Skeptical Scenarios Research Articles

The Need for Warrant

The reaction most likely to be elicited by a first encounter Cartesian skeptical scenarios is an indignant imputation of absurdity. The latter is not properly construed as an assessment of implausibility alone. The tone of outrage indicates that it is no less an emphatic assertion of the certainty of cherished and firmly held beliefs in the permanence and reality of our everyday surrounds. This double assertion constitutes what might be termed the position of naive common sense regard to skeptical theses featuring generalized dreams, devious demons, or chairs converting into kangaroos in the absence of spectators. In present day philosophical circles it has acceded to a position of considerable respectability. The central pillar of the position is the tenet enunciated by G. E. Moore that statements of banal everyday facts are obvious truisms known with certainty'-whence it is concluded plausibly enough that skeptical doubts regarding such matters are absurd or patently false.2 The reasoning of the outraged neophyte and his/her more sophisticated counterpart might be fairly represented by the following Common Sense Argument, where 'Q' states some Cartesian skeptical thesis, and 'P' its common sense alternative.