SCEPTICISM AND COMMONSENSE (original) (raw)
Related papers
SCEPTICISM AND CERTAINTY: MOORE AND WITTGENSTEIN ON COMMONSENSE AND PHILOSOPHY
Cambridge Companion to Common Sense Philosophy, 2021
This paper explores two influential conceptions of the role of commonsense in philosophical theorising from early analytical philosophy, due to G. E. Moore and Wittgenstein. Both approaches set out an important function for our everyday certainties to play in the epistemological enterprise, albeit in very different ways. For Moore, our commonsense certainties serve as a kind of reasonable stopping-point in philosophical disputes. In particular, where commonsense confronts philosophical theory, we can reasonably side with commonsense. While Moore claims that our commonsense certainties have an epistemic weight simply in virtue of being commonsense certainties, for Wittgenstein the certainty that attaches to these commitments entails that they have no rational status at all. Nonetheless, this doesn't prevent them from having a crucial import to epistemological questions. By setting these two philosophical approaches side-by-side, we gain an important perspective on how commonsense might be appealed to in philosophical theorizing.
Contemporary Responses to Radical Scepticism
Cambridge History of Philosophy, 1945 to 2015, 2019
Although there are some obvious exceptions, for a good part of the first half of the twentieth century the general philosophical attitude towards the problem of radical scepticism was largely dismissive. Whether for broadly anti-realist/logical positivist reasons, or for broadly Wittgensteinian reasons, this puzzle was widely thought to be a pseudo-problem, trading on dubious metaphysical claims. The second half of the twentieth century, and up to the present day, however, has seen this problem taken seriously once more. Indeed, we have witnessed this philosophical difficulty once again generating not only seriously academic discussion, but also being a driver for new proposals within epistemology.
Radical Scepticism and the Epistemology of Confusion
International Journal for the Study of Skepticism
The lack of knowledge—as Timothy Williamson (2000) famously maintains—is ignorance. Radical sceptical arguments, at least in the tradition of Descartes, threaten universal ignorance. They do so by attempting to establish that we lack any knowledge, even if we can retain other kinds of epistemic standings, like epistemically justified belief. If understanding is a species of knowledge, then radical sceptical arguments threaten to rob us categorically of knowledge and understanding in one fell swoop by implying universal ignorance. If, however, understanding is not a species of knowledge, then three questions arise: (i) is ignorance the lack of understanding, even if understanding is not a species of knowledge? (ii) If not, what kind of state of intellectual impoverishment best describes a lack of understanding? (iii) What would a radical sceptical argument look like that threatened that kind of intellectual impoverishment, even if not threatening ignorance? This paper answers each of these questions in turn. I conclude by showing how the answers developed to (i-iii) interface in an interesting way with Virtue Perspectivism as an anti-sceptical strategy.
Scepticism and the Possibility of Knowledge
This paper responds to one of the key themes in Quassim Cassam’s book, The Possibility of Knowledgeviz., the application of the “multi-level” response to ‘how possible?’ questions that he offers to the problem of radical scepticism.
Radical Scepticism Without Epistemic Closure
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 2012
This paper contributes to the current debate about radical scepticism and the structure of warrant. After a presentation of the standard version of the radical sceptic's challenge, both in its barest and its more refined form, three anti-sceptical responses, and their respective commitments, are being identified: the Dogmatist response, the Conservativist response and the Dretskean response. It is then argued that both the Dretskean and the Conservativist are right that the anti-sceptical hypothesis cannot inherit any perceptual warrants from ordinary propositions about the environment-and so the Dogmatist response founders. However, if this is so Epistemic Closure lacks any clear rationale. There is therefore good reason to agree with both the Dretskean and the Dogmatist that perceptual warrants for ordinary propositions about the environment are enough in order for those propositions to enjoy a positive epistemic status-and so the Conservativist response founders. However, the Conservativist is nonetheless right that a warrant for the anti-sceptical hypothesis is needed. For contrary to what much of the recent literature suggests, the radical sceptic need not appeal to Epistemic Closure in order to cast doubt on the legitimacy of our beliefs in ordinary propositions about the environment: there is a Pyrrhonian version of scepticism that, though equally radical, is consistent with failure of Epistemic Closure. For this reason, the Dretskean response is insufficient to answer scepticism. 1 That the radical sceptic does not merely target knowledge, but also warranted belief is forcefully argued by Wright (1991: 88).
It is claimed that the radical sceptical problem that is the focus of much of contemporary epistemological discussion in fact divides into two logically distinct sub- problems⎯a formulation that turns on the closure principle, and a second formulation which turns on the underdetermination principle. The Wittgensteinian account of the structure of rational evaluation is set out, and it is shown how this proposal⎯at least when properly formulated⎯can deal with closure-based radical scepticism. It is also claimed, however, that this account fails to gain any purchase on underdetermination-based radical scepticism. The antidote to this latter form of radical scepticism lies elsewhere⎯with, it is suggested, epistemological disjunctivism.