How to Undercut Radical Skepticism

Philosophical Studies 174 (5):1299-1321 (2017)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Radical skepticism relies on the hypothesis that one could be completely cut off from the external world. In this paper, I argue that this hypothesis can be rationally motivated by means of a conceivability argument. Subsequently, I submit that this conceivability argument does not furnish a good reason to believe that one could be completely cut off from the external world. To this end, I show that we cannot adequately conceive scenarios that verify the radical skeptical hypothesis. Attempts to do so fall prey to one or another of three pitfalls: they end up incomplete, reveal a deep contradiction or recreate a non-skeptical hypothesis. I use these results to improve upon Pritchard’s recent attempt at undercutting radical skepticism.

Similar books and articles

Wittgenstein and the dream hypothesis.Avrum Stroll - 2009 - Philosophia 37 (4):681-690.
An Argument for External World Skepticism from the Appearance/Reality Distinction.Moti Mizrahi - 2016 - International Journal for the Study of Skepticism 6 (4):368-383.
The Failure of Frances’s Live Skepticism.Susan Feldman - 2016 - International Journal for the Study of Skepticism 6 (4):385-396.
The Transcendental Significance of Phenomenology.Stephen L. White - 2007 - PSYCHE: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Research On Consciousness 13 (1).
When a Skeptical Hypothesis Is Live.Bryan Frances - 2005 - Noûs 39 (4):559–595.
Rational Resistance to Skepticism.Wai-Hung Wong - 2001 - Dissertation, University of California, Berkeley
Causation as a philosophical relation in Hume.Graciela de Pierris - 2002 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 64 (3):499-545.

Analytics

Added to PP
2016-08-18

Downloads
652 (#23,515)

6 months
88 (#42,094)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Santiago Echeverri
National Autonomous University of Mexico

References found in this work

Does conceivability entail possibility.David J. Chalmers - 2002 - In Tamar Szabo Gendler & John Hawthorne (eds.), Conceivability and Possibility. Oxford University Press. pp. 145--200.
The Philosophy of Philosophy.Timothy Williamson - 2007 - Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.
Epiphenomenal qualia.Frank Jackson - 1982 - Philosophical Quarterly 32 (April):127-136.
Reason, Truth and History.Hilary Putnam - 1981 - New York: Cambridge University Press.

View all 75 references / Add more references