Online research in philosophy

There is a widespread belief among contemporary philosophers that skeptical hypotheses—such as that we are dreaming, or victims of an evil demon, or brains in a vat—cannot definitively be ruled out as false. This belief is ill-founded. In fact it is based on a failure to see that skeptical arguments beg the question. Such arguments assume that reality is not an immediate given of experience in order to prove that reality is not an immediate given of experience. This point is explained and justified in detail. Conversely, however, the realist would beg the question in the opposite way if he tried to prove realism. The conclusion we should reach is that skepticism and realism are problems of immediacy and not of proof. They face us with a choice between alternatives that are not only radically different but also pretty much impregnable and irrelevant to each other. This choice is not arbitrary, for there are grounds to determine it. But the grounds are the immediate evidence and not the arguments.

An apparently increasing number of philosophers take free will skepticism to pose a serious challenge to some of our practices. This must seem odd to many—why should anyone think that free will skepticism is relevant for our practices, when nobody seems to think that other canonical forms of philosophical skepticism (for example, skepticism about induction or other minds) are relevant for our practices? Part of the explanation for this privileging of free will skepticism may be epistemic, but in this paper I focus on a metaethical explanation. Free will skepticism is special because it is compatible with "basic moral reasons"—moral reasons acknowledged by all mainstream ethicists—and other minds and induction skepticism are not. One important basic moral reason is an extremely strong reason not to intentionally harm others (which I call "H" to keep things concise). Practical seriousness about other minds and induction skepticism undermines H, but practical seriousness about free will skepticism only undermines a potential overrider of H, that is, the reason of retribution. We can be practically serious about free will skepticism and still have a rich variety of possible moral theories, including varieties of consequentialism, deontology and virtue ethics. Further, if we take it as an important philosophical goal to buttress H, then we have good reason to become practically serious about free will skepticism, since some of the most damaging harm involved in our current practices is retributively justified. There may be other kinds of skepticism which stand in a similar relationship to H. I conclude by suggesting that personal identity skepticism is an example.

Modern skepticism can be usefully divided into two camps: the Cartesian and the Humean.1 Cartesian skepticism is a matter of a theoretical doubt that has little or no practical import in our everyday lives. Its employment concerns whether or not we can achieve a special kind of certain knowledge – something Descartes calls “scientia” 2—that is far removed from our everyday aims or standards of epistemic appraisal. Alternatively, Humean skepticism engages the ancient skeptical concern with whether we have good reason, or any reason at all, for our beliefs, including the common or garden beliefs that are presupposed in our ordinary practical affairs. On this traditional conception, philosophical doubt is a projection of everyday doubt and the lessons of the study are potentially lessons for the street. In this paper I shall focus on the Humean strain of skepticism whose focus concerns whether we have adequate reasons for our beliefs. Henceforth when I speak of skepticism it is this variety of skepticism that I am primarily referring to.3 I want to relate skepticism, so understood, to two kinds of self-knowledge. I shall argue that the failure of past solutions and dissolutions of skepticism to provide a satisfying response to the skeptic can be accounted for in terms of two stances that we can take towards our own..

This paper responds to Stephen Hetherington's discussion of my ‘Is Fallibility an Epistemological Shortcoming?’ (2004). The Infallibilist skeptic holds that in order to know something, one must be able to rule out every possible alternative to the truth of one’s belief. This requirement is false. In this paper I first clarify this requirement’s relation to our ordinary practice. I then turn to a more fundamental issue. The Infallibilist holds – along with many non-skeptical epistemologists – that Infallibility is epistemically superior to the epistemic position attained when we have (what we ordinarily call) knowledge. This is false, too, as our ordinary practices show. Ordinary epistemic appraisal does not concern our standing on a scale of evaluation which has Infallibility at its apex. For this reason, even if gradualism is correct, it does not show how Infallibilist skepticism can arise out of our ordinary practice.

I defend the view that there is a privileged class of propositions – that there is an external world, among other such 'hinge propositions'– that possess a special epistemic status: justified belief in these propositions is not defeated unless one has sufficient reason to believe their negation. Two arguments are given for this conclusion. Finally, three proposals are offered as morals of the preceding story: first, our justification for hinge propositions must be understood as defeatable, second, antiskeptics must explain our knowledge in the face of 'actual world' skepticism (like dreaming skepticism) as much as in the face of the usual sort (like brain-in-vat skepticism), and, finally, our justification for hinge propositions is basic (i.e. non-inferential).

Content skepticism about practical reason is doubt about the bearing of rational considerations on the activities of deliberation and choice. Motivational skepticism is doubt about the scope of reason as a motive. Some people think that motivational considerations alone provide grounds for skepticism about the project of founding ethics on practical reason. I will argue, against this view, that motivational skepticism must always be based on content skepticism. I will not address the question of whether or not content skepticism is justified. I want only to establish the fact that motivational skepticism has no independent force.

Cartesian skepticism about epistemic justification (‘skepticism’) is the view that many of our beliefs about the external world – e.g., my current belief that I have hands – aren’t justified. I examine the two most influential arguments for skepticism – the Closure Argument and the Underdetermination Argument – from an evidentialist perspective. For both arguments it is clear which premise the anti-skeptic must deny. The Closure Argument, I argue, is the better argument in that its key premise is weaker than the Underdetermination Argument’s key premise. However, it’s also likely that the motivation for accepting both key premises is exactly the same. So there may be a sense in which both arguments provide exactly the same motivation for skepticism. Then I argue that if I I’m right about what the motivation for accepting the arguments’ key premises is, then neither argument succeeds in providing a good reason to accept skepticism. I conclude by explaining why I think epistemologists are right to expend a lot of time and effort on refuting these arguments, even if neither argument provides any motivation for skepticism.

Skepticism and its Legacy (first 1 1/2 weeks) i) Skepticism about the external world: Skepticism in some form or another is a philosophical perennial, but even so it is not unreasonable to suggest that with Descartes, skepticism of an entirely new form made its first appearance on stage. Descartes deployed a radical doubt about the external world, with methodical ambitions, and in doing so he might be taken to have raised the stakes for epistemology. What if the Cartesian response to Skepticism fails? Is our ordinary knowledge of the world impeached if we cannot refute the hypothesis that we are dreaming, or that we are the playthings of a malign demon? There is also a historical question: is Cartesian skepticism interestingly different from the Pyrrhonian and academic skepticism that was "in play" long before Descartes?

Many arguments from evil at least tacitly rely on something like the following line of thought: The Inference. Since, on sustained reflection, we don’t see how any reason would justify God in permitting all the evil and suffering in the world, there is no such reason.1 Typically, the conclusion is more nuanced: “it is very likely that there is no such reason” or “more likely than not” or “more likely than it otherwise would be”. Some critics reject the premise: we can see how God would be justified, they say. Others accept the premise but argue that better evidence rebuts the conclusion. Still others represent skepticism: the premise is true but, even if there are no rebutters, other considerations undercut the Inference.2 In this essay I aim to assess an increasingly popular objection to skepticism.

Modern-day heirs of the Cartesian revolution have been fascinated by the thought that one could utilize certain hypotheses – that one is dreaming, deceived by an evil demon, or a brain in a vat – to argue at one fell swoop that one does not know, is not justified in believing, or ought not believe most if not all of what one currently believes about the world. A good part of the interest and mystique of these discussions arises from the contention that the seeds of such arguments lie in our ordinary epistemic practices, so that external world skepticism can arise “from within”. But is this contention correct? I doubt it. Taking skepticism seriously requires that we address this question head on. To do so, I will approach skeptical arguments from a certain vantage point. I will try to stand, as far as possible, with both feet squarely in ordinary life. I will start out with all of our ordinary commitments about what is the case, about what we know or have reason to believe, about when someone knows, is justified, or has good reason to believe something, and about how one should proceed in deciding what to believe. My question, then, will be this. From within that vantage point can I somehow be moved in a reasonable way to accept the conclusion that I know far less about the world around me than I thought, or that epistemically speaking, I really ought not believe much of what I have believed about the world around me? In order for such movement to take place, I will have to find reason from within my ordinary standpoint to discount or reject much of what I ordinarily accept. And of course, that reason will have to come from some..