Hookway's Soft Skepticism and Epistemic Conservatism

Abstract

Charles S. Peirce’s anti-skepticism depends on a distinction between real and pretend doubts. Christopher Hookway argues that this difference depends on a form of epistemic conservativsm wherein beliefs are justified unless there is a positive reason for doubting them. Hookway argues, further, that conservatism is consistent with thoroughgoing fallibilism. Here, I present two Academic skeptical lines of reply. The first is that conservatism, given the problem of easy knowledge, fits badly with fallibilism. So Hookway’s Peircian anti-skepticism has unhappy consequences for the overall Peircian program. The second is that piecemeal live skeptical hypotheses are formulable internal to the fallibilist program. The Academic skeptics were fallibilists, too, and their model for inquiry is amenable to pragmatist rapproachment. I close by proposing an Academic pragmatism.