Agnosticism as a third stance

Mind 116 (461):55-104 (2007)
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Abstract

Within certain philosophical debates, most notably those concerning the limits of our knowledge, agnosticism seems a plausible, and potentially the right, stance to take. Yet, in order to qualify as a proper stance, and not just the refusal to adopt any, agnosticism must be shown to be in opposition to both endorsement and denial and to be answerable to future evidence. This paper explicates and defends the thesis that agnosticism may indeed define such a third stance that is weaker than scepticism and hence offers a genuine alternative to realism and anti-realism about our cognitive limits.

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Author's Profile

Sven Rosenkranz
Universitat de Barcelona

Citations of this work

Suspension, Higher-Order Evidence, and Defeat.Errol Lord & Kurt Sylvan - 2021 - In Jessica Brown & Mona Simion (eds.), Reasons, Justification, and Defeat. Oxford Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Inquiry and the doxastic attitudes.Michele Palmira - 2020 - Synthese 197 (11):4947-4973.
Suspending is Believing.Thomas Raleigh - 2019 - Synthese (3):1-26.
Agnosticism as settled indecision.Verena Wagner - 2022 - Philosophical Studies 179 (2):671-697.

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References found in this work

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.Thomas S. Kuhn - 1962 - Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Edited by Ian Hacking.
Philosophical explanations.Robert Nozick - 1981 - Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Making it Explicit.Isaac Levi & Robert B. Brandom - 1996 - Journal of Philosophy 93 (3):145.

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