Abstract:Skepticism about grounding is the view that ground-theoretic concepts shouldn’t be used in meta­physical theorizing. Possible reasons for adopting this attitude are numerous: perhaps grounding is unintelligible; or perhaps it’s never instantiated; or perhaps it’s just too heterogeneous to be theor­­­­­etically useful. Unfortunately, as currently pursued the debate between grounding enthusiasts and skeptics is insufficiently structured. This paper’s purpose is to impose a measure of conceptual rigor on the debate by offering an opinionated taxonomy of views (...) with a reasonable claim to being “skeptical.” I argue that carving up logical space into pro- and anti-grounding views isn’t especially helpful; rather, we should recognize various degrees of ground-theoretic involvement depending on how inflationary our understanding of the theoretical term ‘ground’ is. (shrink)

Skepticism about moral responsibility, or what is more commonly referred to as moral responsibility skepticism, refers to a family of views that all take seriously the possibility that human beings are never morally responsible for their actions in a particular but pervasive sense. This sense is typically set apart by the notion of basic desert and is defined in terms of the control in action needed for an agent to be truly deserving of blame and praise. Some moral (...) responsibility skeptics wholly reject this notion of moral responsibility because they believe it to be incoherent or impossible. Others maintain that, though possible, our best philosophical and scientific theories about the world provide strong and compelling reasons for adopting skepticism about moral responsibility. What all varieties of moral responsibility skepticism share, however, is the belief that the justification needed to ground basic desert moral responsibility and the practices associated with it—such as backward-looking praise and blame, punishment and reward (including retributive punishment), and the reactive attitudes of resentment and indignation—is not met. Versions of moral responsibility skepticism have historically been defended by Spinoza, Voltaire, Diderot, d’Holbach, Priestley, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Clarence Darrow, B.F. Skinner, and Paul Edwards, and more recently by Galen Strawson, Derk Pereboom, Bruce Waller, Neil Levy, Tamler Sommers, and Gregg D. Caruso. -/- Critics of these views tend to focus both on the arguments for skepticism about moral responsibility and on the implications of such views. They worry that adopting such a view would have dire consequences for our interpersonal relationships, society, morality, meaning, and the law. They fear, for instance, that relinquishing belief in moral responsibility would undermine morality, leave us unable to adequately deal with criminal behavior, increase anti-social conduct, and destroy meaning in life. Optimistic skeptics, however, respond by arguing that life without free will and basic desert moral responsibility would not be as destructive as many people believe. These optimistic skeptics argue that prospects of finding meaning in life or of sustaining good interpersonal relationships, for instance, would not be threatened. They further maintain that morality and moral judgments would remain intact. And although retributivism and severe punishment, such as the death penalty, would be ruled out, they argue that the imposition of sanctions could serve purposes other than the punishment of the guilty—e.g., it can also be justified by its role in incapacitating, rehabilitating, and deterring offenders. (shrink)

Counterfactual skepticism says that most ordinary counterfactuals are false. While few endorse counterfactual skepticism, the precise costs of the view are disputed and not generally well-understood. I have two aims in this paper. My first and primary aim is to establish, on grounds acceptable to all parties, that counterfactual skepticism is not benign. I argue it leads to significant skepticism about the future: if counterfactual skepticism is true, then we can have only very limited knowledge (...) about the future. I give three arguments to this conclusion, taking as premises principles connecting knowledge of indicative conditionals to knowledge of disjunctions; and principles linking knowledge of indicative conditionals to knowledge of counterfactual conditionals.My second aim is to examine the consequences for non-skeptical theories. My arguments indicate that not only are many ordinary counterfactuals true, but that we also know them. How can this be reconciled with the very real tension between counterfactuals and chance? I consider two solutions, one purely epistemic and one contextualist. Together they suggest something like contextualism about knowledge is required to fully resolve the skeptical threat. (shrink)

Content skepticism about practical reason is doubt about the bearing of rational considerations on the activities of deliberation and choice. Motivational skepticism is doubt about the scope of reason as a motive. Some people think that motivational considerations alone provide grounds for skepticism about the project of founding ethics on practical reason. I will argue, against this view, that motivational skepticism must always be based on content skepticism. I will not address the question of whether (...) or not content skepticism is justified. I want only to establish the fact that motivational skepticism has no independent force. (shrink)

Skepticism is one of the perennial problems of philosophy: from antiquity, to the early modern period of Descartes and Hume, and right through to the present day. It remains a fundamental and widely studied topic and, as Annalisa Coliva and Duncan Pritchard show in this book, it presents us with a paradox with important ramifications not only for epistemology but also for many other core areas of philosophy. In this book they provide a thorough grounding in contemporary debates (...) about skepticism, exploring the following key topics: the core skeptical arguments, with a particular focus on Cartesian and Humean radical skepticism. the epistemic principles that are held to underlie skeptical arguments, such as the closure and underdetermination principles. the content externalism of Putnam, Davidson and Chalmers, and how it might help us respond to radical skepticism. the epistemic externalism/internalism distinction and how it relates to the skeptical problematic. contextualism in epistemology and its anti-skeptical import. the various interpretations of a Wittgensteinian hinge epistemology. the viability of epistemological disjunctivism, including whether it can be combined with hinge epistemology as part of a dual response to radical skepticism. liberal and conservative responses to the Humean skeptical paradox. Both authors are themselves prominent figures who work on skepticism, and so one novelty of the book is that it provides an insight into their own contrasting responses to this philosophical difficulty. With the addition of annotated further reading and a glossary this is an ideal starting point for anyone studying the philosophy of skepticism, along with students of epistemology, metaphysics and contemporary analytic philosophy. (shrink)

The physics literature contains many claims that elementary particles have been observed: such observational claims are, of course, important for the development of existential knowledge. Regarding claimed observations of short-lived unstable particles in particular, the use of the word 'observation' is based on the convention in physics that the observation of a short-lived unstable particle can be claimed when its predicted decay products have been observed with a significance of 5 sigma. This paper, however, shows that this 5 sigma convention (...) is inconsistent with existing concepts of observation by showing that unstable particles with a lifetime of less than 0.01 attosecond are fundamentally unobservable both from the perspective of Fox's recent concepts of direct and indirect observation, and from the perspective of Van Fraassen's notion of observability. This cognitive inaccessibility of parts of the subatomic world has far-reaching implications for physics, not the least of which is that the aforementioned convention is untenable: claims that such short-lived unstable particles have been observed will thus have to be retracted. The main implications are two incompleteness theorems for physics, respectively stating (i) that experiments cannot prove completeness of a physical theory predicting short-lived unstable particles, and (ii) that experiments cannot prove correctness of such a theory|one can at most test its empirical adequacy. On a general note, the conclusion is that the importance of philosophical arguments for particle physics is herewith demonstrated: it is, thus, a widespread misconception that philosophical arguments can be completely avoided. (shrink)

Less discussed than Hume’s skepticism about what grounds there could be for projecting empirical hypotheses is his concern with a skeptical regress that he thought threatened to extinguish any belief when we reflect that our reasoning is not perfect. The root of the problem is the fact that a reflection about our reasoning is itself a piece of reasoning. If each reflection is negative and undermining, does that not give us a diminution of our original belief to nothing? It (...) requires much attention to detail, we argue, to determine whether or not there is a skeptical problem in this neighborhood. Consider that if we subsequently doubt a doubt we had about our reasoning, that would suggest a restoration of some of the force of our original belief. We would then have instead of runaway skepticism an alternating sequence of pieces of skeptical reasoning that cancel each others’ effects on our justification in the original proposition, at least to some degree. We will argue that the outcome of the sequence of reflections Hume is imagining depends on information about a given case that is not known a priori. We conclude this from the fact that under three precise, explanatory, and viable contemporary reconstructions of what this kind of reasoning about reasoning could be like and how it has the potential to affect our original beliefs, a belief-extinguishing regress is not automatic or necessary. (shrink)

Stanley Cavell's work is distinctive not only in its importance to philosophy but also for its remarkable interdisciplinary range. Cavell is read avidly by students of film, photography, painting, and music, but especially by students of literature, for whom Cavell offers major readings of Thoreau, Emerson, Shakespeare, and others. In this first book-length study of Cavell's writings, Michael Fischer examines Cavell's relevance to the controversies surrounding poststructuralist literary theory, particularly works by Jacques Derrida, J. Hillis Miller, Paul de Man, and (...) Stanley Fish. Throughout his study, Fischer focuses on skepticism, a central concern of Cavell's multifaceted work. Cavell, following J. L. Austin and Wittgenstein, does not refute the radical epistemological questioning of Descartes, Hume, and others, but rather characterizes skepticism as a significant human possibility or temptation. As presented by Fischer, Cavell's accounts of both external-world and other-minds skepticism share significant affinities with deconstruction, a connection overlooked by contemporary literary theorists. Fischer follows Cavell's lead in examining how different genres address the problems raised by skepticism and goes on to show how Cavell draws on American and English romanticism in fashioning a response to it. He concludes by analyzing Cavell's remarks about current critical theory, focusing on Cavell's uneasiness with some of the conclusions reached by its practitioners. Fischer shows that Cavell's insights, grounded in powerful analyses of Descartes, Hume, and Wittgenstein, permit a fresh view of Derrida, Miller, de Man, and Fish. The result is not only a revealing characterization of deconstruction but a much-needed and insightful introduction to Cavell's rich but difficult oeuvre. (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)

The ethics of the Zhuāngzi is distinctive for its valorization of psychological qualities such as open-mindedness, adaptability, and tolerance. The paper discusses how these qualities and their consequences for morality and politics relate to the text’s views onskepticism and value. Chad Hansen has argued that Zhuangist ethical views are motivated by skepticism about our ability to know a privileged scheme of action-guiding distinctions, which in turn is grounded in a form of relativism about such distinctions. Against this, Icontend that (...) the Zhuāngzi’s skepticism and its ethical stance jointly rest on a metaethical view of value as inherently plural, perspectival, heterogeneous, and contingent. This view provides grounds for moral consideration toward others and for political liberalism. It also explains how the psychological qualities valorized in the Zhuāngzi contribute to the value of our individual lives, by showing what their absence costs us. (shrink)

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 by (...) the public character of language. In this paper, I argue that although Davidson’s arguments reveal important conceptual connections between meaning and belief on the one hand, and truth and interpretation on the other, they do not show that it is impossible that we are massively mistaken about the external world. (shrink)

Michael Williams and Keith DeRose defend their different versions of contextualism on the grounds that contextualism gives a better account of the ordinary use of epistemic terms than invariantist competitors. One aim of this paper is to explain why their arguments do not succeed. A further aim is to show that the dispute between contextualists and invariantists portrayed by Williams and DeRose is a narrow interpretation of the dispute: there are important contextualist and invariantist positions which fall outside the scope (...) of their arguments and which a full defense of contextualism should consider. (shrink)

The contextualist epistemological theories proposed by David Lewis and othersoffer a view of knowledge which awards a central role to the contexts ofknowledge attributions. Such contexts are held to determine how strong anepistemic position must be in order to count as knowledge. Lewis has suggestedthat contextualism so construed can be used both to ward off the skeptic and tosolve the Gettier problem. A person knows P, he says, just in case her evidenceeliminates every possibility that not-P, where the domain of (...) `every' is determinedby the context. Lewis provides a list of rules that can tell us, for a given context,which not-P possibilities must be eliminated and which can properly be ignored.But his account entails, counterintuitively, that knowledge can truly be attributedeven to a person in a Gettier situation provided only that the attributor is ignorantof the fact that the person is gettiered. It has been criticized on those grounds byS. Cohen. In this paper I shall argue that most other forms of contextualism sufferthe same fate as Lewis's. The allies of contextualism haven't yet shown us whethercontextualism can succeed in maintaining a notion of ordinary knowledge whileresisting the absurdity that knowledge can be a matter of sheer good luck. At theend of the paper I shall suggest a possible solution to the problem by showing howCohen's line of criticism leads to a modified conception of what sort of justificationa belief must have to count as knowledge in ordinary contexts. (shrink)

This article formulates the grounds on which a pragmatist theory of knowledge may be favored against skepticism and foundationalism without requiring the refutation of skepticism. It explores in considerable detail some of the central positions bearing on the issue, Including views of g e moore, Bertrand russell, Roderick chisholm, Keith lehrer, Leonard nelson. It also provides a fresh characterization of pragmatism and shows the bearing of theories of truth on the justification of knowledge claims.

Grounding has become all the rage in recent philosophical work and metaphilosophical discussions. While I agree that the concept of ground marks something useful, I am skeptical about the metaphysical weight many imbue it with, and the picture of ‘worldly layering’ that grounding talk inspires. My skepticism centers around the fact that grounding involves necessitation, combined with reasons for thinking matters of necessity are matters of logical or conceptual (semantic, psychological) relations. I sketch an argument for (...) deflationism about ground based on this sort of deflationism about necessity and essence. I also note that in at least some cases, the considerations supporting modal deflationism directly support deflationism about whatever grounding relations may obtain in these cases. (shrink)

The Neo-Moorean response to the radical skeptical challenge boldly maintains that we can know we’re not the victims of radical skeptical hypotheses; accordingly, our everyday knowledge that would otherwise be threatened by our inability to rule out such hypotheses stands unthreatened. Given the leverage such an approach has against the skeptic from the very start, the Neo-Moorean line is an especially popular one; as we shall see, though, it faces several commonly overlooked problems. An initial problem is that this particular (...) brand of anti-skeptical strategy is available only to a theory of knowledge that will compromise itself to especially weak epistemic standards—indeed, standards as weak as our epistemic grounds are for accepting the denials of skeptical hypotheses. With this said, the aim here is to investigate whether the Neo-Moorean line could be advanced against the skeptic in a way that wouldn’t require wholesale lowering of epistemic standards. Unfortunately, as we’ll see, Sosa’s (2007; 2009) view as well as what I argue to be the other two most plausible contender-views for maintaining a Neo-Moorean line—Greco’s and Pritchard’s—run (for similar reasons) into dead ends. The way forward, I’ll argue, is to take on board a unique variety of robust virtue epistemology accord­ing to which knowledge is thought to be situated a certain way within a gradient balance between ability and luck. (shrink)

In this paper I consider the plausibility of developing anti-skepticism by framing the question in linguistic terms: instead of asking whether we know, we ask what falls within the extension of the word “know”. I first trace two previous attempts to develop anti-skepticism in this way, from Austin (particularly as presented by Kaplan) and from epistemic contextualism, and I present reasons to think that both approaches are unsuccessful. I then focus on a more recently popular attempt to develop (...) anti-skepticism from the “function-first” approach associated with Craig, which I also show to be problematic. I then argue that the apparent prima facie plausibility of fighting skepticism on linguistic grounds is due to a methodological spill-over from linguistics. Once we recognize this, it becomes clear that debate around skepticism should not be conducted in linguistic terms. (shrink)

This chapter offers non-retributive, broadly Kantian justifications of punishment and remorse which can be endorsed by free will skeptics. We lose our grip on some Kantian ideas if we become skeptical about free will, but we can preserve some important ones which can do valuable work for free will skeptics. The justification of punishment presented here has consequentialist features but is deontologically constrained by our duty to avoid using others as mere means. It draws on a modified Rawlsian original position (...) in which we assume we are just as likely to be among the punished when the veil of ignorance is raised as we are to be among those protected by the institution of punishment. The justification of remorse presented here is care-based, and draws on the value of sympathizing with people we have wronged, which has a Kantian ground in the duty to take others’ ends as our own. (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)

The Neo-Moorean response to the radical skeptical challenge boldly maintains that we can know we’re not the victims of radical skeptical hypotheses; accordingly, our everyday knowledge that would otherwise be threatened by our inability to rule out such hypotheses stands unthreatened. Given the leverage such an approach has against the skeptic from the very start, the Neo-Moorean line is an especially popular one; as we shall see, though, it faces several commonly overlooked problems. An initial problem is that this particular (...) brand of anti-skeptical strategy is available only to a theory of knowledge that will compromise itself to especially weak epistemic standards—indeed, standards as weak as our epistemic grounds are for accepting the denials of skeptical hypotheses. With this said, the aim here is to investigate whether the Neo-Moorean line could be advanced against the skeptic in a way that wouldn’t require wholesale lowering of epistemic standards. Unfortunately, as we’ll see, Sosa’s (2007; 2009) view as well as what I argue to be the other two most plausible contender-views for maintaining a Neo-Moorean line—Greco’s and Pritchard’s—run (for similar reasons) into dead ends. The way forward, I’ll argue, is to take on board a unique variety of robust virtue epistemology accord­ing to which knowledge is thought to be situated a certain way within a gradient balance between ability and luck. (shrink)

In “Idealism and Skepticism: A Reply to Brueckner”, Stephen Puryear maintains that Berkeley holds at most that ideas that “count as real things” as opposed to chimeras (e.g., my idea of the Eiffel Tower) must satisfy a criterion of intra-mind coherence. On this reading of Berkeley, my claim that a form of external-world epistemological skepticism can be constructed within Berkeley's metaphysical system cannot get off the ground. I respond here.

The burgeoning literature on jus post bellum has repeatedly reaffirmed three positions that strike me as deeply implausible: that in the aftermath of wars, compensation should be a priority; that we should likewise prioritize punishing political leaders and war criminals even in the absence of legitimate multilateral institutions; and that when states justifiably launch armed humanitarian interventions, they become responsible for reconstructing the states into which they have intervened – the so called “Pottery Barn” dictum, “You break it, you own (...) it.” Against these common positions, this chapter argues that compensation should be subordinate to reconstruction, with resources going where they are most needed and can do the most good, rather than to the most aggrieved. Just punishment, meanwhile, presupposes just multilateral institutions – the victor cannot be trusted to mete out punishment fairly. And just interveners, who have already taken on such a heavy burden, are entitled to expect the international community to contribute to reconstruction after they have made the first and vital steps. After presenting each of these objections in greater depth, the chapter proceeds to draw some tentative inferences from the threads running through each, and suggest that they illustrate a distinctive flaw in the way in which jus post bellum is addressed by many just war theorists, who not only see the war as the grounds of post bellum duties, but also take it to specify their content: Specifically, they take the rights violations with which wars are imbued to be the basis for post-war action, but take the content of post-war duties to be focused on rectifying those rights violations, rather than the more forward-looking goal of establishing a lasting peace. This backward-looking orientation unduly confines these theorists to making attributions of fault, to a limited palette of normative concepts, and to a focus on the belligerents rather than the international community as a whole. Undoubtedly warfare creates a distinctive normative relationship between belligerent states (though we must question how much of this devolves to the citizens of those states). War does generate grounds for post-war duties – but there are other grounds for those duties too, moreover the grounds should not determine the content. It of course matters that the citizens of two states harmed one another in violation of their rights. But when the war is done, peacebuilding should be the priority, not raking over the wrongs of both sides. Sections 2–4 present the objections, Section 5 offers the tentative analysis and proposes a shift in focus toward an ethics of peacebuilding, and Section 6 concludes. (shrink)

Conceptual engineering has been linked by Herman Cappelen to a position called “representational skepticism”, described as one’s refusal to uncritically take over the conceptual representations one is handed. This position is contrasted with an uncritical attitude, called “representational complacency”. Arguably, neither position, or a hybrid of the two, is rationally sustainable. This paper therefore proposes an alternative option, called “critical concept conservatism”, stating that having a concept makes it rational (in a suitable sense of “rational”) for one to retain (...) it, unless there are grounds to question it. Critical concept conservatism avoids the drawbacks of skepticism and complacency; plus, it is independently supported by both positive and negative considerations. Furthermore, it complies with the demanding attitude towards conceptual representations that a conceptual engineer would be expected to have. (shrink)

Michael Bergmann's Radical Skepticism and Epistemic Intuition develops a response to radical skepticism inspired by commonsense philosophers, such as Reid and Moore. Bergmann argues against radical skepticism on the grounds of its conflicting with strongly-held "epistemic intuitions" about the "epistemic value or goodness” of our particular perceptual, recollective, introspective and a priori beliefs. I press concerns about whether Bergmann's "intuitionist particularist" response can diagnose the source of skepticism, and argue that his methodology turns out to itself (...) be strikingly skeptical. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Hume's Skepticism about Inductive Inference N. SCOTT ARNOLD IT HAS BEEN A COMMONPLACE among commentators on Hume's philosophy that he was a radical skeptic about inductive inference. In addition, he is alleged to have been the first philosopher to pose the so-called problem of induction. Until recently, however, Hume's argument in this connection has not been subject to very close scrutiny. As attention has become focused on (...) this argument, a debate has been shaping up concerning just what Hume intended to establish here. The principal purpose of this article is to settle this interpretive issue as decisively as the texts permit. I should also like to locate Hume's main argument about induction in the larger context of his discussion of skepti- cism in book 1 of the Treatise. I shall suggest that arguments for the radical skepticism commonly attributed to Hume can be found only very late in book 1 of the Treatise and that the most famous argument about inductive inference establishes and is intended to establish only a relatively modest form of skepticism. The argument under consideration can found in book l, part 3, section 6 of the Treatise. It can also be found in essays 4 and 5 of the Enquiries and in the abstract of the Treatise published anonymously by Hume. I shall concen- trate on the Treatise version since it is the first and perhaps most explicit formulation of the argument and because part of my purpose is to place this argument in the larger context of book 1 of the Treatise. The received opinion concerning Hume's argument has it that Hume was highly skeptical about the mind's claims to knowledge about the future (or, more generally, about the unobserved). All beliefs arrived at via inductive I should like to thank M. G. Anderson, John Bahde, Jon Nordy, and Robert Paul Wolff, as well as David Fate Norton and a referee for the Journal of the History of Philosophy, for helpful comments on earlier drafts on this article. 32 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY inferences are unreasonable or unjustified. The alternative interpretation, to be defended below, is that Hume held that no such belief is or can be rendered certain relative to past experience and that such beliefs are not, upon that account, unreasonable or unjustified. Something like this inter- pretation has been defended by Tom L. Beauchamp, Thomas Mappes, and Alexander Rosenberg. ~ My view differs from theirs in that I shall argue that Hume did offer arguments for the more radical skepticism commonly attri- buted to him (though it is unclear whether he regarded them as decisive). These arguments, however, come at the end of book ~ of the Treatise and are independent of the more famous argument to be discussed below. Defenders of the received view are both numerous and distinguished. Versions of this interpretation of the main argument can be found in the writings of Karl Popper, Wesley Salmon, F. L. Will, and Norman Kemp Smith; most recently a variation on the standard interpretation has been defended by Barry Stroud. The fullest and most elaborate defense of the standard interpretation can be found in a monograph by D. C. Stove. '~ Stove's discussion is perhaps the most impressive because of his painstaking efforts to lay bare the structure of Hume's reasoning and to give a line-by- line analysis of the argument. This has the effect of bringing more clearly into focus the main grounds for the standard view. If this standard interpre- tation is correct, then Hume's position is that scientific method is epistemically no better than "superstition" and "enthusiasm." And, Hume would be among those for whom this claim, if true, would be very bad news, because one of his primary purposes in the Treatise is to construct a science of man. Thus, this argument is of considerable internal significance because, if my opponents are correct, Hume appears to have cut the ground out from under what he took to be one of his most important projects -- the construc- tion of a science of man. The other feature of this argument that makes it worthy of serious con- sideration is that it is philosophically... (shrink)

Contrary to the widely accepted consensus, Christopher Heath Wellman argues that there are no pre-institutional judicial procedural rights. Thus commonly affirmed rights like the right to a fair trial cannot be assumed in the literature on punishment and legal philosophy as they usually are. Wellman canvasses and rejects a variety of grounds proposed for such rights. I answer his skepticism by proposing two novel grounds for procedural rights. First, a general right against unreasonable risk of punishment grounds rights to (...) an institutionalized system of punishment. Second, to complement and extend the first ground, I more controversially propose a right to provision of the robust good of security. People have a right to others' protecting for avoiding wrongfully harming them: when I take an action that is reasonably expected to threaten the protected interests of others, I must take appropriate care to avoid setting back those interests. Inflicting punishment on someone--intentionally harming them in response to a violation--is prima facie wrongful, so I can only count as taking appropriate care in punishing when I follow familiar procedures that reliably and redundantly test whether they are liable to such punishment, i.e. whether they have forfeited their right against punishment through a culpable act. (shrink)

In this paper, I defend a non-skeptical intuitionist approach to moral epistemology from recent criticisms. Starting with Sinnott-Armstrong's skeptical attacks, I argue that a familiar sort of skeptical argument rests on a problematic conception of the evidential grounds of our moral judgments. The success of his argument turns on whether we conceive of the evidential grounds of our moral judgments as consisting entirely of non-normative considerations. While we cannot avoid skepticism if we accept this conception of our evidential grounds, (...) that's because accepting this conception of our evidential grounds is tantamount to accepting the skeptic's conclusion. We have nothing to fear from arguments for skepticism from skepticism. (shrink)

Illusionism about consciousness entails that phenomenal consciousness doesn’t exist. The distribution question concerns the distribution of consciousness in the animal kingdom. Skepticism of animal consciousness is the view that few or no kinds of animals possess consciousness. Thus, illusionism seems to imply a skeptical view on the distribution question. However, I argue that illusionism and skepticism of animal consciousness are actually orthogonal to each other. If illusionism is true, then phenomenal consciousness does not ground intrinsic value so that (...) the non-existence of phenomenal consciousness would not have ethical implications. In this case, the adequate reaction is to reformulate the distribution question in terms of the quasi-phenomenal functional features associated with the illusion of phenomenal consciousness which do ground intrinsic value. Hence, either illusionism is false or the distribution question does not concern phenomenal consciousness. In any case, illusionism does not directly tell us anything about the distribution question. However, since illusionism forces us to revise our traditional conception of consciousness, it indirectly affects research on animal consciousness by questioning that consciousness is a unified and an all-or-nothing property. (shrink)

Contextualist responses to skepticism about the external world are inadequate, and we should prefer an invariantist response to skepticism. There are two kinds of contextualism---anti-theoretical and theoretical. Anti-theoretical contextualists argue that the principles on which skepticism depends are absent from our ordinary epistemic ways of thinking. So anti-theoretical contextualists conclude that the burden of proof is on the skeptic. But some argue that the principles on which skepticism depends are not absent from our ordinary ways of (...) thinking. The existence of this unresolved dispute suggests that anti-theoretical contextualists have not shifted the burden of proof to the skeptic. Anti-theoretical contextualists also fail to refute skepticism outright. Their primary argument here is one in which the notion of certainty plays a key role. But their argument is unsound on all significant uses of the word 'certain.' Thus, anti-theoretical contextualists have neither refuted skepticism nor shifted the burden of proof to the skeptic. ;Theoretical contextualism claims that the solution to skeptical puzzles lies in the fact that the standards for knowledge shift from context to context. Yet if theoretical contextualist solutions are to be adequate, they must explain how those standards shift. Unfortunately, theoretical contextualism fails to provide this explanation. This explanatory failure, along with the problems that face individual theoretical contextualist accounts, shows that theoretical contextualist responses to skepticism are inadequate. ;Even though contextualism fails, a Moorean invariantism---according to which the standards for knowledge are always low---allows us to know across contexts the things we ordinarily take ourselves to know. We should prefer this Moorean invariantism over contextualism. It stands on the same theoretical ground as the dominant contextualisms while still allowing us to explain how we know that certain skeptical hypotheses are false. Also, contextualism raises questions---for example, questions concerning how the standards for knowledge shift---that receive only inadequate answers. The Moorean invariantist account does not raise such questions. All of this suggests that the Moorean invariantist response to skepticism is better than any of its contextualist counterparts. (shrink)

In his Reflective Knowledge, Ernest Sosa offers a theory of knowledge, broadly virtue-theoretic in character, that is meant to transcend simple ways of contrasting "internalist" with "externalist" or "foundationalist" with "coherentist" approaches to knowledge and justification. Getting beyond such simplifications, Sosa thinks, is the key to finding an exit from "the Pyrrhonian Problematic": the ancient and profound skeptical problem concerning the apparent impossibility of validating the reliability of our basic epistemic faculties and procedures in a way that escapes vicious circularity. (...) Central to Sosa's anti-skeptical strategy is the claim that there are two kinds of knowledge. His thought is that animal knowledge, which can be understood in purely reliabilist terms, can ground justified trust in the reliability of our basic cognitive faculties, thus elevating us to the level of reflective knowledge. I offer a sketch of an alternative approach, linking knowledge and justification with epistemic accountability and responsible belief-management, which casts doubt on the idea that "animal" knowledge is knowledge properly so-called. However, it turns out that this approach is close in spirit to Sosa's. I suggest that the differences between us may rest on a disagreement over the possibility of providing a direct answer to the Pyrrhonian challenge. (shrink)

I review a familiar skeptical argument from Hume, and conclude that it requires us to accept that there is no necessary relation between beliefs about the world and their evidential grounds; that is, there is no logical or quasi-logical relation between empirical beliefs and their grounds, such that their grounds entail them, or even make them probable. I then argue that generic reliabilism can accommodate this fact about evidential grounds in a non-skeptical way. According to reliabilism, the grounds for our (...) beliefs constitute good evidence so long as they are contingently reliable. Next I argue that agent reliabilism successfully addresses two related problems for other versions of reliabilism: the fact that beliefs can be reliably formed by accident, and the need for subjective justification. Finally, I explain why agent reliabilism is properly conceived as a version of virtue epistemology. (shrink)

Putnam and Searle famously argue against computational theories of mind on the skeptical ground that there is no fact of the matter as to what mathematical function a physical system is computing: both conclude (albeit for somewhat different reasons) that virtually any physical object computes every computable function, implements every program or automaton. There has been considerable discussion of Putnam's and Searle's arguments, though as yet there is little consensus as to what, if anything, is wrong with these arguments. In (...) the present paper we show that an analogous line of reasoning can be raised against the numerical measurement (i.e., numerical representation) of physical magnitudes, and we argue that this result is a reductio ad absurdum of the challenge to computational skepticism. We then use this reductio to get clearer about both (i) what's wrong with Putnam's and Searle's arguments against computationalism, and (ii) what can be learned about both computational implementation and numerical measurement from the shortcomings of both sorts of skeptical argument. (shrink)

The semantic blindness objection to contextualism challenges the view that there is no incompatibility between (i) denials of external-world knowledge in contexts where radical-deception scenarios are salient, and (ii) affirmations of external-world knowledge in contexts where such scenarios are not salient. Contextualism allegedly attributes a gross and implausible form of semantic incompetence in the use of the concept of knowledge to people who are otherwise quite competent in its use; this blindness supposedly consists in wrongly judging that there is genuine (...) conflict between claims of type (i) and type (ii). We distinguish two broad versions of contextualism: relativistic-content contextualism and categorical-content contextualism. We argue that although the semantic blindness objection evidently is applicable to the former, it does not apply to the latter. We describe a subtle form of conflict between claims of types (i) and (ii), which we call différance-based affirmatory conflict. We argue that people confronted with radical-deception scenarios are prone to experience a form of semantic myopia (as we call it): a failure to distinguish between différance-based affirmatory conflict and outright inconsistency. Attributing such semantic myopia to people who are otherwise competent with the concept of knowledge explains the bafflement about knowledge-claims that so often arises when radical-deception scenarios are made salient. Such myopia is not some crude form of semantic blindness at all; rather, it is an understandable mistake grounded in semantic competence itself: what we call a competence-based performance error. (shrink)

Is ruling out the possibility that one is dreaming a requirement for a knowledge claim? In “Philosophical Scepticism and Everyday Life” (1984), Barry Stroud defends that it is. In “Others Minds” (1970), John Austin says it is not. In his defense, Stroud appeals to a conception of objectivity deeply rooted in us and with which our concept of knowledge is intertwined. Austin appeals to a detailed account of our scientific and everyday practices of knowledge attribution. Stroud responds that what Austin (...) says about those practices is correct in relation to the appropriateness of making knowledge claims, but that the skeptic is interested in the truth of those claims. In this paper, we argue that Stroud’s defense of the alleged requirement smuggles in a commitment to a kind of internalism, which asserts that the perceptual justification available to us can be characterized independently of the circumstances in which we find ourselves. In our reading of Austin, especially of Sense & Sensibilia, he rejects that kind of internalism by an implicit commitment to what is called today a “disjunctive” view of perception. Austin says that objectivity is an aspect of knowledge, and his disjunctivism is part of an explanation of why the alleged requirement is not necessary for a knowledge claim. Since both Stroud and Austin are committed to the objectivity of knowledge, Stroud may ask which view of perceptual knowledge is correct, whether the internalist or the disjunctive. We argue that by paying closer attention to what Austin says about our practices of knowledge attribution, one can see more clearly that it is grounded not only on a conception of objectivity, but also on a conception of ourselves as information agents, a conception that is as deeply rooted as that of the objectivity of knowledge. This gives us moral and practical reasons to favor the disjunctive view of perception. (shrink)

The dissertation critically examines Husserl's transcendental idealism as a response to epistemological skepticism. Contrary to prevailing interpretations, I argue that Husserl intended to formulate a non-reductive, idealist justification of empirical knowledge. I take the standard phenomenalistic interpretation of Husserl's idealism to be right in discerning his basic concern with the refutation of skepticism, but wrong in construing the transcendental reduction as an ontological reduction of the natural world to "ideal" sets of transcendental experiences. On the other hand, recent (...) "neutrality views" which hold that phenomenological epoche requires the permanent suspension of ontological commitments seem to confuse Husserl's quasi-verificationist critique of traditional metaphysics with the positivistic critique of all metaphysics. I suggest instead that Husserl's epistemological program be understood as an attempt to ground transcendentally, i.e. on the basis of apodictic and presuppositionless evidences, our ordinary beliefs about the world. In this light, Husserl's Weltvernichtung argument for the presuppositionlessness of consciousness can be seen as a necessary precondition of the transcendental justification of empirical knowledge. ;To clarify Husserl's genetic phenomenology, I adopt Dagfinn Follesdal's interpretation of the noema as a Fregean Sinn. I distinguish two levels of 'constitution' to show how Husserl traces back the sense and being of the objective world to the synthetic activity of the transcendental subject. The resolution of transcendental analogues of skeptical doubts by means of Husserl's analysis of 'retroactive cancellation' completes, in general outline, the grounding of the "verificationism" of the natural attitude. However, I argue that the anti-skeptical force of 'retroactive cancellation' depends on conceiving the relationship between the conscious subject and the world in a way that renders Weltvernichtung unintelligible. Husserl's transcendental idealist response to the skeptic accordingly leads to a dilemma: either one maintains the presuppositionlessness of consciousness but abandons the critique of skepticism for a descriptive study of the transcendental structures of experience; or one attempts to reformulate Husserl's phenomenological verificationism while abandoning the goal of absolute grounding. (shrink)

Inquiring minds want to know, not merely to believe or even to believe truly. They want knowledge of “the facts,” at least the facts in a relevant domain. Epistemology thus investigates and elucidates what inquiring minds want. So, epistemology is valuable to inquiring minds, whatever their domains of interest. A person might settle for true belief and remain lazily indifferent to knowledge, but this would be odd indeed. Inquiring minds seek something better grounded than true belief based just on lucky (...) guesswork, for example. They want true beliefs grounded in adequate evidence, if only to avoid the vicissitudes of ungrounded belief. (shrink)

An extract from Williams' The Ground of Induction (1947): "The sober amateur who takes the time to follow recent philosophical discussion will hardly resist the impression that much of it, in its dread of superstition and dogmatic reaction, has been oriented purposely toward skepticism: that a conclusion is admired in proportion as it is skeptical; that a jejune argument for skepticism will be admitted where a scrupulous defense of knowledge is derided or ignored; that an affirmative theory is (...) a mere annoyance to be stamped down as quickly as possible to a normal level of denial and defeat. It is an age which most admires the man who, as somebody has said, 'has a difficulty for every solution'. Whether or not this judgment is fair, however, it is safe to say, with Whitehead, that 'the theory of induction is the despair of philosophy - and yet all our activities are based upon it'. [A.N. Whitehead, Science and the Modern World (New York, 1925, p. 35] So prodigious a theoretical contretemps cannot remain a tempest in the professors' teapot. The news that no foundation is discoverable for the procedures of empirical intelligence, and still more the proclaimed discovery that there is no foundation, and still more the complacency which recommends that we reconcile ourselves to the lack, condemn the problem as a 'pseudoproblem', and proceed by irrational faith or pragmatic postulate, will slowly shatter civilized life and thought, to a degree which will make the modernist's loss of confidence in Christian supernaturalism, so often cited as the ultimate in spiritual cataclysms, seem a minor vicissitude. The demand that rational man adjust himself to a somewhat bleaker universe than he once hoped for is only one large and picturesque instance of the sort of re-orientation which inductive intelligence, in its very nature,continually imposes, and well within the proved capacities of human reason and good-will.. (shrink)

In this essay I suggest that Heidegger’s Being and Time provides a ground for ethics in the notion of Dasein’s ‘Being-guilty.’ Being-guilty is not a ground for ethics in the sense of a demonstration of the moral ‘ought’ or a refutation of moral skepticism. Rather, Being-guilty serves as a foundation for ethical life in a way uniquely suited to a phenomenological form of ethics, a way that clarifies, from a phenomenological point of view, why the traditional approach to ethics (...) is misguided. The traditional attempt to ground ethics through demonstration or refutation depends upon a misunderstanding of obligation as an imposition that is distinct from, and inflicted upon, the subject in a way that is in need of justification. Heidegger’s conception of Being-guilty, on the contrary, identifies the basis of moral obligation in a form of primary selfobligation that is constitutive of human nature, rather than an imposition upon it. Although primordial guilt or self-obligation does not justify ethical obligation, it does ‘ground’ ethics. For it is the primary source and support of our ethical activity in two distinct senses. First, it serves as the condition for the possibility of our indebtedness to others—it enables us to be morally obligated. It enables moral obligation towards others by determining Dasein as ontologically indebted to care for its own being—a being which is, in turn, ontologically determined as care for others. Second, Being-guilty provides a criterion for distinguishing what we call ethical and unethical behavior. Ethical behavior is distinguished according to the appropriateness of one’s care for the other according to proper recognition of the nature of the Other’s Being as Dasein. (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)

The English philosopher Michael Oakeshott is known as a conservative who rejected philosophically ambitious rationalism and the grand political ideologies of the twentieth century on the grounds that no human ideas have ultimately reliable foundations. Instead, he embraced tradition and habit as the guides to moral and political life. In this book, Aryeh Botwinick presents an original account of Oakeshott's skepticism about foundations, an account that newly reveals the unity of his thought. Botwinick argues that, despite Oakeshott's pragmatic conservatism, (...) his rejection of all-embracing intellectual projects made him a friend to liberal individualism and an ally of what would become postmodern antifoundationalism. Oakeshott's skepticism even extended paradoxically to skepticism about skepticism itself and is better described as a "generalized agnosticism." Properly conceived and translated, this agnosticism ultimately evolves into mysticism, which becomes a bridge linking philosophy and religion. Botwinick explains and develops this strategy of interpretation and then shows how it illuminates and unifies the diverse strands of Oakeshott's thought in the philosophy of religion, metaphysics, epistemology, political theory, philosophy of personal identity, philosophy of law, and philosophy of history. (shrink)

This chapter offers non-retributive, broadly Kantian justifications of punishment and remorse that can be endorsed by free will skeptics. We lose our grip on some Kantian ideas if we become skeptical about free will, but we can preserve some important ones that can do valuable work for free will skeptics. The justification of punishment presented here has consequentialist features but is deontologically constrained by our duty to avoid using others as mere means. It draws on a modified Rawlsian original position (...) in which we assume we are just as likely to be among the punished when the veil of ignorance is raised as we are to be among those protected by the institution of punishment. The justification of remorse presented here is care-based and draws on the value of sympathizing with people we have wronged, which has a Kantian ground in the duty to take others’ ends as our own. (shrink)

This volume of essays honors the extensive contributions of James M. Edie, the founding editor of the Studies in Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy series, to the development of phenomenological thought. Grounded in Edie's emphasis on Husserl's confrontation with skepticism, the essays provide an in-depth analysis of Husserlian and neo-Husserlian responses to skepticism and relativism. Led by an informative introduction by the volume editor, Brice R. Wachterhauser, and featuring essays by thirteen contributors, including Edie himself, this volume confirms both (...) Edie's lasting influence and the continued relevance of Husserlian thought in contemporary philosophical debate. (shrink)

Benefiting from recent work in neuroscience, this paper rebuts a pair of neuroscience-based arguments for the non-existence of free will. Well-known neuroscientific experiments that have often been cited in support of skepticism about free will are critically examined. Various problems are identified with attempts to use their findings to support the claim that free will is an illusion. It is argued on scientific grounds that certain assumptions made in these skeptical arguments are unjustified—namely, assumptions about the times at which (...) decisions are made and the times at which the point of no re­turn for the making of a decision is reached. It is argued as well that alleged findings about decisions of the kind featured in these experiments—arbitrary decisions made in the absence of conscious reasoning about what to do—fail to support certain crucial claims about non-arbitrary decisions made after careful deliberation. The paper also examines a fallback position for skeptics about free will. Some scientific skeptics about free will contend that free will, by definition, depends on the existence of immaterial souls. Survey-style studies that bring free will down to earth are brought to bear on this contention. (shrink)

In this paper, I first explain Slajov Žižek’s analysis of the grounds of Kant’s categorical imperative. I show how Žižek considered the grounds of the categorical imperative to be an example of irrationalism that ran counter to the spirit of the Enlightenment, of which Kant was, ironically, a major proponent. The irrationalism in Kant’s moral law makes him vulnerable to moral skepticism. I go on to counter this interpretation by drawing from Kant’s practical philosophy. I counter the moral skeptic (...) by arguing from moral phenomenology to the existence of a reason that is independent of empirical motivations and so objectively determining. Whatever is objectively determining logically supersedes that which is based on a particular context. The moral law is rooted in the ontology of an independent faculty of reason capable of issuing a universal law. The union of ontology and ethics means that the categorical imperative is not irrational. (shrink)

According to "skepticism about the external world", one cannot know whether there are any things that have these two characteristics: they exist, or occur, at, or come from, some place, and they might have existed even had no one been conscious of them. In attempting to show that one cannot know whether or not there are any such things, the skeptic appeals to the alleged fact that one cannot rule out various possibilities, e.g., the possibility that one is dreaming. (...) But, if one cannot rule out these possibilities, then how can one even have any grounds for believing that there are such things? I show how certain attempts to explain how one can have such grounds cannot succeed, and I offer an alternative that does succeed. This alternative depends upon a certain analysis of the notion of sensory experience. After providing that analysis, and showing how, by appeal to it, we can explain not only how it is possible to have grounds for believing that there are external things, but how it is possible to know that there are, I explain why it is that philosophers have failed to appreciate the possibility of providing such an explanation. In offering this explanation, I also explain why it is that skepticism about the external world, as well as various other philosophical doctrines, is subject to what I call "instability". (shrink)

Abstract: This essay explores the relation between feminist epistemology and the problem of philosophical skepticism. Even though feminist epistemology has not typically focused on skepticism as a problem, I argue that a feminist contextualist epistemology may solve many of the difficulties facing recent contextualist responses to skepticism. Philosophical skepticism appears to succeed in casting doubt on the very possibility of knowledge by shifting our attention to abnormal contexts. I argue that this shift in context constitutes an (...) attempt to exercise unearned social and epistemic power and that it should be resisted on epistemic and pragmatic grounds. I conclude that skepticism is a problem that feminists can and should take up as they address the social aspects of traditional epistemological problems. (shrink)

Almost since their publication, the writings of Michel de Montaigne have provided rich fodder for the work of scholars in myriad disciplines. Philosophers have considered Montaigne's views on skepticism; historians have examined his views on the Indians; deconstructionists and literary scholars have examined Montaigne's view of the self; and, political scientists have touched on his arguments for toleration. However, because each of these projects has been done largely in isolation, most scholars have failed to see the relationships between the (...) various aspects of Montaigne's thought. Alan Levine, in Sensual Philosophy, unites Montaigne's thought for the first time, ably and convincingly demonstrating the significant role Montaigne played in establishing the liberal ethos in the West. In exploring Montaigne's grounding for liberalism, Levine considers Montaigne's conceptualization of skepticism and its relationship to toleration. He argues that Montaigne's theories of self ground his idea of toleration without leaving it open to the corrosive charges of relativism and nihilism. Levine also articulates the importance of Montaigne's thought for contemporary conceptions of personal freedom, individuality, subjectivity, and self-creation by bringing him into dialogue with modern and postmodern political theorists such as Heidegger, Nietzsche, and Richard Rorty. This lively book persuades those who might be tempted by postmodernism that they should turn to Montaigne instead. (shrink)

This article compares the quarantine model of criminal justice advocated by Derk Pereboom and Gregg Caruso with the corrections model of criminal justice advocated by Michael Corrado. Both of these theories are grounded on the presumption that persons lack desert-grounding free will. It is argued that on this presumption there is no reason to believe that Michael Corrado’s corrections model is any better than the quarantine model.

For Locke, the personal identity problem was a moral problem from the beginning, an attempt to pin down the conditions for responsibility and accountability. This article discusses the implications of Locke's consciousness theory of personal identity for thought about the continuity of moral agency, arguing that Locke's treatment of personal identity is best understood in connection with his expanded discussion of liberty in the Essay and with his interest in the proper grounds for assessing responsibility for action. By grounding (...) personal identity in an agent's ability to recognize her actions as her own, Locke presents a picture of moral life compatible with skepticism about substance while not skeptical about morality. I argue that this description highlights some important features of self-awareness and personhood without resorting to any metaphysical suppositions such as soul, essence or spirit. (shrink)