Underdetermination, scepticism and realism (original) (raw)

Motivating (Underdetermination) Scepticism

Acta Analytica

The aim of this paper is to analyse and develop how scepticism becomes an intelligible question starting from requirements that epistemologists themselves aim to endorse. We argue for and defend the idea that the root of scepticism is the underdetermination principle by articulating its specificity as a respectable epistemic principle and by defending it against objections in current literature. This engagement offers a novel understanding of underdetermination-based scepticism. While most anti-sceptical approaches challenge scepticism by understanding it as postulating uneliminated scenarios of mass deception, or as endorsing unnatural epistemic requirements, we argue here that both contentions are mistaken. Underdetermination-based scepticism targets our beliefs by issuing a genuine question about the rational support they enjoy. If we cannot establish that the sources of our beliefs provide them the required epistemic merit and authority, they lack non-arbitrary grounds. This has...

Undercutting Underdetermination-based Scepticism

According to Duncan Pritchard (forthcoming) there are two kinds of radical sceptical problem; the closure-based problem, which is dependent on the universality of reasons thesis, and the underdetermination-based problem, which is dependent on the insularity of reasons thesis. He argues that distinguishing these two problems leads to a set of desiderata for an anti-sceptical response, and that the way to meet all of these desiderata is by taking a form of Wittgensteinian contextualism (which can undercut the closure-based problem) and supplementing it with disjunctivist views about factivity (to also undercut the underdetermination-based problem). I agree that an adequate response should meet most of the initial desiderata Pritchard puts forward, and that a Wittgensteinian form of contextualism shows the most promise as a starting point for this, but I argue contra Pritchard that inferential contextualism meets the most important of these desiderata, undercutting both closure-based and underdetermination-based sceptical problems in a unified way, without the need to resort to disjunctivism.

Philosophical Responses to Underdetermination in Science

2009

What attitude should we take toward a scientific theory when it competes with other scientific theories? This question elicited different answers from instrumentalists, logical positivists, constructive empiricists, scientific realists, holists, theory-ladenists, antidivisionists, falsificationists, and anarchists in the philosophy of science literature. I will summarize the diverse philosophical responses to the problem of underdetermination, and argue that there are different kinds of underdetermination, and that they should be kept apart from each other because they call for different responses.

Another Failed Refutation of Scepticism

Jessica Wilson has recently offered a more sophisticated version of the self-defeat objection to Cartesian scepticism. She argues that the assertion of Cartesian scepticism results in an unstable vicious regress. The way out of the regress is to not engage with the Cartesian sceptic at all, to stop the regress before it starts, at the warranted assertion that the external world exists. We offer three reasons why this objection fails: first, the sceptic need not accept Wilson’s characterization of the sceptical thesis and thus need not start her regress; second, even if she did commit to the regress, it would not undermine scepticism in the way Wilson envisages; and third, the appeal to mental state scepticism which is necessary to generate the second and subsequent steps in the regress is not justified.

The Case against Scepticism: Part 1

The meaning of life is the attainment of knowledge regarding what is true and what is false. One of the longest surviving obstacles to the discovery of knowledge is an ideology that is known as scepticism. This ideology masquerades itself under the cover of various perspectives that pretend to have nothing to do with scepticism but really affirm its' existence after the masks of these perspectives are uncovered. Before we can uncover the existence of various forms of scepticism and refute scepticism as a false ideology, we need to have a clear grasp of the meaning of this ideology. A Google search comes up with the following definition of scepticism. Scepticism: In philosophy, this is the theory that certain knowledge is impossible.1 Anyone who is committed to a true search for the nature of reality would ask the question of how it is possible for certain forms of knowledge to be unattainable. Questions naturally arise regarding the boundaries of human knowledge and the kind of evidence that could be used to prove that certain forms of knowledge are impossible to attain. Another question arises. Who are the sceptics? In this modern era, very few people who secretly adhere to scepticism are willing to accept the label of being a sceptic. As a result of this denial, they do not actively campaign against the forms of knowledge that they reject. I have a strategy for three hidden forms of this ideology to be uncovered in three separate sections and then refuted. Firstly, this strategy involves a clear knowledge of self identification regarding the human condition. As modern scepticism is a denial of the existence of certain forms of knowledge, it eventually involves a refusal to admit to the existence of certain factors that are necessary for us to obtain self identification in regard to the concept of essence which will be explained later on. The concept of essence will be used as a factor that is essential in exposing and refuting scepticism. Secondly, I will explain the three classical laws of thought and demonstrate how a clear knowledge of them is an effective means of exposing the absurdities of scepticism. In parts two and three of this argument, I will show how an awareness of both secular and theological approaches to scepticism is beneficial to our understanding of how scepticism can be defeated. Before we can make a valid challenge to the strength of scepticism as an ideology, we need an historical example of what it is. In my opinion, the scepticism that was espoused by David Hume regarding the theory of induction provides us with an example of how strong scepticism can be as an argument. I will briefly explain what inductive reasoning is first, and then give an explanation of Hume's sceptical position on it, soon afterwards. Induction is a form of reasoning which advocates the view that we can draw a conclusion regarding an