This article is a response to an important objection that Sherrilyn Roush has made to the standard closure‐based argument for skepticism, an argument that has been studied over the past couple of decades. If Roush's objection is on the mark, then this would be a quite significant finding. We argue that her objection fails.

This article is a response to an important objection that Sherrilyn Roush has made to the standard closure-based argument for skepticism, an argument that has been studied over the past couple of decades. If Roush's objection is on the mark, then this would be a quite significant finding. We argue that her objection fails.

Hamid Vahid criticizes Tyler Burge's account of perceptual entitlement. Vahid argues that Burge's account fails to satisfy a criterion of adequacy that any correct account of perceptual warrant must satisfy. According to Vahid, a correct account of perceptual warrant must allow for perceptual beliefs which are produced by a properly functioning perceptual system yet which lack warrant. The present article argues that Vahid's critique of Burge fails. It presents numerous examples of such beliefs that are consistent with Burge's account of (...) perceptual entitlement. (shrink)

In this ‘age of information’, some worry that we get our news from online ‘echo chambers’, news feeds on our social media accounts that contain information from like‐minded sources. Filtering our information in this way seems prima facie problematic from an epistemic perspective. I vindicate this intuition by offering an explanation of what is wrong with online echo chambers that appeals to a particular kind of motivated reasoning, or bias due to one’s interests. This sort of bias affects, not which (...) evidence one is exposed to, but how one makes use of the evidence that one has, on the basis of one’s interests. I argue that consulting an online echo chamber often facilitates and amplifies this bias. I then draw some general conclusions about the potential downside of having ready access to so much information. (shrink)

Much has been written about epistemological skepticism in the last ten or so years, but there remain some unanswered questions concerning the structure of what has become the canonical Cartesian skeptical argument. In this paper, I would like to take a closer look at this structure in order to determine just which epistemic principles are required by the argument.

Most solutions to the skeptical paradox about justified belief assume closure for justification, since the rejection of closure is widely regarded as a non-starter. I argue that the rejection of closure is not a non-starter, and that its problems are no greater than the problems associated with the more standard anti-skeptical strategies. I do this by sketching a simple version of the unpopular strategy and rebutting the three best objections to it. The general upshot for theories of justification is that (...) it is not a constraint on such theories that we must somehow have justification to believe that we are not massively deceived. (shrink)

In chapter 1 of Reason, Truth, and History, Hilary Putnam argues from some plausible assumptions about the nature of reference to the conclusion that it is not possible that all sentient creatures are brains in a vat. If this argument is successful, it seemingly refutes an updated form of Cartesian skepticism concerning knowledge of physical objects. In this paper, I will state what I take to be the most promising interpretation of Putnam's argument. My reconstructed argument differs from an argument (...) strongly suggested by Putnam's text. I will show that the latter argument obviously does not work. The more promising argument which I reconstruct on behalf of Putnam raises some interesting questions about the relation between the contents of one's beliefs and one's environment and about how this relation affects the evaluation of anti-skeptical arguments. I conclude that my reconstructed argument ultimately fails as a response to Cartesian skepticism: the argument engenders a skepticism about knowledge of meaning, or propositional content, which undercuts its anti-skeptical force. (shrink)

It seems that, whereas a person's death needn't be a bad thing for him, it can be. In some circumstances, death isn't a "bad thing" or an "evil" for a person. For instance, if a person has a terminal and very painful disease, he might rationally regard his own death as a good thing for him, or at least, he may regard it as something whose prospective occurrence shouldn't be regretted. But the attitude of a "normal" and healthy human being (...) - adult or child - toward the prospect of his death is different; it is not unreasonable in certain cases to regard one's own death as a bad thing for oneself. If this is so, then the question arises as to why death is bad, in those cases in which it is bad. (shrink)

Bootstrapping, evidentialist internalism, and rule circularity Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-7 DOI 10.1007/s11098-012-9876-9 Authors Anthony Brueckner, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, USA Journal Philosophical Studies Online ISSN 1573-0883 Print ISSN 0031-8116.

In "Epistemic Permissiveness", Roger White presents several arguments against Extreme Permissivism, the view that there are possible cases where, given one's total evidence, it would be rational to either believe P, or to believe ~P. In this paper, we carefully reconstruct White's arguments and then argue that they do not succeed.

Fallibilism about knowledge and justification is a widely held view in epistemology. In this paper. I will try to arrive at a proper formulation of fallibilism. Fallibilists often hold that Cartesian skepticism is a view that deserves to be taken seriously and dealt with somehow. I argue that it turns out that a canonical form of skeptical argument depends upon the denial of fallibilism. I conclude by considering a response on behalf of the skeptic.

In this essay I defend a solution to a skeptical paradox. The paradox I focus on concerns epistemic justification (rather than knowledge), and skeptical scenarios that entail that most of our ordinary beliefs about the external world are false. This familiar skeptical paradox hinges on a “closure” principle. The solution is to restrict closure, despite its first appearing as a fully general principle, so that it can no longer give rise to the paradox. This has some extra advantages. First, it (...) suggests a general strategy that provides solutions to other versions of the paradox, not just those that depend on closure. Second, it clarifies the relation between the paradox and other kinds of skeptical problem. (shrink)

According to veridicalism, your beliefs about the existence of ordinary objects are typically true, and can constitute knowledge, even if you are in some global sceptical scenario. Even if you are a victim of Descartes’ demon, you can still know that there are tables, for example. Accordingly, even if you don’t know whether you are in some such scenario, you still know that there are tables. This refutes the standard sceptical argument. But does it solve the sceptical problem posed by (...) that argument? I argue that it does not, because we do not know substantively more about the external world according to veridicalism than we do according to the sceptical argument. Rather, veridicalism merely reformulates what little knowledge we have. I then draw some general conclusions about the nature of the sceptical problem, the formulation of the standard argument, and the significance of this for some other, non-veridicalist strategies. (shrink)

Parfit's most controversial claim about personal identity is that personal identity does not matter in the way we uncritically think it does) I would like to analyze Parfit's reasons for making this claim. These reasons are complex, and they stand in some tension with one another. I would like to examine them carefully and to try to arrive at the strongest case that can be made for Parfit's controversial claim about what matters.

Focuses on the arguments that show the externalism of mental content. Discussion on the principle of knowledge identification; Account of basic self-knowledge; Interpretations of sentence content; Skepticism of knowledge content.

In this introduction to the special issue of Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics on the topic of personal identity and bioethics, I provide a background for the topic and then discuss the contributions in the special issue by Eric Olson, Marya Schechtman, Tim Campbell and Jeff McMahan, James Delaney and David Hershenov, and David DeGrazia.

The scandal to philosophy and human reason, wrote Kant, is that we must take the existence of material objects on mere faith . In contrast, the skeptical paradox that has scandalized recent philosophy is not formulated in terms of faith, but rather in terms of justification, warrant, and entitlement. I argue that most contemporary approaches to the paradox (both dogmatist/liberal and default/conservative) do not address the traditional problem that scandalized Kant, and that the status of having a warrant (or justification) (...) that is derived from entitlement is irrelevant to whether we take our beliefs on mere faith. For, one can have the sort of warrant that most contemporary anti-skeptics posit while still taking one’s belief on mere faith. An alternative approach to the traditional problem is sketched, one that still makes use of contemporary insights about “entitlement.”. (shrink)

A well known skeptical paradox rests on the claim that we lack warrant to believe that we are not brains in a vat. The argument for that claim is the apparent impossibility of any evidence or argument that we are not BIVs. Many contemporary philosophers resist this argument by insisting that we have a sort of warrant for believing that we are not BIVs that does not require having any evidence or argument. I call this view ‘New Rationalism’. I argue (...) that New Rationalists are committed to there being some evidence or argument for believing that we are not BIVs anyway. Therefore, New Rationalism, since its appeal is that it purportedly avoids the problematic commitment to such evidence or argument, undermines its own appeal. We cannot avoid the difficult work of coming up with evidence or argument by positing some permissive sort of warrant. (shrink)

Kantian transcendental arguments are aimed at uncovering the necessary conditions for the possibility of thought and experience. If such arguments are to have any force against Cartesian skepticism about knowledge of the external world, then it would seem that the conditions the transcendental argument uncovers must be non-psychological in nature, and their special status must be knowable a priori. In "Transcendental Arguments", Barry Stroud raised the question whether there are any such conditions., He answered that it was very doubtful that (...) one could argue deductively from the premise that there is thought and experience to the conclusion that certain conditions concerning non-psychological, external reality are satisfied. In the intervening 27 years, no one has decisively answered those doubts. No one has succeeded in constructing a convincing Kantian anti- skeptical transcendental argument of the desired kind. In a recent paper, however, Stroud has suggested that things might well be looking up a bit for the transcendental arguer. Stroud now holds that there is a modest variant of the ambitious Kantian anti-skeptical strategy that offers the promise of an answer of sorts to the skeptic that is free of various objectionable Kantian excesses. In this paper, I will describe the more modest sort of transcendental argument that Stroud finds promising, and I will then raise some doubts about the prospects of this modest approach. (shrink)

There is an apparent problem stemming from the factivity of knowledge that seems to afflict both contextualism and subject-sensitive invariantism . 1 In this article, we will first explain how the problem arises for each theory, and then we will propose a uniform resolution.1. The factivity problem for contextualismLet K t stands for X knows _ at t. Let h stand for S has hands. According to contextualism, ‘K t’ is true as uttered in some ordinary conversational contexts. Let O (...) be such a context. So we have ‘K t’ is true in O.Consider a demanding conversational context D . Let S* be a participant in D. We have ‘K t’ is not true in D.In prose: ‘S* knows at t that S has hands’ is not true in D. 2 , 3 Let us suppose that S* has a favourable epistemic status with respect to , as follows: ‘K t[S*,‘K t’ is true in O]’ is true in D. says that a certain sentence about S*'s epistemic status at t is true in D. S*'s epistemic status with respect to which proposition? A certain metalinguistic proposition concerning the truth in O of the sentence ‘K t’. That sentence in turn concerns S's epistemic status at t with respect to the proposition that S has hands. Got it? 4The factivity of ‘knows’ yields the following consequence : ‘K t’ is true in O → hThis metalinguistic factivity claim is licensed by the fact that any sentence of the …. (shrink)

In The Conscious Mind, D. Chalmers appeals to his semantic framework in order to show that conceivability, as employed in his "zombie" argument for dualism , is sufficient for genuine possibility. I criticize this attempt.

The guiding questions of this volume are: Can we have knowledge of the external world of things outside our minds?

In "Externalism, Self-Knowledge and Skepticism,"' Kevin Falvey and Joseph Owens argue that externalism with respect to mental content does not engender skepticism about knowledge of content. They go on to argue that even when externalism is freed from epistemological difficulties, the thesis cannot be used against Cartesian skepticism about knowledge of the external world. I would like to raise some questions about these claims.

In a previous paper, we argued that death's badness consists in the deprivation of pleasurable experiences which one would have had, had one died later rather than at the time of one's actual death. Thus, we argued that death can be a bad thing for the individual who dies, even if it is an experiential blank. But there is a pressing objection to this view, for if the view is correct, then it seems that it should also be the case (...) that it is a bad thing for a person that he is born when he actually is born, rather than earlier. That is, if the deprivation account is the correct account of death's badness, then it appears that one should have symmetric attitudes to prenatal and posthumous nonexistence. But clearly we do not in general have symmetric attitudes toward the period before our birth and the period after our death; in general, we do not think of our late births as a bad thing, but we can indeed consider our early deaths as bad for us. Thus, it appears that there is a problem for the deprivation account of death's badness. (shrink)

Language users ordinarily suppose that they know what thoughts their own utterances express. We can call this supposed knowledge minimal self-knowledge. But what does it come to? And do we actually have it? Anti-individualism implies that the thoughts which a person's utterances express are partly determined by facts about their social and physical environments. If anti-individualism is true, then there are some apparently coherent sceptical hypotheses that conflict with our supposition that we have minimal self-knowledge. In this book, Anthony (...) Brueckner and Gary Ebbs debate how to characterize this problem and develop opposing views of what it shows. Their discussion is the only sustained, in-depth debate about anti-individualism, scepticism and knowledge of one's own thoughts, and will interest both scholars and graduate students in philosophy of language, philosophy of mind and epistemology. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Atheists and agnostics have a vexed relationship. Atheists often regard agnostics as timid, or perhaps as disguised apologists. Agnostics often regard atheists as dogmatic hypocrites: they proclaim something on insufficient evidence, while accusing theists of this. This dynamic is familiar from the academic and popular literature. Here, I consider a more radical conflict between the two, based on Kripkean semantics for empty terms applied to atheism. Sorensen : 373–388) christened the Kripke-inspired formulation of atheism ‘Unicorn Atheism’ and argued from (...) there to the incoherence of agnosticism. But, I argue, the objection fails and instead presents an opportunity to reformulate agnosticism. By appreciating the relevance of Kripkean semantics to the issue, a better understanding of the two positions, and their conflict, emerges. (shrink)

This is a critical discussion of a paper on the problem of bootstrapping by Jose Zalabardo.

M. McKinsey has argued that the externalist theory of mental content implies that one can have a priori knowledge of propositions that are in fact only knowable a posteriori. So, according to McKinsey, the externalist theory must be mistaken. A. Gallois and J. O'Leary-Hawthorne have formalized this argument. In this paper, I discuss their formalization and their criticisms of it.

Paul Boghossian has put forward an influential argument against Tyler Burge's account of basic self‐knowledge. The argument focuses on the relation between externalism about mental content and memory. In this paper, I attempt to analyze and answer Boghossian's argument.

Gary Ebbs has argued that skepticism regarding knowledge of the contents of one's own mental states cannot even be coherently formulated. This articles is a reply to that argument.

Massimo Dell'Utri (1990) provides a reconstruction of Hilary Putnam's argument (1981, chapter 1) to show that the hypothesis that we are brains in a vat is self-refuting. I will explain why the argument Dell'Utri offers us is, on the face of it, quite problematic. Then I will provide a way out of the difficulty.

We consider one of Eric Olson's chief arguments for animalism about personal identity: the view that we are each identical to a human animal. The argument was originally given in Olson's book The Human Animal . Olson's argument presupposes an epistemological premise which we examine in detail. We argue that the premise is implausible and that Olson's defense of animalism is therefore in trouble.