RULE-CIRCULARITY AND THE JUSTIFICATION OF DEDUCTION

I examine Paul Boghossian's recent attempt to argue for scepticism about logical rules. I argue that certain rule-and proof-theoretic considerations can avert such scepticism. Boghossian's 'Tonk Argument' seeks to justify the rule of tonk-introduction by using the rule itself. The argument is subjected here to more detailed proof-theoretic scrutiny than Boghossian undertook. Its sole axiom, the so-called Meaning Postulate for tonk, is shown to be false or devoid of content. It is also shown that the rules of Disquotation and of Semantic Ascent cannot be derived for sentences with tonk dominant. These considerations deprive Boghossian's scepticism of its support.     

HINGE PROPOSITIONS AND EPISTEMIC JUSTIFICATION

Abstract:  Michael Williams and Crispin Wright have claimed that we are epistemically justified in believing hinge propositions , such as there is an external world . In a recent paper Allan Hazlett puts forward an argument that purports to elucidate the source of such justification. This paper reconstructs Hazlett's argument and offers a criticism of it.     

NATURAL THEOLOGY AND EPISTEMIC JUSTIFICATION

First it is argued that the linkage of natural theology to epistemology is invalid historically, epistemologically and metaphysically. Second it is argued that knowledge claims about the ultimate cause of everything should be evaluated not in terms of justified true belief but in terms of the intellectual virtue of wisdom.     

INTELLECTUAL VIRTUE AND THE JUSTIFICATION OF PERSONS

In this paper, I develop a model of personal justification that is rooted in the intellectual virtues and the concept of epistemic praise. In particular, I show how a character‐based understanding of the virtues gives rise to an important emphasis on agents and how this provides the resources for dealing with several problems in epistemology.     

SCEPTICISM AND THE JUSTIFICATION OF TRANSCENDENTAL IDEALISM

In this paper I explore a justification for transcendental idealism that emerges from the dialogue with philosophical scepticism in which Kant is on and off engaged throughout the Critique of Pure Reason. ¹ 1 References to the Critique of Pure Reason are to the translation by Norman Kemp Smith (London: Macmillan, 1929) of Immanucl Kant, Kritik der reinen Vernunft. Page references are given in the usual manner, ‘A’ referring to the first (1791) edition and ‘B’ to the second (1787) edition.
Many commentators, most prominently Strawson, have claimed that transcend- ental idealism is an unfortunate addition to the Critique, one that can profitably be excised in the interests of clarity and coherence. ² 2 I In The Bounds of Sense: An Essay on Kant's Critique ofpure Reason (London: Methuen, 1966) P. F. Strawson famously urges that the confused doctrines of transcendental idealism be disentangled from ‘the analytical argument of Kant's positive metaphysics of experience’ (P. 42).
Against this general picture I urge that transcendental idealism is in fact a very natural consequence of some of the central doctrines of the Critical Philosophy. It is in the context of Kant's debate with scepticism that this emerges most clearly. Nonetheless, I argue that Kant's employment of transcendental idealism against the sceptic is seriously compromised by his postulating the existence of unknowable things-in-themselves. As long as he maintains that there are unknowable things-in-themselves which are responsible for our having the experience that we do have, his position seems to collapse into sceptical idealism. In the final section of the paper I suggest that the only possible escape from this difficulty would be to rule out the possibility of affirming that unknowable things-in-themselves exist. I also suggest that an argument to this effect exists in the Critique and that Kant's position would be more consistent had he adhered to it.