Scepticism and its Sources

A number of recent philosophers, including Michael Williams, Barry Stroud and Donald Davidson, have argued that scepticism about the external world stems from the founda-tionalist assumption that sensory experience supplies the data for our beliefs about the world. In order to assess this thesis, I offer a brief characterisation of the logical form of sceptical arguments. I suggest that sceptical arguments rely on the idea that many of our beliefs about the world are'underdetermined'by the evidence on which they are based. Drawing on this characterisation of scepticism, I argue that Williams, Stroud and Davidson are right to see the foundationalist assumption as essential to the sceptic's argument, but wrong to think that scepticism is inevitable once that assumption is in place. By pursuing an analogy with some recent debates in the philosophy of science, I try to locate the additional assumptions which the sceptic must make, in order to derive her conclusion.     

Is Fallibility an Epistemological Shortcoming?

A familiar form of scepticism supposes that knowledge requires infallibility. Although that requirement plays no role in our ordinary epistemic practices, Barry Stroud has argued that this is not a good reason for rejecting a sceptical argument: our ordinary practices do not correctly reflect the requirements for knowledge because the appropriateness-conditions for knowledge attribution are pragmatic. Recent fashion in contextualist semantics for 'knowledge' agrees with this view of our practice, but incorrectly. Ordinary epistemic evaluations are guided by our conception of a person's standing with regard to the reasons that there are for and against the truth of a belief. Thus the objection from our ordinary practices is sound: fallibility is not an epistemological shortcoming, and a convincing sceptical argument must use only requirements which figure in ordinary epistemic practice.     

POLITICAL LIBERALISM WITHOUT SCEPTICISM

Political liberalism famously requires that fundamental political matters should not be decided by reference to any controversial moral, religious or philosophical doctrines over which reasonable people disagree. This means we, as citizens, must abstain from relying on what we believe to be the whole truth when debating or voting on fundamental political matters. Many critics of political liberalism contend that this requirement to abstain from relying on our views about the good life commits political liberalism to a kind of scepticism: we should abstain from relying on our views about the good life because we should be uncertain about the truth of those views. But this kind of scepticism is itself a controversial epistemic position which many reasonable people reject, thus apparently making political liberalism internally incoherent. This is the sceptical critique of political liberalism. This paper shows the sceptical critique to be false. The paper argues that the epistemic restraint required of citizens in political liberalism does not assume or imply any version of scepticism about our ability to know the good life. Liberal neutrality is motivated not by scepticism about our own views, but rather by a desire to justify fundamental political principles to others. ¹ 1 I would like to thank Rebecca Stone, Steve De Wijze, and an anonymous referee for many helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper. The paper was completed while I was a visiting Faculty Fellow at The Murphy Institute's Center for Ethics & Public Affairs at Tulane University, and I gratefully acknowledge the Murphy Institute's support, as well as the generous support of Washington & Lee University, which housed the Center after hurricane Katrina.
     

NATURAL DOUBTS

Abstract: Many philosophers now argue that the doubts of the philosophical sceptic are unnatural ones, in that they are not forced on us by considerations that any reasonable person would have to accept as compelling but only arise if one has already accepted certain controversial theoretical commitments. In this article I defend the naturalness of philosophical scepticism against such criticisms. After defining “global ontological scepticism,” I examine the work of a number of anti‐sceptical philosophers—Michael Huemer, Michael Williams, and John McDowell. Although McDowell does move the debate to a deeper level by interpreting scepticism as a challenge to the very possibility of the mind's apprehending reality by being in a rational rather than a merely causal relation to it, none of them succeeds in showing that global ontological scepticism is, in the relevant sense, unnatural. This is not to say that the sceptic is correct; simply that it has not been shown that we can reasonably dismiss the sceptical questions and thereby evade the need to engage seriously with the sceptical arguments.     

Fish traps and rabbit snares: Zhuangzi on judgement,truth and knowledge

We argue that the common attribution to Zhuangzi of both perspectivalism or relativism on the one hand, and scepticism on the other is fundamentally mistaken. While granting that it is reasonable to construe Zhuangzi as offering a perspectiva! position on judgement, we argue that Zhuangzi's perspectivalism does not commit him to a relativist position on truth or to scepticism about human knowledge. Rather, we maintain that Zhuangzi's attacks on the concepts of truth and knowledge are better seen as his articulation of a species of epistemological nihilism which rejects, as ultimately meaningless, the concepts of truth, reality, and knowledge.     

The Ubiquity of Self-Deception

My paper is a discussion of Bas van Fraassen’s important, but neglected, paper on self-deception, “The Peculiar Effects of Love and Desire.” Paradoxes of self-deception are widely thought to follow from the ease with which we know ourselves. For example, if self-deception were intentional, how could we fail to know as target of our own deception just those things necessary to undermine the deception? Van Fraassen stands that reasoning on its head, arguing that is the ease with which we accuse ourselves of self-deception that undermines our confidence in our claims to know ourselves. I unpack and modify his argument, attempting to show that it makes a powerful case for scepticism about self-knowledge. I argue, contra van Fraassen, that local scepticism about self-knowledge threatens our claims to know ourselves in a way that global scepticism does not threaten our claims about the external world. I support this claim by showing that the Wittgensteinian response to the sceptic in On Certainty—that we don’t know what to do with the sceptic’s doubts, that we don’t know how to incorporate those doubts into our practices—does not succeed in deflecting scepticism about self-knowledge because the local sceptic’s doubts—about whether we can distinguish genuine claims to know ourselves from self-deceived claims—are integral to language game of self-knowledge. The local sceptic’s doubts are our doubts because it is natural to ask whether we are deceiving ourselves when we claim to know ourselves. However, because, we have no way of distinguishing genuine claims to know ourselves from self-deceived claims, our claims to self-knowledge are systematically undermined.     

Ramseyan Humility, scepticism and grasp

In ‘Ramseyan Humility’ David Lewis argues that a particular view about fundamental properties, quidditism, leads to the position that we are irredeemably ignorant of the identities of fundamental properties. We are ignorant of the identities of fundamental properties since we can never know which properties play which causal roles, and we have no other way of identifying fundamental properties other than by the causal roles they play. It has been suggested in the philosophical literature that Lewis’ argument for Humility is merely an instance of traditional scepticism, to which traditional responses to scepticism are applicable. I agree that in ‘Ramseyan Humility’ Lewis does present an argument to which it is appropriate to consider the applicability of responses to traditional scepticism—he argues that we irredeemably lack the evidence to rule out possibilities in which different properties occupy the causal roles described by our best physical theory. And prima facie this is just the kind of argument responses to traditional scepticism are designed to tackle. However, I will argue that Lewis bolsters this argument with a second. This second argument serves to deepen Lewis’ case and cannot be met with a response to traditional scepticism. For Lewis argues that not only do we lack evidence for which properties play which roles, we lack the ability to grasp any such proposition about role-occupancy. And if we cannot grasp any such proposition we cannot know it.     

Is transcendental idealism coherent?

I argue that transcendental idealism can be understood as a coherent and plausible account of experience. I begin by proposing an interpretation of the claim that we know only appearances that does not imply that the objects of experience are anything other than independently real objects. As I understand it, the claim here is abouthow objects appear to us, and not aboutwhat objects appear to us. After this, I offer a version of a correspondence account of veridical experience, in virtue of which these independent entities can satisfy the contents of our experiences. Specifically, I claim that veridical experience can be construed as a kind of map of reality in itself, and that these independent entities satisfy the contents of our experiences when they are, given the proper method of projection, the objects mapped by those experiences.     

Chisholm's Internalism and Its Consequences

Abstract: Among the important themes in Roderick Chisholm's epistemology are his commitment to internalism, his defense of the independence of epistemology from empirical science, and his assumption that we do know most of what we initially think we know. In “Roderick Chisholm and the Shaping of American Epistemology” Hilary Kornblith argues that Chisholm's views lead to a radical divorce between the factors that justify beliefs and the factors that cause beliefs, that Chisholm's views have the consequence that there is no connection between justification and truth, and that Chisholm's kind of epistemology is unable to give epistemic advice. I argue that Chisholm's views do not have these consequences.     

Laws of nature and physical existents

Nominalists, denying the reality of anything over and above concreta, are committed to a reductive account of any law of nature, explaining its necessity—the fact that it not only holds for all actual instances, but would hold for any additional ones—in, for example, epistemic terms (its likelihood/certainty of holding beyond the already observed instances). Nominalists argue that the world would be no different without irreducible modalities. ‘Modal realists’ often object that this parallels a common phenomenalist argument against believing in a mind‐independent external world. However, phenomenalism without translatability into sensory language is incoherent, though any such translation is impossible. The ‘as if philosophy is untenable as well. But it is quite possible to formulate inductive methodology's imperatives in non‐modal terms. Modal realism purports to give a reason against inductive scepticism, but does not go beyond saying that there is one.     

Can We Infer Naturalism from Scepticism?

Hume, like a number of more recent writers, claims that epistemological scepticism gives us reason to think that our beliefs are non-epistemically determined. Because some body of propositions that we believe are all unjustifiable, the argument goes, our beliefs in those propositions must be determined by non-truth-conducive considerations. I argue initially that scepticism does not by itself entail Humean naturalism. I then then develop an argument from scepticism to naturalism which has considerable promise. This more complex argument is built around two considerations: (i) if a subject accepts a local sceptical argument against one of his beliefs and still does not give it up, then we have very good, if not conclusive, reason to think that his belief is non-epistemically determined; (ii) it seems initially plausible that global scepticism can have no affect on the beliefs it targets, even if we were to accept it. Unfortunately, however, even this argument ultimately fails to establish any connection between scepticism and Humean naturalism.     

Is Induction Epistemologically Prior to Deduction?

Most philosophers hold that the use of our deductive powers confers an especially strong warrant on some of our mathematical and logical beliefs. By contrast, many of the same philosophers hold that it is a matter of serious debate whether any inductive inferences are cogent. That is, they hold that we might well have no warrant for inductively licensed beliefs, such as generalizations. I argue that we cannot know that we know logical and mathematical truths unless we use induction. Our confidence in our logical and mathematical powers is not justified if we are inductive sceptics. This means that inductive scepticism leads to a deductive scepticism. I conclude that we should either be philosophical sceptics about our knowledge of deduction and induction, or accept that some of our inductive inferences are cogent.     

Colour, world and archimedean metaphysics: stroud and the quest for reality

This paper proposes a fundamentally opposite conception of the possibility of metaphysics to that of Barry Stroud in The Quest for Reality and other writings. I discuss Stroud’s views on everyday ‚truth’ and metaphysics (Section 1), on interpretation (Section 2 – replying with a theory of ‚quasi-understanding’), and his ‚no threat’ claim (Section 3). But the main argument (Section 4) is a response to Stroud’s claim that we have no right either to affirm or to deny the metaphysical reality of colours. Stroud’s view resembles Carnap’s (1950, Revue Internationale de Philosophie 4, 20–40), that experience can in some sense never settle the metaphysical issue between e.g. materialism, idealism and phenomenalism; though we can allow everyday ‚knowledge’ e.g. that there is a fallen tree in the garden outside, as something available on all three views. (Carnap takes the undecidability as a sign that the metaphysical issue is a pseudo-question; Stroud insists it is factual, but places it beyond our ken, ‚external’.) I argue, instead, that metaphysical argument is possible from within our conceptual scheme and epistemic situation (as in Gareth Evans’s arguments for realism over phenomenalism); that ‚external’ and ‚internal’ questions cannot be separated as Stroud wishes; and that if we really were denied knowledge on ‚metaphysical’ matters, that would infect our right to claim knowledge of ‚observational’ matters too. And I sketch a theory of colour that would allow us to conclude (at once ‚metaphysically’ and ‚internally’) that things are indeed ‚really’ coloured. For all his expressions of sympathy for Wittgenstein, Stroud’s metaphysics is remarkably Cartesian.     

Epistemic justice as a condition of political freedom?

I shall first briefly revisit the broad idea of ‘epistemic injustice’, explaining how it can take either distributive or discriminatory form, in order to put the concepts of ‘testimonial injustice’ and ‘hermeneutical injustice’ in place. In previous work I have explored how the wrong of both kinds of epistemic injustice has both an ethical and an epistemic significance—someone is wronged in their capacity as a knower. But my present aim is to show that this wrong can also have a political significance in relation to non-domination, and so to freedom. While it is only the republican conception of political freedom that presents nondomination as constitutive of freedom, I shall argue that non-domination is best understood as a thoroughly generic liberal ideal of freedom to which even negative libertarians are implicitly committed, for non-domination is negative liberty as of right—secured non-interference. Crucially on this conception, non-domination requires that the citizen can contest interferences. Pettit specifies three conditions of contestation, each of which protects against a salient risk of the would-be contester not getting a ‘proper hearing’. But I shall argue that missing from this list is anything to protect against a fourth salient threat: the threat that either kind of epistemic injustice might disable contestation by way of an unjust deflation of either credibility or intelligibility. Thus we see that both testimonial and hermeneutical injustice can render a would-be contester dominated. Epistemic justice is thereby revealed as a constitutive condition of non-domination, and thus of a central liberal political ideal of freedom.     

Scepticism: Epistemic and Ontological

It is widely thought that sceptical arguments, if correct, would show that everyday empirical knowledge-claims are false. Against this, I argue that the very generality of traditional sceptical arguments means that there is no direct incompatibility between everyday empirical claims and sceptical scenarios. Scepticism calls into doubt, not ordinary empirical beliefs, but philosophical attempts to give a deep ontological explanation of such beliefs. G. E. Moore's attempt to refute scepticism (and idealism) was unsuccessful, because it failed to recognise that philosophical scepticism operates on a different level from that on which we make – or doubt – particular empirical claims. And, as I argue with specific reference to work by Nozick and Fogelin, Moore's basic confusion is still widely shared in contemporary discussions of scepticism.     

Foucault’s politicization of ontology

The paper explicates a politicized conception of reality with the help of Michel Foucault’s critical project. I contend that Foucault’s genealogies of power problematize the relationship between ontology and politics. His idea of productive power incorporates a radical, ontological claim about the nature of reality: Reality as we know it is the result of social practices and struggles over truth and objectivity. Rather than translating the true ontology into the right politics, he reverses the argument. The radicality of his method lies in showing how the ontological order of things is in itself the outcome of a political struggle: Ontology is politics that has forgotten itself. I argue that Foucault’s thought accomplishes the politicization of ontology with two key theoretical moves. The first is the contestation and provocation of all given and necessary ontological foundations. He affirms the ontological view that there is a discontinuity between reality and all ontological schemas that order it, and a subsequent indeterminacy of reason in establishing ultimate truths or foundations. After this initial step whereby ontology is denaturalized—made arbitrary or at least historically contingent—the way is open for explanations that treat the alternative and competing ontological frameworks as resulting from historical, linguistic and social practices of power. The second key move is thus the exposure of power relations and their constitutive role in our conception of reality. I conclude by considering the implications of Foucault’s politicization of ontology for our understanding of politics.     

From nihilism to monism

McDowell has argued that external world scepticism is a pressing problem only in so far as we accept, on the basis of the argument from illusion, the claim that perceiving that p and hallucinating that p involve a highest common factor--something which functions, in the manner of the classical 'veil of ideas', as a perceptual intermediary. McDowell traces the power of this argument to disputable Cartesian assumptions about the transparency of subjectivity to itself. I argue, contra McDowell, that the reflections to be found in, paradigmatically, Descartes's First Meditation are better interpreted as offering a causal argument for scepticism that depends upon a naturalistic conception of sense experience. This is more powerful than the argument from illusion, since it requires no commitment to a highest common factor in perception, nor to the transparency of the mental. The availability of this alternative route to scepticism raises serious problems for McDowell's quietism, which aims to earn the right to avoid, rather than answer, the sceptic. Since the appeal to externalism about content cannot settle the matter, I conclude that there is, at present, an unsatisfactory stand-off between the sceptic and McDowell's position.     

Plugging the Leaks in Neurath's Ship: A Defense of Naturalistic Epistemology

This paper examines the question whether foundational epistemology (“FE”) can be replaced by naturalized epistemology (“NE”). First, it argues that Quine's defense of NE is inadequate since it is only based on arguments showing the impossibility of the logical empiricist version of FE rather than on arguments for the impossibility of FE as such. Second, it proposes that a more promising argument for the impossibility of FE can be found in the Münchhausen-trilemma which aims at showing that ultimate foundations (and, hence, FE) are unattainable. However, Karl-Otto Apel has shown that this trilemma is unconclusive since it uncritically presupposes the premise that all argumentation is deductive in nature. Apel's argument implies that FE is possible if and only if it is possible to devise a non-deductive foundation (“NDF”). It is argued, however, that the possibility of NDF cannot be demonstrated. This leads to a situation called the Multatuli-dilemma: we cannot prove the possibility of ultimate foundations nor can we prove the impossibility of ultimate foundations. This dilemma shows that the discussion about the possibility of FE is pointless. Thus, it suggests that it is legitimate to replace FE by NE. Barry Stroud and Henri Lauener, however, argue that this replacement is not feasible since NE is not capable of refuting scepticism (Stroud) or justifying methodological rules (Lauener). But these objections are shown to be mistaken: First, epistemological scepticism is practically impossible and, hence, does not pose a serious threat to NE. Second, NE is capable of justifying methodological norms if and only if it makes use of so-called internal justifications. Thus, the final conclusion of this paper is that FE can be replaced by NE. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Sinnott–Armstrong's Moral Scepticism

Walter Sinnott–Armstrong's recent defence of moral scepticism raises the debate to a new level, but I argue that it is unsatisfactory because of problems with its assumption of global scepticism, with its use of the Sceptical Hypothesis Argument, and with its use of the idea of contrast classes and the correlative distinction between 'everyday' justification and 'philosophical' justification. I draw on Chisholm's treatment of the Problem of the Criterion to show that my claim that I know that, e.g., baby–torture is wrong, is no more question–begging than Sinnott–Armstrong's denial that I know this.     

Scepticism, perceptual knowledge, and doxastic responsibility

Arguments for scepticism about perceptual knowledge are often said to have intuitively plausible premises. In this discussion I question this view in relation to an argument from ignorance and argue that the supposed persuasiveness of the argument depends on debatable background assumptions about knowledge or justification. A reasonable response to scepticism has to show there is a plausible epistemological perspective that can make sense of our having perceptual knowledge. I present such a perspective. In order give a more satisfying response to scepticism, we need also to consider the standing of background beliefs. This is required since the recognitional abilities that enable us to have perceptual knowledge are informed by, or presuppose, a picture or conception of the world the correctness of which we have not ascertained. The question is how, in the face of this, to make sense of responsible belief-formation. In addressing this problem I make a suggestion about the standing of certain crucial beliefs linking appearances with membership of kinds.