The Problem of the External World

Abstract

Abstract In this chapter, we will be considering the problem of the external world, and to what extent transcendental arguments can be used to address it. My claim will be that whilst such arguments cannot be used successfully when the problem is posed in epistemic or reliabilist terms, they have much greater force when it is put in a normativist manner. It will be shown how the failure of transcendental arguments to refute epistemic scepticism (in arguments put forward by Putnam. and the early Strawson) has Jed to the view that their only role can be to ‘silence’ scepticism, to show how (in Strawson’s words) ‘it is idle, unreal, a pretence’ 1 will argue, however, that transcendental arguments can do considerably more than this in relation to normativist justificatory scepticism over the external world. and that the latter provides an ideal target both for Kant’s Refutation of Idealism and for Hegel’s arguments in the Consciousness section of the Phenomenology of Spirit.