What epistemic defect needs to show up in a skeptical scenario if it is to effectively target some belief? According to the false belief account, the targeted belief must be false in the skeptical scenario. According to the competing ignorance account, the targeted belief must fall short of being knowledge in the skeptical scenario. This paper argues for two claims. The first is that, contrary to what is often assumed, the ignorance account is superior to the false (...) belief account. The second is that the ignorance account ultimately hobbles the skeptic. It does so for two reasons. First, when this account is joined with either a closure-based skeptical argument or a skeptical underdetermination argument, the best the skeptic can do is show that we don’t know that we know. And second, the ignorance account directly implies the maligned KK principle. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is two-fold: first, it is intended to articulate theses that are often assessed independently, thus showing that a strong version of epistemological disjunctivism about perceptual knowledge implies a transformative conception of rationality. This entails that individuals in skeptical scenarios could not entertain rational thoughts about their environment, for they would fail to have perceptual states. The secondary aim is to show that this consequence is not a sufficient reason to abandon the variety of (...) disjunctivism presented. The argument for this claim depends on the assessment of rationality attributions to subjects in plausible cases of illusion and some clinical cases of hallucination. RESUMO Este artigo tem dois objetivos: primeiramente, pretende-se articular teses que são frequentemente avaliadas independentemente, mostrando com isso que uma versão robusta do disjuntivismo epistemológico sobre conhecimento perceptual implica uma concepção transformativa da racionalidade. Uma consequência disso é que indivíduos em cenários céticos não poderiam entreter pensamentos racionais sobre o ambiente em que habitam, pois eles não possuiriam estados perceptuais. Em segundo lugar, argumenta-se que a consequência delineada acima não é uma razão suficiente para rejeitar o disjuntivismo tal como apresentado. Esse argumento depende da avaliação de atribuições de racionalidade a indivíduos em casos plausíveis de ilusão e em alguns casos clínicos de alucinação. (shrink)

: It is generally accepted that skeptical scenarios must be possible to raise legitimate skeptical doubt. I argue that if the possibility in question is supposed to be genuine metaphysical possibility, the skeptic's reasoning does not straightforwardly succeed. I first motivate the metaphysical possibility requirement on skeptical scenarios : it's a plausible position that several authors accept and that a family of prominent views—sensitivity, safety, relevant alternatives—are committed to. I argue that plausible constraints in modal (...) epistemology show that justification for believing that certain global skeptical scenarios are metaphysically possible rests on some justified beliefs about the external world, and that this undermines the skeptical argument. While there may still be local skeptical challenges, skeptics cannot appeal to the metaphysical possibility of skeptical scenarios to generate global external world skepticism. (shrink)

Recent research in Baroque Scholastic and early modern meditational exercises has demonstrated similarity between Descartes’s Meditations and St. Teresa of Ávila’s El Castillo Interior. While there is growing agreement on the influence of Catholic meditations on Descartes, the extent of Teresa’s role is debated. Instead of discussing the full extent of Teresa’s influence, this paper concentrates on one example of the considered influence: the skeptical scenario of demonic deception, having clear anticipation in Teresa’s work where the exercitant faces off (...) against deceiving demonic forces, which confound and temporarily halt the meditative progress. The paper analyzes Teresa’s use of deceptive demons and its influence on the Cartesian Evil Demon scenario, while contrasting both with a discussion of demonic deception in the late Medieval and Baroque Scholastic context, arguing that demonological discussions in 1500s allowed both Teresa’s and Descartes’s deceivers to not only cause diversions but to make the deception laborious to resist. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 8, Issue 3, pp 208 - 222 Penelope Maddy claims that we can have no evidence that we are not being globally deceived by an evil demon. However, Maddy’s Plain Inquirer holds that she has good evidence for a wide variety of claims about the world and her relation to it. She rejects the broadly Cartesian idea that she can’t be entitled to these claims, or have good evidence for them, or know them, unless she can provide (...) a defense of them that starts from nowhere. She likewise rejects the more limited demand for a defense that makes use only of considerations that do not concern the world outside of her mind. She allows that some considerations about the world can be appealed to perfectly appropriately as fully adequate evidence in favor of other considerations about the world. So why can’t the Plain Inquirer rule out global skeptical hypotheses by producing evidence against them that depends upon other considerations about the world? Is there good reason for singling out global skeptical hypotheses such as _I am not being deceived by an evil demon_ as requiring a different kind of treatment? Considerations about epistemic asymmetry and epistemic circularity, as well as Wittgensteinian considerations about the relation between evidence and the real-world and human background context, all lead to the conclusion that there is not. (shrink)

According to Michael Bergmann, Skeptical Theism consists of two components: firstly, the belief that there is an all-powerful, all-knowing and perfectly good immaterial person who created the world, and secondly, the skeptical claim that we have no reason to believe that the possible goods and evils we know of are representative of the goods and evils that exist. According to the Global Skepticism Objection, Skeptical Theism entails that we should not be surprised if we are radically deceived (...) by God: there just might be a greater good that can figure in a reason God has for deceiving us about reality. In support of this objection, Stephen Law presents an amusing analogy involving Olly and his reality-projector. In this paper, I outline the Global Skepticism Objection and Law’s case in support of it. I then respond by arguing that the scope of Skeptical Theism should be restricted, and seek to justify this through a narrower construal of Theism and an appeal to common sense. (shrink)

According to Michael Bergmann, Skeptical Theism consists of two components: firstly, the belief that there is an all-powerful, all-knowing and perfectly good immaterial person who created the world, and secondly, the skeptical claim that we have no reason to believe that the possible goods and evils we know of are representative of the goods and evils that exist. According to the Global Skepticism Objection, Skeptical Theism entails that we should not be surprised if we are radically deceived (...) by God: there just might be a greater good that can figure in a reason God has for deceiving us about reality. In support of this objection, Stephen Law presents an amusing analogy involving Olly and his reality-projector. In this paper, I outline the Global Skepticism Objection and Law’s case in support of it. I then respond by arguing that the scope of Skeptical Theism should be restricted, and seek to justify this through a narrower construal of Theism and an appeal to common sense. (shrink)

Moral skeptics maintain that we do not have moral knowledge. Traditionally they haven’t argued via skeptical hypotheses like those provided by perceptual skeptics about the external world, such as Descartes’ deceiving demon. But some believe this can be done by appealing to hypotheses like moral nihilism. Moreover, some claim that skeptical hypotheses have special force in the moral case. But I argue that skeptics have failed to specify an adequate skeptical scenario, which reveals a general lesson: such (...) arguments are not a promising avenue for moral skeptics to take. They’re ultimately weaker when applied to morality compared to perception. (shrink)

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)

In an earlier paper, I presented a novel objection to closure-based skeptical arguments. There I argued that the best account of what makes skeptical scenarios effective cripples the closure-based skeptical arguments that use those scenarios. On behalf of the skeptic, Christopher Buford and Anthony Brueckner have replied to my objection. Here I review my original argument, criticize their replies, and highlight two important issues for further investigation.

The following is not a successful skeptical scenario: you think you know you have hands, but maybe you don't! Why is that a failure, when it's far more likely than, say, the evil genius hypothesis? That's the question.<br><br>This is an earlier draft.

Skeptical hypotheses such as the brain-in-a-vat hypothesis provide extremely poor explanations for our sensory experiences. Because these scenarios accommodate virtually any possible set of evidence, the probability of any given set of evidence on the skeptical scenario is near zero; hence, on Bayesian grounds, the scenario is not well supported by the evidence. By contrast, serious theories make reasonably specific predictions about the evidence and are then well supported when these predictions are satisfied.

In this paper, I will discuss what I will call “skeptical pragmatic invariantism” as a potential response to the intuitions we have about scenarios such as the so-called bank cases. SPI, very roughly, is a form of epistemic invariantism that says the following: The subject in the bank cases doesn’t know that the bank will be open. The knowledge ascription in the low standards case seems appropriate nevertheless because it has a true implicature. The goal of this paper (...) is to show that SPI is mistaken. In particular, I will show that SPI is incompatible with reasonable assumptions about how we are aware of the presence of implicatures. Such objections are not new, but extant formulations are wanting for reasons I will point out below. One may worry that refuting SPI is not a worthwhile project given that this view is an implausible minority position anyway. To respond, I will argue that, contrary to common opinion, other familiar objections to SPI fail and, thus, that SPI is a promising position to begin with. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 5, Issue 1, pp 55 - 60 Peter Murphy has argued that effective skeptical scenarios all have the following feature: the subject involved in the scenario does not know that some ordinary proposition is true, even if the proposition is true in the scenario. So the standard “false belief” conception of skeptical scenarios is wrong, since the belief of the targeted proposition need not be mistaken in the scenario. Murphy then argues that this (...) observation engenders a problem for skeptical arguments: they require the KK principle. We respond to this criticism on behalf of the skeptic in our paper. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 7, Issue 2, pp 69 - 90 It is often claimed that, as a result of scientific progress, we now _know_ that the natural world displays no design. Although we have no interest in defending design hypotheses, we will argue that establishing claims to the effect that we know the denials of design hypotheses is more difficult than it seems. We do so by issuing two skeptical challenges to design-deniers. The first challenge draws inspiration from radical (...) skepticism and shows how design claims are at least as compelling as radical skeptical scenarios in undermining knowledge claims, and in fact probably more so. The second challenge takes its cue from skeptical theism and shows how we are typically not in an epistemic position to rule out design. (shrink)

Skeptical theists argue that no seemingly unjustified evil (SUE) could ever lower the probability of God's existence at all. Why? Because God might have justifying reasons for allowing such evils (JuffREs) that are undetectable. However, skeptical theists are unclear regarding whether or not God's existence is relevant to the existence of JuffREs, and whether or not God's existence is relevant to their detectability. But I will argue that, no matter how the skeptical theist answers these questions, it (...) is undeniable that the skeptical theist is wrong; SUEs lower the probability of God's existence. To establish this, I will consider the four scenarios regarding the relevance of God's existence to the existence and detectability of JuffREs, and show that in each—after we establish our initial probabilities, and then update them given the evidence of a SUE—the probability of God's existence drops. (shrink)

May argues that moral skepticism is less plausible than perceptual skepticism if it’s formulated using epistemic closure. In this paper, I argue we should be skeptical of the implausibility thesis. Moral skepticism can be formulated using closure if we combine moral nihilism with a properly formulated evolutionary scenario. Further, I argue that pace May, the phenomenon of ‘imaginative resistance’ isn’t an issue for the moral skeptic; she has an evolutionary explanation of the phenomenon. Thus, we should be skeptical (...) of the implausibility thesis. (shrink)

It seems an undisputed, fundamental principle that solid philosophical and scientific theories require sufficient reason to support them. Philosophically sufficient reasoning is impossible, however, if it is not backed with strong, undisputed, first principles. This seemingly obvious claim is, nevertheless, not without problems: First, what are the undisputed first principles? What are the basic---logical/epistemological/ontological---differences between undisputed first principles and other ones? What can ensure the special status of these first principles? ;Adequate and well-reasoned answers to these questions seem to be (...) essential to establish firm grounds for any philosophical/scientific investigation. But such adequate reasoning seems impossible, since reasoning itself is the object of our investigation. Alternatively, traditional logic cannot offer us any sufficient solution as logic itself relies on undisputed, first principles. ;The failure of traditional logic to justify its own first principles does not necessarily mean that logic itself requires a leap of faith. Instead of accepting our first principles without any dispute, we should find a way to dispute them and to select those which resist all well-founded objections. The central argument of my thesis is that a dialectical theory of philosophical games is able to offer us such a way. ;In the first chapter I present an epistemic meta-theory of philosophical games. I argue that games can replace formal arguments and their introduction into philosophical discourse enlarges and re-innovates our philosophical language with such new terms as winning and losing a game, game rules and movements, etc. Using these terms several basic concepts such as truth and falsity, presupposition, and the burden of proof can be creatively reinterpreted. ;The most fundamental epistemic principles are the topics of the first part. The second part considers circular arguments ; the third focuses on conceivability arguments and the last part discusses the famous skeptical argument involving the skeptic's scenario of brains in a vat. The final chapter summarizes the advantages and shortcomings of the game-theoretical approach. (shrink)

In this paper I distinguish between ‘local’ and ‘global’ forms of ‘envatment’. I show that recent envatment arguments work similarly to arguments from perceptual illusion and that neither of them are able, by themselves, to get us ‘global’ scepticism. Consequently, motivating the radical sceptical idea that all of our perceptual beliefs might be false is harder than it looks.

According to the closure-based radical skeptical argument, it is impossible for us to have knowledge of the majority of everyday propositions because we can’t have knowledge of the denials of the skeptical hypotheses they entail (Pritchard 96). In Chapter 6 of his book Epistemology, Duncan Pritchard describes a response to this argument which uses the sensitivity principle to deny the closure principle, thereby defeating the radical skeptic’s argument. Despite Pritchard’s concerns with this solution, denying the closure principle using (...) the sensitivity principle is a plausible method of defeating the skeptic. I respond to each of his three objections in turn. First, I argue that the reason the closure principle seems so intuitively plausible (despite being false) is that we tend to consider obvious entailments, rather than skeptical hypotheses, when considering the closure principle. Unlike the skeptical hypotheses, we can know the denial of the obvious entailments because those beliefs are sensitive. Second, I will explain why not allowing for inductive knowledge is no reason to reject the sensitivity principle, as true belief gained by induction can be considered rational belief, rather than knowledge. Finally, I will argue that the sensitivity principle can, indeed, provide the necessary counterexamples to the closure principle— something Pritchard denies because he thinks the sensitivity principle demands an evaluation process that cannot be applied when considering skeptical scenarios. However, with a proper understanding of what the sensitivity principle requires, we can use it to deny the closure principle. This paper endeavours to demonstrate that Pritchard’s concerns are not sufficient reason to reject the sensitivity principle as a solution to closure-based radical skepticism. (shrink)

The problem of philosophical skepticism relates to the difficulty involved in underwriting the claim that we know anything of spatio-temporal reality. It is often claimed, in fact, that proper philosophical scrutiny reveals quite the opposite from what common sense suggests. Knowledge of external reality is thought to be even quite obviously denied to us as a result of the alleged fact that we all fail to know that certain skeptical scenarios do not obtain. A skeptical scenario is (...) one in which we have neurological occurrences just like any normal situation in which we actually perceive spatio-temporal objects, but where we are deceived in some sense as a result of the manipulation of our brains from some outside source. In this work I attempt to address the problem of philosophical skepticism by claiming that most of us are able to come to know plenty about external reality, since we can come to realize that a certain philosophical theory of perception is correct. The theory I have in mind is what I call a non-cognitive theory of perception. According to this view, perceptual experience is defined by continuous, sensitive behavioral interaction with spatio-temporal objects of the appropriate size, shape, hardness, speed, etc. Knowing that this theory of perception is correct is equivalent to knowing that we know plenty about external reality. This is ultimately because by knowing that a non-cognitive theory of perception is true, we know that any skeptical scenario must fail to obtain. The structure of the work proceeds by first discussing the significance of the problem of philosophical skepticism in some detail. Chapter 1 lays out how the problem does indeed forcefully arise if it is conceded that we fail to know that the skeptical scenarios fail to obtain. Chapter 2 develops the sort of view of our epistemological situation that falls out of accepting without qualification that the problem exists. Chapter 3 examines and criticizes certain popular responses to the skeptical problem. The main goal of these first three preliminary chapters is to indicate that once it is admitted that we fail to know that the skeptical scenarios fail to obtain, the problem of philosophical skepticism forcefully presents itself. Chapter 4, however, attacks the idea that we fail to know that the skeptical scenarios fail to obtain. In this chapter I argue that this idea is wedded to the position that a certain theory of perception is correct. The theory in question is what I call a conjunctive theory of veridical experience. According to this view, normal experience of spatio-temporal objects occurs when a subject has a certain perceptual experience, and that experience also happens to match up with and/or be satisfied by what is really the case. Only when a theory of this sort is assumed, I argue, is the claim that we fail to know that the skeptical scenarios fail to obtain found to be obvious. In chapter 5 I argue that, in fact, a non-cognitive theory, rather than a conjunctive theory, is the correct view to maintain. In the final chapter 6 I develop the epistemological position that falls out of accepting a non-cognitive theory. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: This dissertation is a response to the skeptical threats and challenges leveled by disagreement. Any plausible response to skepticism should explain what knowledge is and explain why the skeptic’s assumptions about what’s required for knowledge are false. In this dissertation I assume a virtue theoretic account of knowledge, which is a species of an externalist theory of knowledge. I defend this account of knowledge in the face of two problems I argue any externalist must address. The first problem (...) is whether or not externalists can account for the kind of defeating evidence brought about by disagreement. Put differently: reliabilists need to explain how counterevidence from epistemic superior disagreement fits into a reliabilist scheme given what matters for reliabilists is that a true belief is sourced in a reliable process. The second problem is explaining what is wrong with what I take to be one of the strongest skeptical arguments from disagreement. The scope of this skeptical argument is modest in that one needs to recognize and be aware of an epistemic superior who disagrees with you over the veracity of some proposition. Nevertheless, it’s a skeptical argument that avoids what many think are pre-theoretically irrelevant scenarios such as cases involving malevolent demons, brains in vats, Matrixian pods, etc. The pre-theoretical obviousness that one is not in a vat of chemicals doesn’t generalize to the more modest claim that one needs to rule out an epistemic superior’s belief in theory t, which entails the denial of one’s belief that p. Chapter One explicates how peer disagreement provides arguments for modest versions of skepticism. This chapter appeals to some of the leading proponents of this version of skepticism in order to draw together the common threads their skeptical arguments share. Once I identity the common threads shared by proponents of skepticism from disagreement, I put forth the argument for skepticism from disagreement. Chapters Two and Three argue why the problem of moderate skepticism in Chapter One is a pseudo-problem by arguing why internalism is not the only game in town when it comes to making normative evaluations. Chapter Three continues to explain why the argument for moderate skepticism is a pseudo-problem by arguing how unlikely it is to satisfy the conditions needed for the argument to go through. Chapter Four propounds what I take to be the strongest skeptical argument from disagreement. This chapter shifts the problem of disagreement from internalist’s concerns to externalist’s ones. The result is a skeptical argument that avoids the problems plaguing the original argument presented in Chapter One. Chapter Five provides Greco’s virtue theoretic account of knowledge. This chapter provides the theoretical resources needed to provide a Grecoian response to the challenges leveled against externalists in Chapter Four. Chapter Six explains the role defeaters play in epistemology and what a Grecoian account of defeater looks like. Once an account of defeating evidence is provided, an answer to the question “How can externalism provide an account of defeating evidence that comes from disagreement?” emerges. Chapter Seven provides a response to the new skeptical argument from disagreement laid out in Chapter Four. This chapter appeals to the theoretical resources provided in Chapter Five so as to complete this dissertation’s purpose of providing a Grecoian response to skepticism from disagreement. (shrink)

Epistemologists understand radical skepticism as arising from two principles: Closure and Underdetermination. Both possess intuitive prima facie support for their endorsement. Understanding how they engender skepticism is crucial for any reasonable anti-skeptical attempt. The contemporary discussion has focused on elucidating the relationship between them to ascertain whether they establish distinct skeptical questions and which of the two constitutes the ultimately fundamental threat. Major contributions to this debate are due to Brueckner, Cohen, and Pritchard. This contribution aims at defending (...) Brueckner’s contention that underdetermination expresses the fundamental skeptical threat and that the closure-based argument can ultimately be reduced to it, at least concerning skeptical contexts. This will be achieved by undermining Cohen’s objections to Brueckner on both counts. Cohen’s argument endorses a picture of evidential underdetermination, which, while apt for non-skeptical contexts, cannot be applied to radical skepticism. A comparison with a case of scientific underdetermination is developed to argue for this idea. Our argument is then applied to the principle equivalence issue and to objections against it. It is then shown how this analysis possesses a distinctive effect on our understanding of the skeptical threat and the assessment of successful anti-skeptical strategies. (shrink)

In a series of recent papers, two of which appeared in this journal, a group of philosophers, physicists, and climate scientists have argued that something they call the `hawkmoth effect' poses insurmountable difficulties for those who would use non-linear models, including climate simulation models, to make quantitative predictions or to produce `decision-relevant probabilites.' Such a claim, if it were true, would undermine much of climate science, among other things. Here, we examine the two lines of argument the group has used (...) to support their claims. The first comes from a set of results in dynamical systems theory associated with the concept of `structural stability.' The second relies on a mathematical demonstration of their own, using the logistic equation, that they present using a hypothetical scenario involving two apprentices of Laplace's omniscient demon. We prove two theorems that are relevant to their claims, and conclude that both of these lines of argument fail. There is nothing out there that comes close to matching the charac. (shrink)

_ Source: _Page Count 30 According to epistemological disjunctivism I can claim to know facts about the world around me on the basis of my perceptual experience. My possession of such knowledge is incompatible with a number of familiar skeptical scenarios. So a paradigmatic epistemological disjunctivist perceptual experience should allow me to rule out such incompatible skeptical scenarios. In this paper, I consider skeptical scenarios which both cast doubt on my conviction that I can (...) trust my purported perceptual experiences and appear to be compatible with my enjoying a veridical perceptual experience of my environment. Such skeptical scenarios draw attention to a significant difference between McDowell’s epistemological disjunctivism and Pritchard’s. McDowellian epistemological disjunctivism has the resources to rule out such skeptical scenarios but Pritchard’s does not. This is because the Pritchardian epistemological disjunctivist does not, unlike McDowell, insist on the idea that perception is a fallible capacity, self-consciously exercised and possessed, for knowledge. (shrink)

This paper shall look briefly into the treatment of some topics related to scepticism in general in works by Barhebraeus, the famous Syrian Orthodox polymath and theologian (1226–1286). He addresses scepticism both directly by a discussion of sensory and intellectual fallacies or sceptical scenarios as well as indirectly by the definition of knowledge and the role of intuitive knowledge regarding primary notions and logical principles, which have an impact on establishing secure knowledge. Despite writing in Syriac, his dealing with (...) the matter is heavily indebted to Arabic sources, primarily contemporary post‐Avicennan authors, and here especially Fakhr al‐Dīn al‐Rāzī (1149–1209) and Naṣīr al‐Dīn al‐Tūṣī (1201–1274) but also Avicenna (980–1037) himself, although Barhebraeus adds a decisively Christian note in some instances. The Syriac tradition, therefore, should not be neglected when dealing with medieval scepticism. (shrink)

Reflection on skeptical scenarios in the philosophy of perception, made vivid in the arguments from illusion and hallucination, have led to the formulation of theories of the metaphysical and epistemological nature of perceptual experience. In recent times, the locus of the debate concerning the nature of perceptual experience has been the dispute between disjunctivists and common-kind theorists. Disjunctivists have held that there are substantial dissimilarities (either metaphysical or epistemological or both) between veridical perceptual experiences occurring when one perceives (...) and perceptual experiences involved in hallucination. Common-kind theorists have denied this. In this paper, I examine the nature of introspection – a faculty that has often been compared and contrasted to perception. I reflect on cases where introspection goes wrong in ways analogous to that in which our perceptual faculties can go wrong and formulate, what I take to be, an attractive theory of introspection. The cases that I focus on in which things go wrong are the case of zombies and the case of subjects with Anton’s syndrome. (Anton’s syndrome is a condition in which people who are blind claim that they can see.) I suggest that, just as it is possible to be a disjunctivist about perception, it is possible to be a disjunctivist about introspection. I argue that this is a good view of one type of introspection, namely, introspection of states that have phenomenal character, such as perceptual experiences. It has a good account to give of the cases in which such introspection seems to go wrong and it yields a plausible metaphysical and epistemological view of the nature of introspection. However, while I favour a disjunctive view of introspection, I do not favour a disjunctive view of perception. And, I suspect, that many disjunctivists about perception would not wish to condone my disjunctivist theory of introspection. I therefore go on to examine to what extent.. (shrink)

I examine the conditions which hypotheses must satisfy if they are to be used to raise significant sceptical challenges. I argue that sceptical hypotheses do not have to be logically, metaphysically or epistemically possible: they need only to depict scenarios subjectively indistinguishable from the actual world and to show how subjects can believe what they do while not having knowledge. I also argue that sceptical challenges can be raised against a priori beliefs, even if those beliefs are necessarily true. (...) I hope to broaden our conception of the legitimate kinds of sceptical challenges which can be raised. (shrink)

ABSTRACTHilary Putnam provides an anti-skeptical argument motivated by semantic externalism. He argues that our best theorizing about what it takes to experience, think, and so on, entails that the world is much as we take it to be. This fact eliminates the possibility of radical skeptical scenarios, where from our perspective everything seems as it does in the actual case, but we are widely and systematically mistaken. I think that this approach is generally correct, and that it (...) is the most promising strategy for undermining radical skepticism. There are, however, well-discussed difficulties with Putnam's way of pursuing this strategy. I argue that in order to avoid these objections we will have to be more radical externalists than Putnam proposed; in particular, we will have to beperspectival externalists. According to perspectival externalism, a subject's reliable relations to her environment play a crucial role in determining not only the contents of her mental events, but also what it is like for her to grasp those contents. While semantic externalism is widely accepted in epistemology, perspectival externalism is not. I argue that perspectival externalism is independently more plausible than mere semantic externalism, and that such an account can enable us to better pursue Putnam's anti-skeptical strategy. (shrink)

We are prone to gross error, even in favorable circumstances of extended reflection, about our own ongoing conscious experience, our current phenomenology. Even in this apparently privileged domain, our self-knowledge is faulty and untrustworthy. We are not simply fallible at the margins but broadly inept. Examples highlighted in this essay include: emotional experience (for example, is it entirely bodily; does joy have a common, distinctive phenomenological core?), peripheral vision (how broad and stable is the region of visual clarity?), and the (...) phenomenology of thought (does it have a distinctive phenomenology, beyond just imagery and feelings?). Cartesian skeptical scenarios undermine knowledge of ongoing conscious experience as well as knowledge of the outside world. Infallible judgments about ongoing mental states are simply banal cases of self-fulfillment. Philosophical foundationalism supposing that we infer an external world from secure knowledge of our own consciousness is almost exactly backward. (shrink)

This paper continues the defense of a version of scientific realism, Tautological Scientific Realism, that rests on the claim that, excluding some areas of fundamental physics about which doubts are entirely justified, many areas of contemporary science cannot be coherently imagined to be false other than via postulation of radically skeptical scenarios, which are not relevant to the realism debate in philosophy of science. In this paper we discuss, specifically, the threats of meaning change and reference failure associated (...) with the Kuhnian tradition, which depend on a descriptivist approach to meaning, and we argue that descriptivism is not the right account of the meaning and reference of theoretical terms. We suggest that an account along the lines of the causal-historical theory of reference provides a more faithful picture of how terms for unobservable theoretical entities and properties come to refer; we argue that this picture works particularly well for TSR. In the last section we discuss how our account raises concerns specifically for perspectival forms of scientific realism. (shrink)

This book argues that external world skepticism is false for straightforward reasons. To make this case it develops and defends a neglected methodological approach involving a distinctive process of first-person reflection. We begin within the practices, procedures, and commitments of ordinary life and science. We then seek some reason to think skepticism true, carefully scrutinizing all the most important arguments. Finding no reason to think it true and decisive reasons to think it false, we reject it. As the book shows, (...) this is a fully satisfactory refutation. No epistemological theorizing is needed. The book begins by exploring and defending this method in seminal works of G. E. Moore and J. L. Austin. Turning to contemporary epistemology, it asks why we shouldn't appeal to considerations about the world when responding to skeptical argumentation. No good reason is found, despite exploration of a wide range of central issues in recent epistemology. To the contrary, perfectly ordinary examples indicate that it is correct to reject the skeptical scenarios - the dreaming worry, Descartes' evil demon, the brain-in-a-vat - by appealing to things we know about the world. Likewise, considerations about sensory perception do not provide any reason to think our evidence excludes considerations about the world. Along the way, methodological lessons are drawn from consideration of the most important skeptical arguments in the contemporary literature. The book concludes by defending the satisfactoriness of its approach. What emerges is a new understanding of what philosophical illumination might look like in relation to core epistemological issues. (shrink)

In 'Perceptual Entitlement' (PPR 2003), Tyler Burge argues that on his teleological reliabilist account of perceptual warrant, warrant will persist in non-normal conditions, even radical skeptical scenarios like demon worlds. This paper explains why Burge's explanation falls short. But if we distinguish two grades of warrant, we can explain, in proper functionalist, teleological reliabilist terms, why warrant should persist in demon worlds. A normally functioning belief-forming process confers warrant in all worlds, provided it is reliable in normal conditions (...) when functioning normally. The first grade requires normal functioning. The second grade also requires being situated in normal conditions. (shrink)

Epistemological disjunctivists make two strong claims about perceptual experience's epistemic value: experience guarantees the knowledgeable character of perceptual beliefs; experience's epistemic value is “reflectively accessible”. In this paper I develop a form of disjunctivism grounded in a presentational view of experience, on which the epistemic benefits of experience consist in the way perception presents the subject with aspects of her environment. I show that presentational disjunctivism has both dialectical and philosophically fundamental advantages over more traditional expositions. Dialectically, presentational disjunctivism resolves (...) a puzzle disjunctivists face in their posture vis-à-vis skeptical scenarios. More systematically, presentational disjunctivism provides an especially compelling view of disjunctivism as an internalist view of perceptual consciousness by explaining the way perceptual presence manifests the subject's rationality in a distinct way. (shrink)

Do you know you are not being massively deceived by an evil demon? That is a familiar skeptical challenge. Less familiar is this question: How do you have a conception of knowledge on which the evil demon constitutes a prima facie challenge? Recently several philosophers have suggested that our responses to skeptical scenarios can be explained in terms of heuristics and biases. We offer an alternative explanation, based in learning theory. We argue that, given the evidence available (...) to the learner, it would be rational for the learner to infer an infallibilist conception of knowledge. (shrink)

The cross-cultural differences in epistemic intuitions reported by Weinberg, Nichols and Stich (2001; hereafter: WNS) laid the ground for the negative program of experimental philosophy. However, most of WNS’s findings were not corroborated in further studies. The exception here is the study concerning purported differences between Westerners and Indians in knowledge ascriptions concerning the Zebra Case, which was never properly replicated. Our study replicates the above-mentioned experiment on a considerably larger sample of Westerners (n = 211) and Indians (n = (...) 204). The analysis found a significant difference between the ethnic groups in question in the predicted direction: Indians were more likely to attribute knowledge in the Zebra Case than Westerners. In this paper, we offer an explanation of our result that takes into account the fact that replications of WNS’s other experiments did not find any cross-cultural differences. We argue that the Zebra Case is unique among the vignettes tested by WNS since it should not be regarded as a Gettier case but rather as a scenario exhibiting skeptical pressure concerning the reliability of sense-perception. We argue that skepticism towards perception as a means of gaining knowledge is a trope that is deeply rooted in Western epistemology but is very much absent from Classical Indian philosophical inquiry. This line of reasoning is based on a thorough examination of the skeptical scenarios discussed by philosophers of the Indian Nyaya tradition and their adversaries. (shrink)

In this chapter, I present and explore various arguments for skepticism that are related to memory. My focus will be on the aspects of the arguments that are unique to memory, which are not shared, for example, by the more often explored skeptical arguments related to perception. -/- Here are some interesting upshots. First, a particular problem for justifiably concluding that one's memory is reliable is that any reasoning in favor of this conclusion will either result in epistemically circularity (...) or not be sufficient to justify the conclusion. Second, since many beliefs stored in memory do not appear to be based on evidence, it might also appear to follow that they are not justified. Third, although many stored memory beliefs are not based on stored memory experiences in the same way that perceptual beliefs are based on perceptual experiences, skeptical scenarios loom just as problematically for memory beliefs as they do for perceptual beliefs. (shrink)

A 1% skeptic is someone who has about a 99% credence in non-skeptical realism and about a 1% credence in the disjunction of all radically skeptical scenarios combined. The first half of this essay defends the epistemic rationality of 1% skepticism, appealing to dream skepticism, simulation skepticism, cosmological skepticism, and wildcard skepticism. The second half of the essay explores the practical behavioral consequences of 1% skepticism, arguing that 1% skepticism need not be behaviorally inert.

In our thought, we employ rules of inference and belief-forming methods more generally. For instance, we (plausibly) employ deductive rules such as Modus Ponens, ampliative rules such as Inference to the Best Explanation, and perceptual methods that tell us to believe what perceptually appears to be the case. What explains our entitlement to employ these rules and methods? This chapter considers the motivations for broadly internalist answers to this question. It considers three such motivations—one based on simple cases, one based (...) on a general conception of epistemic responsibility, and one based on skeptical scenarios. The chapter argues that none of these motivations is successful. The first two motivations lead to forms of internalism—Extreme Method Internalism and Defense Internalism—that are too strong to be tenable. The third motivation motivates Mental Internalism (Mentalism), which does not fit with plausible accounts of entitlement. (shrink)

A 1% skeptic is someone who has about a 99% credence in non-skeptical realism and about a 1% credence that some radically skeptical scenario obtains. The first half of this essay defends the epistemic rationality of 1% skepticism, endorsing modest versions of dream skepticism, simulation skepticism, cosmological skepticism, and wildcard skepticism. The second half of the essay explores the practical behavioral consequences of 1% skepticism.

The traditional argument for skepticism relies on a comparison between a normal subject and a subject in a skeptical scenario: because there is no relevant difference between them, neither has knowledge. Externalists respond by arguing that there is in fact a relevant difference—the normal subject is properly situated in her environment. I argue, however, that there is another sort of comparison available—one between a normal subject and a subject with a belief that is accidentally true—that makes possible a new (...) argument for skepticism. Unlike the traditional form of skeptical argument, this new argument applies equally well to both internalist and externalist theories of knowledge. (shrink)

How radical is the idea that reasons are factive? Some philosophers consider it a dramatic departure from orthodoxy, with surprising implications about the bearing of the external world on what credences it’s reasonable to have, what beliefs are epistemically appropriate, and what actions are rational. I deny these implications. In the cases where external matters imply differences in factive states, there will inevitably be important weaker factive states in common. For example, someone who knows it is raining has many factive (...) states in common with someone who has a Gettiered belief that it is raining, or one who falsely but justifiably believes that it is raining. The factive reasons denied to subjects in Gettier cases or skeptical scenarios are in an important sense redundant; appropriate belief or action supervenes on internal states, even if reasons must be factive (and even if appropriate belief and action supervenes on reasons). The degree to which the strategy is applicable depends substantively on epistemic assumptions about basic or foundational knowledge. I argue that even given a significantly externalist approach to the latter internalist intuitions about rational credence, belief, and action can be vindicated. (shrink)

Having fascinated some of the greatest philosophers from the earliest times, dreaming figures importantly in the history of philosophy, as in Plato’s Theaetetus, Augustine’s Confessions, and, perhaps most famously, Descartes’s Mediations. By far the greatest philosophical focus on dreaming has been epistemic: Socrates suggests to Theaetetus that since he cannot tell whether he is dreaming, he cannot trust his senses to know contingent facts about the world around him. And a similar worry drives Descartes’s radical doubt in the First Meditation. (...) We might think that dream skepticism is, among the radical Cartesian skeptical scenarios, a particularly worrying one, since dreams, unlike evil demons, are a commonplace of everyday life. (shrink)

According to epistemic internalism, the only facts that determine the justificational status of a belief are facts about the subject’s own mental states, like beliefs and experiences. Externalists instead hold that certain external facts, such as facts about the world or the reliability of a belief-producing mechanism, affect a belief’s justificational status. Some internalists argue that considerations about evil demon victims and brains in vats provide excellent reason to reject externalism: because these subjects are placed in epistemically unfavorable settings, externalism (...) seems unable to account for the strong intuition that these subjects’ beliefs are nonetheless justified. I think these considerations do not at all help the internalist cause. I argue that by appealing to the anti-individualistic nature of perception, it can be shown that skeptical scenarios provide no reason to prefer internalism to externalism. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that Cartesian skepticism about the external world is self-defeating. The Cartesian skeptic holds that we are not justified in believing claims about the external world on the grounds that we cannot rule out the possibility of our being in a radical skeptical scenario. My argument against this position builds upon a critique of Wilson in Analysis, 72, 668–673. Wilson argues that the Cartesian’s skeptical reasoning commits him to mental state skepticism and that this (...) undermines his ability to claim that he is truly skeptical about the external world. I show that Wilson’s argument does not succeed. She is correct that the Cartesian is committed to mental state skepticism. However, she is mistaken in thinking that there is anything incoherent about combining the Cartesian position that one ought to doubt external world claims with doubt about whether one is in fact such a skeptic. I propose an alternative explanation as to why mental state skepticism proves to be the Cartesian’s undoing. I suggest that mental state skepticism leads to epistemic skepticism and that this undermines the Cartesian’s position that belief about the external world is unjustified. (shrink)

I offer a novel reading in this dissertation of René Descartes’s (1596–1650) skepticism in his work Meditations on First Philosophy (1641–1642). I specifically aim to answer the following problem: How is Descartes’s skepticism to be read in accordance with the rest of his philosophy? This problem can be divided into two more general questions in Descartes scholarship: How is skepticism utilized in the Meditations, and what are its intentions and relation to the preceding philosophical tradition? -/- I approach the topic (...) from both a historical and a text-based analysis, combining textual and contextual research. I examine Descartes’s skepticism against two main traditions in the historical analysis: philosophical skepticism and Aristotelian Scholasticism. I argue that skepticism in the Meditations is intended to oppose and upheave both Scholasticism and skepticism. The intended results of the work are not merely epistemological but also metaphysical and even ethical. Furthermore, these ambitions cannot be neatly distinguished but merge into each other. -/- The third historical context against which the skeptical meditations are examined is the literary genre of meditative exercises, particularly from the 1500–1600’s, which, while religiously and spiritually oriented, likewise provided the practitioner with an enlightened understanding of self-knowledge and their cognitive place in the world on the way to closer spiritual proximity to God. I argue by this reading that the skepticism of the Meditations is an attentive, meditational cognitive exercise that is not merely instrumental and methodological but is to have a genuine and serious (psychologically real) effect on our thinking. The skeptical meditation is not simply a theoretical thought experiment but is to be seriously practiced as a transformative process of reorienting one’s cognitive framework to discover truth, certainty, and a way to a happy, tranquil, and virtuous life. -/- I offer a close reading in the textual analysis of the first three meditations of the Meditations. I argue that the meditative skepticism employed in the work does not reject the previous beliefs but suspends judgment on them, withdrawing assent until further evidence can be found. I introduce a new term into Descartes scholarship in this analysis, based on the terminology of ancient skepticism: Cartesian epochē (gr. epochē, suspension, withdrawal). Instead of rejecting previous beliefs or assenting to the probably false, the skeptical procedure of the Meditations is argued to emulate in important ways the suspension of judgment on equally balanced reasons in ancient Pyrrhonian skepticism. Novel interpretations are presented along the way of the will’s freedom, of the First Meditation’s skeptical scenarios, of the cogito, and of the vindication of metaphysical certainty, as well as a clarification of the Cartesian Circle problem. -/- Reinterpreting the relation of Descartes’s skepticism to the preceding historical and literary traditions leads to a new look at the skeptical method itself. Presenting a new interpretation of skepticism in the Meditations leads at the same time to a new look at its relation to the historical context. The two research questions are, then, intrinsically tied together. -/- My focus in the study is on the Meditations, but I also reference and discuss Descartes’s other philosophical works, as well as his correspondence, when necessary. (shrink)

Rationalism, my target, says that in order to have perceptual knowledge, such as that your hand is making a fist, you must “antecedently” (or “independently”) know that skeptical scenarios don’t obtain, such as the skeptical scenario that you are in the Matrix. I motivate the specific form of Rationalism shared by, among others, White (Philos Stud 131:525–557, 2006) and Wright (Proc Aristot Soc Suppl Vol 78:167–212, 2004), which credits us with warrant to believe (or “accept”, in Wright’s (...) terms) that our senses are reliably veridical, where that warrant is one we enjoy by default, that is, without relying on any evidence or engaging in any positive argument. The problem with this form of Rationalism is that, even if you have default knowledge that your senses are reliable, this is not adequate to rule out every kind of skeptical scenario. The problem is created by one-off skeptical scenarios, scenarios that involve a highly reliable perceiver who, by a pure fluke, has a one-off, non-veridical experience. I claim you cannot infer that your present perceptual experience is veridical just on the basis of knowledge of your general reliability. More generally, if you infer that the present F is G, just on the basis of your knowledge that most Fs are Gs, this is what I call statistical inference, and, as I argue, statistical inference by itself does not generate knowledge. I defend this view of statistical inference against objections, including the objection that radical skepticism about our ordinary inductive knowledge will follow unless statistical inference generates knowledge. (shrink)

What assumptions are built into the claim that experience has “phenomenal properties,” and could these assumptions turn out to be false? I consider the issue specifically for the similarity relations between experiences: for example, experiences of different shades of red are more similar to each other than an experience of red and an experience of green. It is commonly thought that we have a special kind of epistemic access to experience that is more secure than our access to the external (...) environment. In the first part of the paper, I argue than one way of elucidating this claim is especially plausible—that systematic error, of the kind subjects make about the external environment in traditional “skeptical” scenarios, is not conceivable for introspection of experience, including for our knowledge of similarity relations. I argue that focusing on similarity relations gives us a more interesting version of the argument than for other forms of experiential introspection. Then in the second part of the paper I describe an example, inspired by a similar case due to Sydney Shoemaker, in which a subject, despite being fully rational and attentive, apparently is systematically mistaken about the character of their experience in a surprising way. I argue that the example calls into question whether there are properties of experience satisfying the epistemic access constraint, and therefore whether experience has “phenomenal properties” in the intuitive sense. (shrink)

Are we perhaps in the "matrix", or anyway, victims of perfect and permanent computer simulation? No. The most convincing—and shortest—version of Putnam's argument against the possibility of our eternal envattment is due to Crispin Wright (1994). It avoids most of the misunderstandings that have been elicited by Putnam's original presentation of the argument in "Reason, Truth and History" (1981). But it is still open to the charge of question-begging. True enough, the premisses of the argument (disquotation and externalism) can be (...) formulated and defended without presupposing external objects whose existence appears doubtful in the light of the very skeptical scenario which Putnam wants to repudiate. However, the argument is only valid if we add an extra premiss as to the existence of some external objects. In order to avoid circularity, we should run the argument with external objects which must exist even if we are brains in a vat, e.g. with computers rather than with trees. As long as the skeptic is engaged in a discussion of the brain-in-a-vat scenario, she should neither deny the existence of computers nor the existence of causal relations; for if she does, she is in fact denying that we are brains in a vat. (shrink)