stoic epistemology to be the primary target of the New Academy’s attack on Stoic philosophy. This paper defends a rival view of Arcesilaus’ Academic revolution. Shifting the focus of that (...) attack from epistemology to ethics, the paper illuminates the continuity in development from Polemo to Arcesilaus and the evidence corroborating this continuity. (shrink)

Since the mid-1970s, scholars have recognized that the skeptical interpretation of Hume's central argument about induction is problematic. The science of human nature presupposes that inductive inference is justified and there are endorsements of induction throughout "Treatise" Book I. The recent suggestion that I.iii.6 is confined to the psychology of inductive inference cannot account for the epistemic flavor of its claims that neither a genuine demonstration nor a non-question-begging inductive argument can establish the uniformity principle. For Hume, that inductive inference (...) is justified is part of the data to be explained. Bad argument is therefore excluded as the cause of inductive inference; and there is no good argument to cause it. Does this reinstate the problem of induction, undermining Hume's own assumption that induction is justified? It does so only if justification must derive from "reason", from the availability of a cogent argument. Hume rejects this internalist thesis; induction's favorable epistemic status derives from features of custom, the mechanism that generates inductive beliefs. Hume is attracted to this externalist posture because it provides a direct explanation of the epistemic achievements of children and non-human animals — creatures that must rely on custom unsupplemented by argument. (shrink)

This paper explores how hinge epistemology might fruitfully be applied not only to the problem of radical skepticism, but also to certain domain specific skepticisms, and in particular, moral skepticism. The paper explains the idea of a domain specific skepticism, and how domain specific skepticisms contrast with radical skepticism. I argue that a domain specific skeptical problem can be resolved in just the same way as radical skepticism, if there are hinge commitments within that (...) domain. I then suggest that there are hinge commitments in the moral domain, and use this to address a moral skeptical problem due to our apparent inability to know moral nihilism to be false. (shrink)

Contemporary discussions of epistemological skepticism - the view that we do not and cannot know anything about the world around us - focus very much on a certain kind of skeptical argument involving a skeptical scenario (a situation familiar from Descartes’ First Meditation). According to the argument, knowing some ordinary proposition about the world (one we usually take ourselves to know) requires knowing we are not in some such skeptical scenario SK; however, since we cannot know that we are (...) not in SK we also cannot know any ordinary proposition. One of the most prominent skeptical scenarios is the brain-in-the-vat-scenario: An evil scientist has operated on an unsuspecting subject, removed the subject’s brain and put it in a vat where it is kept functioning and is connected to some computer which feeds the brain the illusion that everything is “normal”. This paper looks at one aspect of this scenario after another – envatment, disembodiment, weird cognitive processes, lack of the right kind of epistemic standing, and systematic deception. The conclusion is that none of these aspects (in isolation or in combination) is of any relevance for a would-be skeptical argument; the brain-in-the-vat-scenario is irrelevant to and useless for skeptical purposes. Given that related scenarios (e.g., involving evil demons) share the defects of the brain-in-the-vat-scenario, the skeptic should not put any hopes on Cartesian topoi. (shrink)

After examining the problem that gratuitous suffering poses for Nietzsche's notion of life affirmation, I mount a skeptical response to this problem on Nietzsche's behalf. I then consider an orthogonal objection to Nietzschean life affirmation, which argues that the need to justify life is symptomatic of life denial and show how strengthening the skeptical defense sidesteps this worry. Nietzsche's skepticism about our all‐too‐human, epistemic position thus aids his project of life affirmation in two ways. First, it suggests that (...) we are unable to determine reliably whether a given instance of suffering is, in fact, gratuitous. Second, it provides a corrective to the moralistic need to redeem life, showing that all attempts to justify life as a whole are epistemically fraught. Before concluding, I examine Nietzsche's reasons for advancing such an epistemological argument and suggest how we might approach life affirmation in nonrational terms. (shrink)

Bryan Frances’s recent argument is for the epistemic position called Live Skepticism. The Live Skepticism Argument (LSA) attempts to establish a restricted set of skeptical conclusions. The LSA’s “skeptical hypotheses” are scientific and philosophical positions that are “live actual possibilities” in an intellectual community. In order to “rule out” live hypotheses, an expert must know them to be false. However, since these are live hypotheses in this expert’s intellectual community—endorsed by others who have parallel levels of knowledge, intelligence, (...) and understanding—this expert is unable to rule them out. Consistent with the LSA is the outcome that people not exposed to these live hypotheses can know what these experts cannot. However, in this paper, I defeat the LSA by developing and defending a counterexample that focuses on the phenomenon of genius testimony. Everyone, including the LSA’s proponent, can and should allow that expertise comes in degrees. While in many cases a person’s intelligence, understanding, and knowledge are parallel to others in the field, there are some who are extraordinary in their intelligence, understanding, and knowledge (geniuses). If an expert meets with a genius, it is possible that the genius provides this individual with beliefs that can rule out a skeptical hypothesis. Therefore, an expert can have knowledge, even if the skeptical hypothesis is live and endorsed by others who have parallel levels of knowledge, intelligence, and understanding. After providing this counterexample, I present three potential objections, and show how people can know global warming exists and that smoking does not give someone cancer. I conclude by defending this counterexample from a likely reply by proponents of the LSA involving luck and knowledge. (shrink)