This book shows that at the beginning of modern thought the revival of ancient skepticism challenged the powers of the intellect in making knowledge possible, opening the way to the consideration of language as an alternative to mental representation, thus leading to an early linguistic turn.

The papers collected in this volume exemplify some of the trends in current approaches to logic, language and computation. Written by authors with varied academic backgrounds, the contributions are intended for an interdisciplinary audience. The first part of this volume addresses issues relevant for multi-agent systems: reasoning with incomplete information, reasoning about knowledge and beliefs, and reasoning about games. Proofs as formal objects form the subject of Part II. Topics covered include: contributions on logical frameworks, linear logic, and different (...) approaches to formalized reasoning. Part III focuses on representations and formal methods in linguistic theory, addressing the areas of comparative and temporal expressions, modal subordination, and compositionality. (shrink)

The goal of tranquility through non-Assertion, Advocated by sextus empiricus, Is examined and his method criticized. His understanding of non-Assertion is compared with that of seng-Chao (383-414) and chi-Tsang (549-623). Zen buddhism shares the quest for tranquility, But offers more than sextus did to help us attain it, And avoids the excessively metaphysical thought of these two chinese buddhists. Wittgenstein, Whose goal was that philosophical problems completely disappear, And austin, Who rejected many standard western dichotomies, Offer a method superior to (...) that of sextus, Or to that of chi-Tsang and seng-Chao, But an ideal short of the tranquility sought by all the rest. The thought that zen buddhism and ordinary language philosophy may be looking in the same direction is supported by appealing to john canfield's article "wittgenstein and zen" and his analysis of "understanding without thought.". (shrink)

This article contends that there are two formulations of skepticism; one centered upon epistemic investigation, the other centered upon developing the human capacity for judgment, a type of “quasi-religious” quest. The identification of these two easily confused formulations is suggested by an analysis of language usage within skeptical argumentation, supported by briefly analyzing Eric Havelock’s Preface to Plato, and confirmed by an analysis of Descartes. The significance of this confusion, i.e., the lack of progress in finding a solution (...) to the skeptical problem, is demonstrated through a critique of an article written by Barry Stroud. (shrink)

We face reality presented with the data of conscious experience and nothing else. The project of early modern philosophy was to build a complete theory of the world from this starting point, with no cheating. Crucial to this starting point is the data of conscious sensory experience – sense data. Attempts to avoid this project often argue that the very idea of sense data is confused. But the sense-data way of talking, the sense-data language, can be freed from every (...) blemish using ideas from contemporary metaontology. We can adopt a sense-data framework that vindicates the traditional claims of sense-data theories and leads to plausible theories of perception and color. We can, we should, and in a sense, we must. Yet when we do, we face the traditional problem of external world skepticism, head-on. The real challenge of skepticism is forced upon us; it cannot honestly be avoided using externalist tricks, burden of proof shifting, or other razzle dazzle. But the challenge can be met: we are rational to posit the external world as the best explanation of the many synchronic and diachronic patterns over our sense-data. This paper argues for all of these points and ends with a plea for analytic empiricism – a traditional sense-data version of empiricism that uses all of the tools of analytic philosophy while avoiding the more questionable doctrines of the Vienna Circle (phenomenalism, verificationism). Analytic empiricism is our last best hope for completing the great philosophical project of early modern philosophy. (shrink)

This article focuses on Zhuangzi’s discussions of language to demonstrate how they can clarify his positions on two particular philosophical issues about which there has been significant interest and debate in recent years: relativism and the problem of oneness and skepticism. I argue that Zhuangzi is committed to a universe composed of real, constantly transforming actualities that nevertheless always escape being captured in conventional modes of human logic and language. Examining language metaphors in the text reveals (...) that skepticism and relativism in the Zhuangzi are better understood as rhetorical rather than philosophical strategies. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue for a modified version of what Devitt calls the Representational Thesis. According to RT, syntactic rules or principles are psychologically real, in the sense that they are represented in the mind/brain of every linguistically competent speaker/hearer. I present a range of behavioral and neurophysiological evidence for the claim that the human sentence processing mechanism constructs mental representations of the syntactic properties of linguistic stimuli. I then survey a range of psychologically plausible computational models of comprehension (...) and show that they are all committed to RT. I go on to sketch a framework for thinking about the nature of the representations involved in sentence processing. My claim is that these are best characterized not as propositional attitudes but, rather, as subpersonal states whose representational properties are determined by their functional role. Finally, I distinguish between explicit and implicit representations and argue that the latter can be drawn on as data by the algorithms that constitute our sentence processing routines. I conclude that skepticism concerning the psychological reality of grammars cannot be sustained. (shrink)

비트겐슈타인은 그의 전기 철학의 대표 저작인 『논리―철학 논고』4.0031에서 “모든 철학은 ‘언어비판’이다.(그러나 마우트너의 뜻에서는 아니지만)”라고 말하고 있다. 그렇다면, 그가 생각하는 언어비판이란 과연 무엇인가? 그리고 그가 부정한 마우트너의 언어비판이란 과연 무엇인가? 본 논문에서는 이 둘의 언어비판의 비교를 목적으로 한다. 먼저, 마우트너의 언어비판에 대해서 알아본다. 마우트너는 비트겐슈타인과 동시대에 살았던 인물로 오스트리아-헝가리 제국의 철학자, 비평가 겸 저널리스트이다. 그는 『언어비판 논고』에서 언어를 통한 세계인식은 불가능하기 때문에 언어로 지식을 탐구하는 것은 무용한 일이라고 주장한다. 이를 통해 그는 언어비판으로, 또 극단적 언어회의주의로 나아가며 결국엔 침묵이 우리가 할 수 (...) 있는 유일한 것이라고 생각한다. 다음으로, 비트겐슈타인의 언어비판에 대해서 살펴본다. 비트겐슈타인은 자신의 전기 철학에서 모든 철학은 언어비판이라고 한다. 그는 우리가 세계에 대하여 말한다는 것을 사실로 받아들이면서 철학의 문제는 사람들이 언어의 논리를 잘못 이해하고 있는데 있다고 주장한다. 이러한 문제를 해결하는 방법으로 그는 말할 수 있는 것에 대해서는 명료하게 말해야 하고, 말할 수 없는 것에 대해서는 침묵해야 한다는 결론을 이끌어낸다. 즉, 철학의 목적은 말할 수 있는 것과 말할 수 없는 것을 명료하게 구분하는 것이다. 이에 언어분석의 방법을 통해 언어의 논리를 제대로 이해하려는 것이 그의 언어비판인 것이다. 본 논문에서는 이 둘의 언어비판을 살펴봄으로써 그 차이점을 밝히는 것을 목표로 삼는다. (shrink)

Patricia Werhane synthesizes much of later Wittgensteinian thought, bringing together disparate arguments into a coherent text. Keeping in mind what Wittgenstein set out to accomplish in his later writings, the introduction of new material on the private language arguments, and the philosophical significance of these claims, Werhane develops the thesis that the notion of a rule is such a constitutive of language that a private language is impossible. Such a conclusion challenges many contemporary readings of the Philosphical (...) Investigations by bringing into question conventionalism, linguistic relativism, and idealism while defending the thesis that the notion of a private psychological experience makes sense. (shrink)

This article seeks to reconstruct and critically extend Jacques Derrida’s critique of Edmund Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology. Derrida’s critique of Husserl is explored in three main areas: the phenomenology of language, the phenomenology of time, and the phenomenological constitution of ideal objects. In each case, Husserl’s analysis is shown to rest upon a one-sided determination of truth in terms of presence—whether it be the presence of expressive meaning to consciousness, the self-presence of the temporal instant, or the complete presence of (...) an ideal object through intuition. At every juncture, Derrida’s reasoning is deployed in order to demonstrate how presence is irreducibly bound up with absence and otherness and thus how the ideal of a phenomenological self-presence of consciousness is itself an abstraction from the contingency of history and our concrete embeddedness within a particular lifeworld. The article concludes with an appraisal of reason’s limits in a time of technological domination and the threat of global annihilation. Rather than a flight into irrationalism or skepticism, the author advocates a deepening of philosophical responsibility and an ethics of undecidability as essential for meeting the challenges of modernity. (shrink)

This reissue of an American philosophical classic includes a new preface by Cavell, in which he discusses the work's reception and influence. The work fosters a fascinating relationship between philosophy and literature both by augmenting his philosophical discussions with examples from literature and by applying philosophical theories to literary texts. Cavell also succeeds in drawing some very important parallels between the British analytic tradition and the continental tradition, by comparing skepticism as understood in Descartes, Hume, and Kant with philosophy (...) of language as practiced by Wittgenstein and Austin. (shrink)

This essay is a response to the important central theme of Michael Green's recent article, Dworkin's Fallacy, or What the Philosophy of Language Can't Teach Us about the Law, 89 Va. L. Rev. 1897 (2003), which considers the relationship between the philosophy of language and the philosophy of law. Green argues forcefully that a number of theorists with quite different viewpoints commonly maintain a connection between the two which turns out to be unfounded. It is accepted that it (...) is wrong to assume such a connection, but it is suggested that Green has failed to recognise the connection that can be established between the two disciplines due to the particular way in which law as a practice uses words. The reasons given by Green for seeking to maintain a distinction between ordinary language practice and the language practice of the law are considered and rejected in part I of the essay. The general conclusion is reached that, irrespective of which position is adopted in the philosophy of law, at the point of judgment the philosophy of law and the philosophy of language are inextricably linked in being concerned to account for the same practice. Part II of the essay considers the basic issues for the philosophy of language addressed in Green's article, which are concerned with the search for the mechanism which links a particular meaning to a word. One reading of Wittgenstein's rule skepticism, supported by Dennis Patterson, is to reject the existence of any mechanism interrupting the direct connection between the capacity we possess in our language practice and the capacity we possess in the practice to which our language refers. Patterson provides another target for Green's allegation that theorists who take a position in the philosophy of law from their position in the philosophy of language are committing a fallacy. However, it is pointed out that within the Patterson-Wittgenstein position, there is no possibility of moving from one position to the other since both positions are already necessarily connected. The remaining discussion in Part II then explores the apparently common connection between law and language established within the practice of judgment and within the general view of the nature of language favoured in Patterson's reading of Wittgenstein. It is argued that Wittgenstein's philosophical method may maintain a connection between law and language, and the positions adopted within their respective philosophies, but is incapable of resolving the controversy between competing views of how law/"law" should be understood. By contrast, the practice of judgment is used precisely to resolve controversy. Although this judgment is concerned primarily with a specific part of the law, its significance extends to how we regard the philosophical endeavours that need to provide an account of it. This provides lessons for both the philosophy of language and the philosophy of law. (shrink)

The two volumes of Philosophical Essays bring together the most important essays written by one of the world's foremost philosophers of language. Scott Soames has selected thirty-one essays spanning nearly three decades of thinking about linguistic meaning and the philosophical significance of language. A judicious collection of old and new, these volumes include sixteen essays published in the 1980s and 1990s, nine published since 2000, and six new essays. The essays in Volume 1 investigate what linguistic meaning is; (...) how the meaning of a sentence is related to the use we make of it; what we should expect from empirical theories of the meaning of the languages we speak; and how a sound theoretical grasp of the intricate relationship between meaning and use can improve the interpretation of legal texts. The essays in Volume 2 illustrate the significance of linguistic concerns for a broad range of philosophical topics--including the relationship between language and thought; the objects of belief, assertion, and other propositional attitudes; the distinction between metaphysical and epistemic possibility; the nature of necessity, actuality, and possible worlds; the necessary a posteriori and the contingent a priori; truth, vagueness, and partial definition; and skepticism about meaning and mind. The two volumes of Philosophical Essays are essential for anyone working on the philosophy of language. (shrink)

I develop a new version of the ordinary language response to skepticism. My version is based on premises about the practical functions served by our epistemic words. I end by exploring how my argument against skepticism is interestingly non-circular and philosophically valuable.

These lectures by one of the most influential and original philosophers of the twentieth century constitute a sustained argument for the philosophical basis of romanticism, particularly in its American rendering. Through his examination of such authors as Emerson, Thoreau, Poe, Wordsworth, and Coleridge, Stanley Cavell shows that romanticism and American transcendentalism represent a serious philosophical response to the challenge of skepticism that underlies the writings of Wittgenstein and Austin on ordinary language.

Abstract:This article examines unrecognized points of conceptual and stylistic convergence between the work of Flann O'Brien and Ludwig Wittgenstein. Though operating in quite different generic and discursive modes, both writers critique impulses to metaphysical systems, idealized models of language, and skepticism. O'Brien and Wittgenstein adopt as correctives to these tendencies techniques to train their readers' attention on the zones of overlap in linguistic usage where points of confusion tend to arise. Finally, this comparison with O'Brien casts new light (...) on Wittgenstein's later work as it illuminates satirical and ironizing styles that have often been overlooked. (shrink)

One might take the significance of Davidson’s indeterminacy thesis to be that the question as to which language we can take another to be speaking can only be settled relative to our choice of an acceptable theory for interpreting the speaker. This, in turn, could be taken to show that none of us is ever speaking a determinate language. I argue that this result is self-defeating and cannot avoid collapse into a troubling skepticism about meaning. I then (...) offer a way of trying to make sense of the idea that some utterances do belong to determinate languages even though there is no determinate language one can take another to be speaking. This, however, results in an uninviting picture of communication in which no speaker is really in a position to say what another’s words mean. (shrink)

Radical skepticism about the external implies that no belief about the external is even prima facie justified. A theoretical reply to skepticism has four stages. First, show which theories of epistemic justification support skeptical doubts (show which theories, given other reasonable assumptions, entail skepticism). Second, show which theories undermine skeptical doubts (show which theories, given other reasonable assumptions, do not support the skeptic’s conclusion). Third, show which of the latter theories (which non-skeptical theory) is correct, and in (...) so doing show that all of the rival theories of justification, skeptical and non-skeptical alike, are mistaken. Fourth, explain why skeptical doubts are sometimes (or sometimes merely seem) intuitive, and thereby accommodate skeptical doubts without capitulation. Michael Williams has pioneered the very idea of a theoretical reply. A theoretical diagnosis consists in just the first two stages. An adequate reply, which is correct at each stage, would rebut the skeptic entirely. Williams’ own reply, I argue, is inadequate. I offer in its place an exhaustive and accurate diagnosis of skepticism. I distinguish four kinds of skepticism and five theories of justification. I then show which theories do, and which theories do not, support which kinds of skepticism. (shrink)

Through an extended discussion of semantics, the private language argument, skepticism, and a constellation of key concepts from the Philosophical Investigations, Charles Travis's The Uses of Sense offers a novel reading of Wittgenstein's philosophy of language. Focusing on the importance of the private language argument, his discussion serves as a means of clarifying Wittgenstein's critique of a particular understanding of semantics.

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)

This paper begins by observing a tension in the Zhuangzi (or Chuang Tzu). On the one hand, Zhuangzi often advocates radical skepticism and relativism. On the other hand, he often makes a variety of factual claims and endorses and condemns various ways of living, in apparent disregard of any skeptical or relativist considerations. I resolve this tension by suggesting that Zhuangzi does not mean what he says when he advocates skepticism and relativism - that he aims in the (...) apparently skeptical and relativist passages not to convince anyone of the truth of these positions, but rather simply to have a certain sort of anti-dogmatic, therapeutic effect. I support this position with a variety of arguments centered around the idea that Zhuangzi does not feel the need to take seriously that which can be put into words. (shrink)

Vander Veer's aim is to show that ordinary-language analysis is a failure. To show that something is a failure of course requires a discussion of what counts as success. Here the yardstick is the defeat of skepticism; and the book is a long argument that ordinary-language methods do not send the skeptic packing. Two questions naturally arise concerning this enterprise: First, is there really some common set of doctrines, procedures, problems, attitudes, or styles of argument which can (...) be taken as characterizing ordinary-language philosophy? Second, is defeat of skepticism a clearly defined goal and is it a fair test of ordinary-language philosophy? (shrink)

Transcendental arguments have been described as disclosing the necessary conditions of the possibility of phenomena as diverse as experience, self-knowledge and language. Although many theorists saw them as powerful means to combat varieties of skepticism, this optimism gradually waned as many such arguments turned out, on examination, to deliver much less than was originally thought. In this paper, I distinguish between two species of transcendental arguments claiming that they do not actually constitute distinct forms of reasoning by showing (...) how they collapse into more familiar inferences. I then turn to the question of their epistemic potentials which I argue to be a function of both their types as well as their targets. Finally, these claims are reinforced by uncovering links between certain recent claims about the efficacy of transcendental arguments and the so-called Moore’s paradox. (shrink)

This paper responds to Stroud's important The Significance of Philosophical Scepticism. The author defends a view in which statements in a natural language have truth-evaluable content only in concrete contexts. It is argued that just what counts as a concrete possibility that must be defeated before one can say that one knows something is a highly context-sensitive matter, and that Stroud's alternative to this context-sensitive account of the way the verb "know" functions seems to be either a semantics in (...) which knowledge claims (about the "external world") are trivially logically false or no intelligible semantics at all. (shrink)

I investigate the extent to which there might be, now or in the future, non-human animals that partake in the kind of fully human-style consciousness that has been taken by many philosophers to be the basis of normative personhood. I first sketch a conceptual framework for considering the question, based on a range of philosophical literature on relationships between consciousness, language and personhood. I then review the standard basis for largely a priori skepticism about the possibility that any (...) non-human animal could experience FHSC and be a person to any extent, and indicate empirically motivated grounds for rejecting such skepticism, at least with respect to a select group of hypersocial candidate species with communication systems we do not currently know are not languages: corvids, parrots, elephants, and toothed whales. Relevant facts about elephants are reviewed in some detail, as a mini case study. While it is suggested that elephants might partake in the sort of consciousness characteristic of personhood to some extent, grounds are given for expecting that this extent is sharply limited by comparison with normal humans. As these grounds are mainly aspects of elephants’ external niche, however, rather than known limitations in their inboard cognitive or representational capacities, the surprising conclusion emerges that elephants might acquire FHSC, and thereby become persons, if they can be brought into conversation with humans, a possibility opened by considerations canvassed in the paper. (shrink)

What Do Philosophers Do? takes up the leading arguments for radical skepticism from an everyday point of view. A range of philosophical methods are examined and employed, for a revealing portrait of what philosophers do, and perhaps a quiet suggestion for what they should do, for what they do best.

Se aborda el problema fundamental de la pragmática trascendental del lenguaje, así como también la cuestión de la ética del discurso desarrollada por K.-O. Apel y J. Habermas; asunto referido a la obligatoriedad de las reglas del discurso. La atención se centra en la objeción de Habermas, que restringe el alcance de la obligatoriedad de esas reglas. Se analiza la objeción, así como la solución que este autor propone, y se ofrece un sentido para su respuesta. The article addresses the (...) fundamental problem of the transcendental pragmatics of language, as well as the issue of the ethics of discourse developed by K.-O. Apel and J. Habermas, a matter referred to the obligatoriness of the rules of discourse. Attention is focused on the objection posed by Habermas, which restricts the scope of the obligatory nature of those rules. After analyzing the objection and the solution proposed by Habermas, we offer an interpretation of his response. (shrink)

This paper applies speech-act theory to craft a new response to Pyrrhonian skepticism and diagnose its appeal. Carefully distinguishing between different levels of language-use and noting their interrelations can help us identify a subtle mistake in a key Pyrrhonian argument.

This book explores the question of what it means to be a human being through sustained and original analyses of three important philosophical topics: relativism, skepticism, and naturalism in the social sciences. Kevin Cahill's approach involves an original employment of historical and ethnographic material that is both conceptual and empirical in order to address relevant philosophical issues. Specifically, while Cahill avoids interpretative debates, he develops an approach to philosophical critique based on Cora Diamond's and James Conant's work on the (...) early Wittgenstein. This makes possible the use of a concept of culture that avoids the dogmatism that not only typifies traditional metaphysics but also frequently mars arguments from ordinary language or phenomenology. This is especially crucial for the third part of the book, which involves a cultural-historical critique of the ontology of the self in Stanley Cavell's work on skepticism. In pursuing this strategy, the book also mounts a novel and timely defense of the interpretivist tradition in the philosophy of the social sciences. Towards a Philosophical Anthropology of Culture will be of interest to researchers working on the philosophy of the social sciences, Wittgenstein, and philosophical anthropology. (shrink)

In 1962, the philosopher Richard Taylor used six commonly accepted presuppositions to imply that human beings have no control over the future. David Foster Wallace not only took issue with Taylor's method, which, according to him, scrambled the relations of logic, language, and the physical world, but also noted a semantic trick at the heart of Taylor's argument. _Fate, Time, and Language_ presents Wallace's brilliant critique of Taylor's work. Written long before the publication of his fiction and essays, Wallace's (...) thesis reveals his great skepticism of abstract thinking made to function as a negation of something more genuine and real. He was especially suspicious of certain paradigms of thought-the cerebral aestheticism of modernism, the clever gimmickry of postmodernism-that abandoned "the very old traditional human verities that have to do with spirituality and emotion and community." As Wallace rises to meet the challenge to free will presented by Taylor, we witness the developing perspective of this major novelist, along with his struggle to establish solid logical ground for his convictions. This volume, edited by Steven M. Cahn and Maureen Eckert, reproduces Taylor's original article and other works on fatalism cited by Wallace. James Ryerson's introduction connects Wallace's early philosophical work to the themes and explorations of his later fiction, and Jay Garfield supplies a critical biographical epilogue. (shrink)

We critically examine pragmatism's approach to skepticism and try to elucidate its certain limits. The central questions to be addressed are: whether “skepticism” interpreted through the lens of problem-solving does justice to the human condition; and whether the problem-solving approach to skepticism can do justice to pragmatism's self-proclaimed anti-foundationalism. We then examine Stanley Cavell's criticism of Dewey's “problem-solving” approach. We propose a shift from the problem-solving approach's eagerness for solutions to a more Wittgensteinian and Emersonian project of (...) dissolution. (shrink)

To date, film scholars have found the films of Jim Jarmusch to be tantamount to works of postmodern philosophy. For as intriguing and productive as such interpretations of Jarmusch’s films have been, I submit that the postmodern framework occludes a crucial aspect of Jarmusch’s film-philosophy, namely, his investment in the ordinary. From this perspective, I intend to show the availability of Jarmusch’s films to Wittgensteinian interpretation. More specifically, I plan to situate Jarmusch’s arthouse action film Ghost Dog: The Way of (...) the Samurai (1999) between Ludwig Wittgenstein and Jacques Derrida in order to demonstrate the profound affinities between Jarmusch’s film-philosophy and Wittgenstein’s conception of ordinary language. Through a consideration of character dialogue, I will demonstrate the extent to which Jarmusch rejects the private language argument – which, by extension, amounts to a rejection of linguistic relativism as an instance, or species, of skepticism – in favor of ordinary conceptions of language, expressiveness, knowledge, and responsibility. (shrink)

Why ever assert clarity? If It is clear that p is true, then saying so should be at best superfluous. Barker and Taranto (2003) and Taranto (2006) suggest that asserting clarity reveals information about the beliefs of the discourse participants, specifically, that they both believe that p . However, mutual belief is not sufficient to guarantee clarity ( It is clear that God exists ). I propose instead that It is clear that p means instead (roughly) 'the publicly available evidence (...) justifies concluding that p '. Then what asserting clarity reveals is information concerning the prevailing epistemic standard that determines whether a body of evidence is sufficient to justify a claim. If so, the semantics of clarity constitutes a grammatical window into the discourse dynamics of inference and skepticism. (shrink)

This dissertation focuses on the philosophy of Sextus Empiricus, a skeptic who provides the most complete account of Pyrrhonian skepticism that survives from antiquity. In particular, this dissertation examines Sextus' account of skeptical assent, the attitude that structures and informs the life of the skeptic. Accordingly, this dissertation has two aims: first, to elaborate and defend a novel method of interpreting Sextus' claims and concepts, one based on their significance in ordinary life and language; and, second, to apply (...) this method to Sextus' claims about the nature of skeptical assent in order to generate a novel account thereof. In the first chapter, the most widely-held and influential interpretations of skeptical assent are elaborated and taxonomized. It is argued that all these interpretations neglect to pay sufficient attention to the self-reflexivity of Sextus' skepticism, in consequence of which Sextus' own claims about skeptical assent must be understood as expressing skeptical assent. It is argued, moreover, that this neglect of self-reflexivity cannot be remedied without abandoning these interpretations. In the second chapter, Sextus' claims about ordinary life are examined and it is argued that Sextus regards skepticism as a distinctive expression of ordinary life. However, ordinary life may be understood in two different ways and the failure to distinguish them has resulted in a misconception of Sextus' outlook. The two different conceptions are therefore elaborated and it is argued that Sextus' understanding of ordinary life accords with only one of them. Finally, responses are provided to some important objections to the close connection between iii skepticism and ordinary life. In the third and final chapter, Sextus' conception of ordinary life is deployed to produce a novel understanding of skeptical assent. The focus here is Sextus' account of assent in Outlines of Pyrrhonism 1.13. Each of the key concepts in that account are explained in light of chapter two's results. Additionally, the roots of a concept central to skeptical assent are located in Aristotle's methodological reflections. Finally, the novel account of skeptical assent is distinguished from two other closely related accounts.. iv. (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)