In this paper, I argue that, if transcendental arguments are to proceed from premises that are acceptable to the skeptic, the Transcendental Premise, according to which “X is a metaphysically necessary condition for the possibility of Y,” must be grounded in considerations of conceivability and possibility. More explicitly, the Transcendental Premise is based on what Szabó Gendler and Hawthorne call the “conceivability-possibility move.” This “inconceivability-impossibility” move, however, is a problematic argumentative move when advancing transcendental arguments for the following reasons. First, (...) from “S cannot conceive of P” it doesn’t necessarily follow that P is inconceivable. Second, from “P is inconceivable” it doesn’t necessarily follow that P is metaphysically impossible. Third, rather than block skeptical doubts, the conceivability-possibility move introduces skeptical doubts. For these reasons, transcendental arguments fail to deliver on their promise to overcome skeptical doubts. (shrink)

On a common view of scenario-based sceptical arguments sceptical scenarios are error-possibilities, i.e. their point is to introduce the possibility of having only false beliefs. However, global error is impossible for purely logical/conceptual reasons: Even if one’s beliefs are consistent, the negations of one’s beliefs need not be consistent as well. My paper deals with the question of what the consequences of this result are. Two attempts at repairing scenario-based sceptical arguments within the framework of understanding (...) sceptical scenarios as error-possibilities are found wanting. Instead, what should be given up is the assumption that sceptical scenarios are error-possibilities. What is thought-provoking about the scenario of the brain in a vat is not that none of its empirical beliefs are true, but that all of its empirical beliefs fall short of knowledge at the same time. Hence, sceptical scenarios are not error-possibilities, but ignorance possibilities. If this is so, both the closure argument and the underdetermination argument commit a subtle mistake and should be replaced by slightly different arguments. The principle of excluded ignorance-possibilities turns out to be an epistemological principle that is faithful to scepticism’s tenets without misinterpreting sceptical scenarios as error-possibilities. (shrink)

Outside the philosophy classroom, global skeptics – skeptics about all (purported) knowledge of the external world – are rare. But there are people who describe themselves as “skeptics” about various more specific domains, including self-professed “skeptics” about the reality of anthropogenic climate change. There is little to no philosophical literature that juxtaposes the climate change skeptic with the external world skeptic. While many “traditional” epistemologists assume that the external world skeptic poses a serious philosophical challenge in a way that (...) the climate change skeptic doesn’t, many “applied” or “social” epistemologists assume that there isn’t much to be learned from debates about the external world skeptic, finding her challenge to be distant from both common sense and real-world concerns. I try to show that both of these views are mistaken. The external world skeptic raises deep questions that are important for our everyday deliberation about what to believe, and there are significant structural parallels between the arguments for external world skepticism and those for at least a form of climate change skepticism that is idealized – but not too idealized! – from the views of flesh-and-blood climate change skeptics. As such, we have strong reasons to think in parallel about how to reply to both skeptics’ challenges. I thus finish by (briefly) considering how different widespread responses to the external world skeptic might or might not generalize happily to the climate change skeptic’s challenge. (shrink)

_ Source: _Page Count 9 Global sceptical arguments seek to undermine vast swathes of our putative knowledge by deploying hypotheses that posit massive deception or error. Local sceptical arguments seek to undermine just a small region of putative knowledge, using hypotheses that posit deception or error of a more mundane kind. Those epistemologists who have devised anti-sceptical strategies have tended to have global sceptical arguments firmly in their sights. I argue here that local (...) class='Hi'>sceptical arguments, while less dramatic, ultimately pose just as serious a challenge to our epistemic self-image and that some prominent anti-sceptical strategies are very poorly placed to meet it. (shrink)

I focus on a key argument for global external world scepticism resting on the underdetermination thesis: the argument according to which we cannot know any proposition about our physical environment because sense evidence for it equally justifies some sceptical alternative (e.g. the Cartesian demon conjecture). I contend that the underdetermination argument can go through only if the controversial thesis that conceivability is per se a source of evidence for metaphysical possibility is true. I also suggest (...) a reason to doubt that conceivability is per se a source of evidence for metaphysical possibility, and thus to doubt the underdetermination argument. (shrink)

My concern is with a version of scepticism which, following a number of philosophers, I will entitle global scepticism. According to global scepticism no one is to any degree justified in holding any belief. Global scepticism is a live option, and has at least one compelling argument in its favour1 Nevertheless, one's first reaction to global scepticism is likely to be that it is self-refuting. The issue I will be discussing here is whether global (...) scepticism is self-refuting. In the first section I consider arguments to the conclusion that global scepticism is self-refuting, and argue that the global sceptic need take only one of them seriously. In the next I examine a global sceptic's reply to the argument in question, and a response to that reply available to the anti-sceptic. What emerges is an apparent impasse. The global sceptic has a response to each reply that the anti-sceptic makes in support of the anti-sceptic's original argument. However, it seems that the anti-sceptic is able to effectively reply to each of the global sceptic's responses. In the last section I develop an argument to show that global scepticism is self-refuting which breaks the deadlock between the global sceptic and anti-sceptic. (shrink)

Many authors hold that collectives, as well as individuals can be the subjects of obligations. Typically these authors have focussed on the obligations of highly structured groups, and of small, informal groups. One might wonder, however, whether there could also be collective obligations which fall on everyone – what I shall call ' global collective obligations '. One reason for thinking that this is not possible has to do with considerations about agency : it seems as though an entity (...) can only be the subject of obligations if it is an agent. In this paper, I try to show that the argument from agency is not a good reason for being sceptical about the existence of global collective obligations : it derives whatever plausibility it has from the idea that claims about obligation need to be addressable to some agent. My suggestion is that we should accept this principle about the addressability of obligations, but deny that the addressee of an obligation need be the subject of that obligation. The collective obligations of unstructured collections of individuals, including global collective obligations, meet the addressability requirement insofar as they require something of the individuals who make up the collective. (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.

The essential idea of Leibniz’s Theodicy was little understood in his time but has become one of the organizing themes of modern mathematics. There are many phenomena that are possible locally but for purely mathematical reasons impossible globally. For example, it is possible to build a spiral staircase that is rising at any given point, but it is impossible to build one that is rising at all points and comes back to where it started. The necessity is mathematically provable, so (...) not subject to exception by divine power. Leibniz’s Theodicy argues that God could improve the universe locally in many ways, but not globally. This paper defends Leibniz, giving positive reasons for believing that there are so many necessary interconnections between goods and evils that God is faced with a choice like the classic Trolley case, where all of the scenarios that could be chosen upfront contain evils, but some more than others. Local changes for the better seem easy to imagine, but a proper understanding of global constraints undermines the initial impression that they can be done without global cost. The paper concludes by explaining how the context of the Leibnizian argument makes it reasonable to pursue the issue of whether there are no worlds better than this one. (shrink)

Kant’s Refutation targets what he calls the problematic idealist. This is understood by the mainstream of Kantian scholarship as the global skeptic that Descartes briefly adumbrated in his first Meditation. The widespread view in the literature is that the fate of the Refutation is tied to its success as an argument against this Cartesian global skepticism. This consensus is what I want to question in this paper. I argue that Kant’s opponent – the problematic idealist – is (...) not the Cartesian global skeptic but rather what I prefer to call here the Cartesian problematic external-world idealist. According to Cartesian global skepticism, we cannot know whether our commonsensical beliefs are true until we rule out that the skeptical hypotheses are false. In contrast, the Cartesian external-world idealist sees as problematic the assumption that the underlying nature of outer things of which we have ideas is mind-independent rather than caused by our own thinking. My aim here is to disentangle Cartesian global skepticism from Cartesian problematic external-word idealism and show that, if measured against global skepticism, Kant’s Refutation is doomed to fail, while against problematic idealism, it is at least a promising argument. (shrink)

This article engages with Julian Culp’s Democratic Education in a Globalized World from the perspective of political philosophy in a global world. The focus is on liberalism. From this angle, Culp’s book entails three important claims. The first is that a right to basic education on the global level exists, i.e. a right to education for everybody independent of one’s nation state. The second claim is that the implementation of this right is not a task for each nation (...) state alone but of world society as a whole. This implies that countries that are able to provide more than basic education to its citizens have a duty to redistribute part of their excess resources to help poor countries secure basic education for their citizens. Culp’s third claim, relevant to the liberal project, is on the kind of education that is supposed to go global. This education should be free-standing, that is, based on political as opposed to perfectionist arguments. This contribution agrees with the first claim, is sceptical regarding the second one, and disagrees with the third one. (shrink)

Kant’s Refutation targets what he calls the problematic idealist. This is understood by the mainstream of Kantian scholarship as the global skeptic that Descartes briefly adumbrated in his first Meditation. The widespread view in the literature is that the fate of the Refutation is tied to its success as an argument against this Cartesian global skepticism. This consensus is what I want to question in this paper. I argue that Kant’s opponent – the problematic idealist – is (...) not the Cartesian global skeptic, but rather what I prefer to call here the Cartesian problematic external-world idealist. According to Cartesian global skepticism we cannot know whether our commonsensical beliefs are true until we rule out the skeptical hypotheses are false. In contrast, the Cartesian external-world idealist sees as problematic the assumption that the underlying nature of outer things of which we have ideas is mind-independent rather than caused by our own thinking being. My aim here is to disentangle Cartesian global skepticism from Cartesian problematic external-word idealism and show that, if measured against global skepticism, Kant’s Refutation is doomed to fail; while against problematic idealism, it is at least a promising argument. (shrink)

While Richard Joyce’s moral skepticism might seem to be an extreme metaethical view, it is actually far more moderate than it might first appear. By articulating four challenges facing his approach to moral skepticism, I argue that Joyce’s moderation is, in fact, a theoretical liability. First, the fact that Joyce is not skeptical about normativity in general makes it possible to develop close approximations to morality, lending support to moderate moral revisionism over moral error theory. Second, Joyce relies on strong, (...) contentious conceptual and empirical claims in support of his views. Third, Joyce’s evolutionary debunking argument threatens to backfire, generalizing to all normative judgments. Finally, Joyce fails to offer an adequate account of the normativity of desire. Each of these four challenges can be either sidestepped or embraced by radicalizing and defending a global form of normative skepticism. There are thus several ways in which global normative skepticism appears to be in a more robust dialectical position than Joyce’s moral skepticism. Furthermore, I argue, Joyce’s arguments against global normative skepticism are unconvincing. While this discussion is framed in terms of Joyce’s work, its arguments will apply to other moral skeptics who are not also global normative skeptics. The result is an invitation for Joyce and other moral skeptics to leave these problems behind and join the radical camp. (shrink)

This paper aims to motivate a scepticism about scepticism in contemporary epistemology. I present the sceptic with a dilemma: On one parsing of the BIV (brain-in-a-vat) scenario, the second premise in a closure-based sceptical argument will turn out false, because the scenario is refutable; on another parsing, the scenario collapses into incoherence, because the sceptic cannot even save the appearances. I discuss three different ways of cashing out the BIV scenario: ‘Recent Envatment’ (RE), ‘Lifelong Envatment’ (LE) and ‘Nothing (...) But Envatment’ (NBE). I show that RE scenarios are a kind of ‘local’ sceptical scenario that does not pose a significant threat to the possibility of perceptual knowledge as such. I then go on to consider the more radical (or global) LE and NBE scenarios, which do undermine the possibility of perceptual knowledge of an ‘external’ world by positing that it is conceivable that one has always been envatted and, hence, trapped in a ‘global’ illusion. I start by assuming that we could be in such a scenario (LE or NBE) and then spell out what we would need to presuppose for such scenarios to be capable of being actual. Drawing on some central insights from Wittgenstein’s anti-private language considerations, I show that the truth of a global scepticism would presuppose the possibility of a private ‘vat-language’, a notion that cannot be rendered coherent. But, if so, then neither can the sceptical scenarios that presuppose such a conception. (shrink)

Proponents of using genetically modified (GM) crops and food in the developing world often claim that it is unjust not to use GMOs (genetically modified organisms) to alleviate hunger and malnutrition in developing countries. In reply, the critics of GMOs claim that while GMOs may be useful as a technological means to increase yields and crop quality, stable and efficient institutions are required in order to provide the benefits from GMO technology. In this debate, the GMO proponents tend to rely (...) on a simple utilitarian type of calculus that highlights the benefits of GMOs to the poor, but that overlooks the complex institutional requirements necessary for GMO production. The critics, recognizing the importance of institutional conditions, focus primarily on the negative impacts of institutional deficiencies, thereby overlooking the basically Rawlsian claim that institutions per se may generate claims to justice. This article investigates how GMOs might generate claims to global justice and what type of justice is involved. The paper argues that the debate on GMOs and global justice can be categorized into three views, i.e., the cosmopolitan, the pluralist, and the sceptic. The cosmopolitan holds that GMOs can and should be used for alleviating global hunger, whereas the sceptic rejects this course of action. I will argue here for a moderately cosmopolitan approach, relying on the pluralist view of institutions and the need to exploit the benefits of GMOs. This argument rests on the premise that global cooperation on GMO production provides the relevant basis for assessing the use of GMOs by the standard of global distributive justice. (shrink)

Several recent contextualist theorists have proposed contextualizing the skeptic. Their claim is that oneshould view satisfactory answers to global doubts regarding such subjects as theexternal world, other minds, and induction as requirements for justification incertain philosophical contexts, but not in everyday and scientific contexts. Incontrast, the skeptic claims that a satisfactory answer to a global doubt in eachof these areas is a context-invariant requirement for justified belief. In this paper,I consider and reject the arguments Michael Williams develops in (...) his bookUnnatural Doubts that are intended to show that the skeptic's interpretationof the significance of global doubts is mistaken. In addition, I argue that Williams'general strategy in opposing the skeptic is extremely interesting and worth furtherinvestigation, even if his particular execution of it is unsuccessful. To this end, Iclarify the general strategy, distinguish it from a variety of others, and discuss itsprospects as an answer to the skeptic. (shrink)

Several recent contextualist theorists (e.g. David Lewis, Michael Williams, andKeith DeRose) have proposed contextualizing the skeptic. Their claim is that oneshould view satisfactory answers to global doubts regarding such subjects as theexternal world, other minds, and induction as requirements for justification incertain philosophical contexts, but not in everyday and scientific contexts. Incontrast, the skeptic claims that a satisfactory answer to a global doubt in eachof these areas is a context-invariant requirement for justified belief. In this paper,I consider and (...) reject the arguments Michael Williams develops in his bookUnnatural Doubts that are intended to show that the skeptic's interpretationof the significance of global doubts is mistaken. In addition, I argue that Williams'general strategy in opposing the skeptic is extremely interesting and worth furtherinvestigation, even if his particular execution of it is unsuccessful. To this end, Iclarify the general strategy, distinguish it from a variety of others, and discuss itsprospects as an answer to the skeptic. (shrink)

Ronald Preston found Alasdair MacIntyre's analysis of plurality and incommensurability unconvincing, holding that, ultimately, a common rationality enabled disparate perspectives to achieve shared positions. This commitment made Preston sceptical of theologies which drew on MacIntyre to deny the possibility of meaningful dialogue with economics but he ignored the argument that shared liberal roots might constrain his own critique of market institutions. Preston's theological conversation with economics assumes a state-based capitalism, political dominance over economics and a thin plurality. Globalisation (...) challenges such foundations severely but MacIntyre's focus on communities of tradition offers only a weak challenge to global economic power. Preston's understanding of the significance of finitude in economics and MacIntyre's focus on the problems of plurality and the communitarian response are both important in any response to contemporary globalisation. This article explores whether the respective virtues of Preston's and MacIntyre's approaches can coalesce in a theology adequate to the global era. (shrink)

In the article of Bueno titled “Davidson and Skepticism: How Not to Respond to the Skeptic,” he intends to demonstrate that although Davidson’s theory of Coherence holds many attractions, it does not entail a response to any kinds of skepticism including Global, Lottery, and Pyrrhonian. In this study, the goal is to criticize the work of Prof. Bueno in connection with two criticisms raised by him over Davidson’s anti-skeptical strategy. Further, by giving some reasons in favor of Davidson’s anti-skepticism (...) argument, it will be shown that neither the above stated criticisms nor the global skepticism response could undermine the validity of anti-skepticism argument. (shrink)

This chapter explores global debunking arguments, debunking arguments that aim to give one a global defeater. I defend Alvin Plantinga’s view that global defeaters are possible and, once gained, are impossible to escape by reasoning. They thereby must be extinguished by other means: epistemically propitious actions, luck, or grace. I then distinguish between three types of global defeater—pure-undercutters, undercutters-because-rebutters, and undercutters-while-rebutters—and systematically consider how one can deflect such defeaters. Lastly, since I draw insights from the literature (...) on perhaps the most widely discussed global debunking argument in the literature, Plantinga’s evolutionary argument against naturalism, I end up responding to many potential problems for it. This includes the so-called conditionalization problem, as well as those raised by Bergmann (2002), Law (2012), Deem (2018), Hendricks and Anderson (2020), and Wielenberg (in Craig and Wielenberg (2021)). (shrink)

This article re-examines and fundamentally re-assesses the symbiotic relationship between law and ethics in the governance and regulation of biobanks as a global phenomenon. Set against the two decades of experience of set-up, management and most recently granting access to biobanks to promote advances in human health, it is argued that the boundaries—and so the legitimacy—of the respective roles of ethics and law have become blurred and, potentially, blunted. The caricature of law as a tool of command and control—resulting (...) in compliance culture—is well recognised in regulation studies, but parallels with this can now also be seen within certain ethical regimes pertaining to biobanks and human health research more generally. At the same time, the ethical content of certain legal responses to biobanks can be lacking, as some legal systems seek to regulate biobanking in inflexible and unreflective ways that potentially undermine the entire enterprise. This can result in a net failure to capture adequately particular features of biobanking that make this field so potentially rich in terms of ultimate social value and human benefit. The argument is made that the interconnected, yet distinct, nature of the contributions of law and ethics must be better understood in this setting. The central message is unapologetically sceptical about the role of law in regulating biobanking, except when we see law as process. Rather, the position is advanced that more work is required to develop governance regimes that are ‘Ethics+’ : that is, rooted in the core values and principles at stake while able to adapt and accommodate the inevitable changing landscape of biobank research and practice. While ethics are always a necessary component of a robust and defensible regimes of health research, the notion of Ethics+ directs our attention to processes in which ethical discourse and engagement can be optimised to respond to particular features of biobanks and their operation. (shrink)

It is nowadays taken for granted that the core radical sceptical arguments all pivot upon the principle that the epistemic operator in question is 'closed' under known entailments. Accordingly, the standard anti-sceptical project now involves either denying closure or retaining closure by amending how one understands other elements of the sceptical argument. However, there are epistemic principles available to the sceptic which are logically weaker than closure but achieve the same result. Accordingly the contemporary debate fails (...) to engage with the sceptical problem in its strongest form. (shrink)

Descartes' First Meditation is widely supposed to contain an intuitive and compelling argument in support of skepticism with respect to the existence of a natural world. The leading question of this essay is whether that is indeed the case. To this end, I undertake a detailed rereading of Descartes' text on its own terms, abstracting from what has been made of it during subsequent centuries. I conclude that the argument in fact to be found in the First Meditation (...) rests upon a series of problematic and disputable commitments - a classical formalist paradigm in epistemology, according to which, explicitly or implicitly, mathematical knowledge is treated as a model for knowledge in general; a broad notion of "reasons for doubt" which subsumes mere possibilities; and, most contentiously of all, the presumed ontological independence of mind and body. (shrink)

In this paper, I offer reasons for thinking that two prominent sceptical arguments in the literature – the underdetermination-based sceptical argument and the closure-based sceptical argument – are less philosophically interesting than is commonly supposed. The underdetermination-based argument begs the question against a non-sceptic and can be dismissed with little fanfare. The closure-based argument, though perhaps not question-begging per se, does rest upon contentious assumptions that a non-sceptic is under no pressure to accept.

In this paper, I consider two interpretations of Xenophanes’ epistemology – that he is an empiricist and that he is a global skeptic. I argue that two these interpretations are not mutually exclusive, and that Xenophanes should, in fact, be thought of as both an empiricist and a global skeptic.

In this essay, I consider an evolutionary debunking argument (EDA) that purports to undermine the epistemic justification of the belief in the reliability of our belief-forming processes, and an evolutionary vindicating argument (EVA) that seeks to establish that such a belief is epistemically justified. Whereas the EDA in question seems to fall prey to crippling self-defeat, the EVA under consideration seems to fall prey to vicious circularity. My interest in those arguments and the problems they face lies in (...) what they might tell us about the possibly aporetic nature of reason. For, if we take the EDA and the EVA in question to consist of true or plausible premises and valid inferences at which we arrive through a meticulous use of reason, then their falling victim to either crippling self-defeat or vicious circularity might be regarded as a sign that, when we push rational reflection on the reliability, or lack thereof, of our belief-forming capacities to the limit, we end up in a situation of aporia from which there seems to be no escape. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:HUME'S SCEPTICAL ARGUMENT AGAINST REASON In the section of the Treatise entitled Of scepticism with regard to reason Kume considers the mind as reflecting upon its own activities, monitors them as it were, and then adjusts them in accordance with certain principles and strategies. ^ What it discovers is that in drawing inferences, the mind sometimes errs. In the light of this knowledge, and in accordance with (...) rational principles of epistemic probabilities, it adjusts its response to any inference it makes from one of certainty to one with epistemic probability of a degree somewhat less than certainty. But this rational adjustment is itself the consequence of an inference, which will be subject to the same qualifications. By repeating this process, it seems that all certainty reduces to probability and all probability to zero. Hume's argument begins this way: Our reason must be consider 'd as a kind of cause, of which truth is the natural effect; but such-a-one as by _ the irruption of other causes, and by the inconstancy of our mental powers, may frequently be prevented. By this means all knowledge degenerates into probability ; and this probability is greater or less, according to our experience of the veracity or deceitfulness of our understanding, and according to the simplicity or intricacy of the question. 2 It is important to be clear on the logical structure of this argument. Consider an actual case of inference. This produces a state of belief or affirmation. Hume does not say that the inference does not produce truth, i.e., a true belief. But there is the possibility it does not. Nor is this a mere logical possibility. One can form the hypothesis about causes that this process of reasoning was in fact one which introduced an 91. element of error. One does not know that this hypothesis is true. But one does know that there is a certain probability that this causal hypothesis is true; as Hume puts it, it may frequently be true. Knowing that we have reasoned poorly sometimes (though not always) in the past, the hypothesis that we have on this occasion reasoned poorly has a certain probability, and we know this even though we have not verified the hypothesis for this particular occasion. On the basis of this unverified but nonetheless somewhat probable causal hypothesis we must as a matter of reason reduce the probability we attach to the belief or affirmation that was produced by the original inference. This reduction of probability is itself a matter of reasoning, however. Therefore about it, also, one can form the hypothesis that it is erroneous, and that the probability of the original affirmation was not reduced sufficiently. On the basis of this new hypothesis we must as a matter of reason reduce still further the probability of the first affirmation. And so on: as I reflect upon my use of reason, all the rules of logic require a continual diminution, and at last a total extinction of belief and evidence. (T183) The result here of the mind applying to its own activities what it discovers about itself is its ceasing to make any causal inferences. Feedback here yields the attitude of total scepticism, in the sense of rendering it reasonable that one ought totally to suspend judgment. To be sure, Hume does hold that no one is in fact such a total sceptic: Nature, by an absolute and uncontroulable necessity has determin 'd us to judge as well as to breathe and feel; nor can we any more forbear viewing certain objects in a stronger and fuller light, upon account of their customary connexion with a present impression, than we can hinder ourselves from thinking as long as we are awake, or see the 92. surrounding bodies, when we turn cur eyes towards them in broad sunshine. (T183) Inferences from sample to population cannot but be fallible, and this is the best we can do, given the logical gap between sample and population.The argument for scepticism with regard to reason concludes not only that such inferences are fallible, that they may be wrong, but more strongly that we have the strongest of reasons for supposing that they... (shrink)

In middle to late Byzantium, one finds dogmatic-style sceptical arguments employed against human reason in relation to divine revelation, where revelation becomes the sole criterion of certain truth in contrast to reason. This argumentative strategy originates in early Christian authors, especially Clement of Alexandria (c. 150–215 CE) and Gregory Nazianzen (c. 329–390 CE), who maintain that revelation is the only domain of knowledge where certainty is possible. Given this, one finds two striking variations of this sceptical approach: a (...) “mild” variant (represented by Clement), where knowledge derived from human reason admits partial access to truths manifested in revelation, if imperfect; and a “strict” variant (represented by Gregory), where knowledge derived from human reason does not admit any access to truths in revelation. This paper analyzes the three Byzantines, Nicholas of Methone (d. 1160/66 CE), Theodore Metochites (1270–1320 CE), and Gregory Palamas (1296–1357/59 CE), who each display certain tendencies toward these two “poles” in their respective epistemological positions on knowledge through reason and faith. (shrink)

Anthony Brueckner has argued that claims about underdetermination of evidence are suppressed in closure-based scepticism (“The Structure of the Skeptical Argument”, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 54:4, 1994). He also argues that these claims about underdetermination themselves lead to a paradoxical sceptical argument—the underdetermination argument—which is more fundamental than the closure argument. If Brueckner is right, the status quo focus of some predominant anti-sceptical strategies may be misguided. In this paper I focus specifically on the (...) relationship between these two arguments. I provide support for Brueckner’s claim that the underdetermination argument is the more fundamental sceptical argument. I do so by responding to a challenge to this claim put forward by Stewart Cohen (“Two Kinds of Skeptical Argument”, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 58:1, 1998). Cohen invokes an alternative epistemic principle which he thinks can be used to challenge Brueckner. Cohen’s principle raises interesting questions about the relationship between evidential considerations and explanatory considerations in the context of scepticism about our knowledge of the external world. I explore these questions in my defence of Brueckner. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: In this essay I provide one methodology that yields the level of analysis of an alleged knowledge-claim under investigation via its relations to varying gradations of scepticism. Each proposed knowledge-claim possesses a specified relationship with: (i) a globally sceptical argument; (ii) the least sceptical but successful argument that casts it into doubt; and (iii) the most sceptical yet unsuccessful argument, which is conceivably hypothesized to repudiate it but fails to do so. Yielding this (...) specified set of relations, by means of proceeding from global scepticism to (ii) and (iii), increases the chances of identifying the highest evaluative relevancy of the levels of analysis and observation of an alleged knowledge-claim. I argue that the failure to analyse and derive a difference between (i) and (ii) with respect to an alleged knowledge-claim signifies that the claim is grounded within the theoretical framework itself, that the claim lacks specification with regard to content that is analysable via that framework, and the claim is dubious insofar as alternative theoretic frameworks may present greater relevancy to levels of observation. KEYWORDS: knowledge, scepticism, perception, level of observation, magnification level, methodological scepticism. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 7, Issue 2, pp 114 - 135 It is a commonly accepted assumption in contemporary epistemology that we need to find a solution to ‘closure-based’ sceptical arguments and, hence, to the ‘scepticism or closure’ dilemma. In the present paper I argue that this is mistaken, since the closure principle does not, in fact, do real sceptical work. Rather, the decisive, scepticism-friendly moves are made before the closure principle is even brought into play. If we cannot (...) avoid the sceptical conclusion, this is not due to closure’s holding it in place, but because we’ve already been persuaded to accept a certain conception of perceptual reasons, which both issues a standing invitation to radical scepticism and is endemic in the contemporary literature. Once the real villain of the piece is exposed, it will become clear that the closure principle has been cast in the role of scapegoat in this debate. (shrink)

This study deals with the sceptical arguments by one of the most important figures in the philosophical Sufi tradition (the Akbarian school) and the foremost disciple of Ibn ʿArabī, Ṣadr al‐Dīn al‐Qūnawī. Though not a sceptic in the strict sense, Qūnawī employs sceptical arguments from relativity of rational knowledge and disagreement among philosophers to prove inefficacy of reason and rational procedures of knowledge in terms of achieving certain knowledge of metaphysical matters, namely of God and the ultimate principles (...) of things. The paper questions Qūnawī's implicit assumption that, if there is disagreement on a proposition p, then p is relative and thus cannot provide certain knowledge. It aims to philosophically analyse and assess his scepticism as well as to shed light on the largely unknown terrain of scepticism in the mediaeval Islamic world. (shrink)

In this essay I provide one methodology that yields the level of analysis of an alleged knowledge-claim under investigation via its relations to varying gradations of scepticism. Each proposed knowledge-claim possesses a specified relationship with: (i) a globally sceptical argument; (ii) the least sceptical but successful argument that casts it into doubt; and (iii) the most sceptical yet unsuccessful argument, which is conceivably hypothesized to repudiate it but fails to do so. Yielding this specified (...) set of relations, by means of proceeding from global scepticism to (ii) and (iii), increases the chances of identifying the highest evaluative relevancy of the levels of analysis and observation of an alleged knowledge-claim. I argue that the failure to analyse and derive a difference between (i) and (ii) with respect to an alleged knowledge-claim signifies that the claim is grounded within the theoretical framework itself, that the claim lacks specification with regard to content that is analysable via that framework, and the claim is dubious insofar as alternative theoretic frameworks may present greater relevancy to levels of observation. (shrink)

In Wittgenstein: On Rules and Private Language, Saul Kripke argues for an extreme form of meaning scepticism. One influential reply to Kripke’s arguments was developed by David Lewis. The reply developed by Lewis makes use of the notion of mind-independent relations of similarity and difference. The aim of the paper is to argue that Lewis’ reply is not satisfactory: the challenge to find a refutation of Kripke’s sceptical arguments remains unmet.

Alik Pelman proposes a sceptical challenge to the widely accepted thesis that theoretical identities are necessary. His argument relies on the possibility of the manifest criterion of identity. In this article, we argue that given the necessity of the obtaining of the identity criterion, Pelman’s sceptical argument against the necessity of theoretical identities cannot be effective. By comparing Pelman’s sceptical argument with classical sceptical arguments, it is demonstrated that there is a sense in (...) which classical arguments are effective but not Pelman’s. (shrink)

In Wittgenstein on Meaning, Colin McGinn argues that the skeptical argument that Kripke distills from Wittgenstein's rule-following considerations generates at most what might be called meaning skepticism (the non-factuality view of meaning), and not concept skepticism (the non-factuality view of concepts). If correct, this would mean the skeptical reasoning is far less significant than Kripke thinks. Others have seemed to agree with McGinn. I argue that McGinn is wrong here--that, in fact, Kripke's skeptical reasoning has a straightforward extension to (...) concepts. Whether the reasoning succeeds, however, is another matter, which I do not address here. (shrink)

Kant was never satisfied with the version of his “Refu- tation” published in 1787 (KrV, B 275-279). His dissatisfaction is already evident in the footnote added to the preface of the second edition of the Critique in 1787. As a matter of fact, Kant continued to rework his argument for at least six years after 1787. The main exegetical problem is to figure out who is the target of the “Refutation”: a non-skeptic idealist, a global skeptic of Cartesian (...) provenance or both. In this last case, the related problem is to know whether either of them is the Cartesian skeptic of the first Meditation, the idealist skeptic of the second Meditation and first part of the third Meditation, or some other non-skeptic idealist. I present and defend a new reconstruction of Kant’s “Refu- tation” as a successful argument against Mendelssohnian idealism of Cartesian provenance. This defense is based on a simple logical sketch of the proof provided by Dicker but essentially modified in light of Dyck’s insight about Kant’s opponent. How shall I support my reading? First, by appealing to overwhelming textual evidence according to which the proof is of the existence of mind-independent things, showing that Kant’s main opponent is Mendelssohn’s idealism of Cartesian provenance. Finally, I support my reading by showing that Kant’s “Refutation” is doomed to fail against all forms of global skepticism but is quite successful against Mendelssohn’s idealism. (shrink)

According to veridicalism, your beliefs about the existence of ordinary objects are typically true, and can constitute knowledge, even if you are in some global sceptical scenario. Even if you are a victim of Descartes’ demon, you can still know that there are tables, for example. Accordingly, even if you don’t know whether you are in some such scenario, you still know that there are tables. This refutes the standard sceptical argument. But does it solve the (...) sceptical problem posed by that argument? I argue that it does not, because we do not know substantively more about the external world according to veridicalism than we do according to the sceptical argument. Rather, veridicalism merely reformulates what little knowledge we have. I then draw some general conclusions about the nature of the sceptical problem, the formulation of the standard argument, and the significance of this for some other, non-veridicalist strategies. (shrink)

Skeptical theism is the view that God exists but, given our cognitive limitations, the fact that we cannot see a compensating good for some instance of evil is not a reason to think that there is no such good. Hence, we are not justified in concluding that any actual instance of evil is gratuitous, thus undercutting the evidential argument from evil for atheism. This paper focuses on the epistemic role of context and contrast classes to advance the debate over (...) skeptical theism in two ways. First, considerations of context and contrast can be invoked to offer a novel defense of skeptical theism. Second, considerations of context and contrast can be invoked to undermine the two most serious objections to skeptical theism: the global skepticism objection and the moral objection. The gist of the paper is to defend a connection between context and contrast-driven views in epistemology with skeptical views in philosophy of religion. (shrink)

بررسی استدلال و پاسخ شک‌گرایانة کریپکی و برخی از واکنش‌ها به آن .