Skeptical Strategy Research Articles

The advantages of neomoorean antiskeptical strategy

This paper aims to argue in support of the neo-Moorean attempt(s) to solve a skeptical paradox. It defends the thesis that neo-Mooreans retain advantages and avoid disadvantages of rival anti-skeptical strategies - namely epistemic contextualism. The puzzle that a radical skeptic poses is exemplified by Nozick?s famous Brain in a Vat thought experiment, which enables construing valid arguments consisting of jointly inconsistent but independently plausible premises. The first and the second part of the paper are devoted to Nozick?s conditional analysis of knowledge and De Rose?s epistemic contextualism, both based on the sensitivity principle. Referring to De Roses? contextualist theory, we demonstrate that the failure of Nozick?s conditional analysis of knowledge to provide a satisfactory answer to a skeptical paradox does not concern the sensitivity principle but rather closure denial and embracing the so-called ?abominable conjunction?. In the third part, we point out the weaknesses of the presumably most successful, contextualist response to the paradox. We explain that even though DeRose?s anti-skeptical strategy is built upon Nozick?s theory, he successfully surmounts its difficulties. Yet it seems that as a contextualist, he necessarily makes some concessions to a radical skeptic. Eventually, the article introduces Black?s neo-Moorean anti-skeptical theory based on the sensitivity principle as a strategy that makes neither concessions, nor counterintuitive proposals.

THE SYSTEMATIC USE OF THE FIVE MODES FOR THE SUSPENSION OF JUDGEMENT

Abstract The five modes are a list of tools used by ancient sceptics to guide dogmatic people towards suspending their judgement. Attributed to Agrippa (of uncertain date) and used extensively by Sextus Empiricus (2nd or 3rd century CE), these modes are still widely discussed today by epistemologists and specialists in ancient philosophy. Scholars disagree, however, on how to understand the way the five modes are used together and what the logical form of the sceptical strategy behind their deployment is. This paper offers a reconstruction of the system of the five modes that avoids these problems. In specific, unlike previous reconstructions, (a) it includes a non-trivial version of the mode of relativity, (b) avoids committing the sceptic to a normative principle and (c) follows the textual evidence more closely. Moreover, I argue that the system can be better understood as a list of steps in a process, whose underlying logic can be expressed by a single algorithm.

Signs of Skepticism in Early Abbasid Literature: The Case of al-Jāḥiẓ (d. 255/869)

The well-known littérateur, al-Jāḥiẓ, was heavily invested in the theological controversies of his time. A chief object of dispute was anthropomorphism (tashbīh). For al-Jāḥiẓ, who had great confidence in the mind to discover all truths and also in the language of the Arabs to express these truths with clarity, anthropomorphist belief amounted to muddled thinking. In his view, the partisans of anthropomorphism simply did not understand how to interpret the language of scripture, nor did they grasp the rational criteria on the basis of which claims to knowledge could be satisfactorily made. Al-Jāḥiẓ attacked anthropomorphist belief (and related topics) in varied theological treatises, but he also took on anthropomorphism in some of his literary treatises, notablyThe Superiority of the Belly to the BackandThe Book of Squaring and Circling. These two literary treatises not only bear the marks of theological controversy, they are also “teaching” tools indicating that al-Jāḥiẓ deployed a skeptical strategy in quasi-satirical form as a way to inculcate in the partisans of anthropomorphism doubts about their own beliefs.

Against Piecemeal Skepticism

Rather than advancing a global skeptical hypothesis, Anthony Brueckner and Jon Altschul construct a skeptical strategy in which they posit a plurality of skeptical hypotheses for distinct propositions that someone claims to know. I show that such “piecemeal” skepticism fails, suggesting that the skeptic is better off sticking with a global skeptical hypothesis.

Relativism, Particularism and Reflective Equilibrium

In previous work, I have sought to show that the basic argument for epistemic relativism derives from the problem of the criterion that stems from ancient Pyrrhonian scepticism. Because epistemic relativism depends upon a sceptical strategy, it is possible to respond to relativism on the basis of an anti-sceptical strategy. I argue that the particularist response to scepticism proposed by Roderick Chisholm may be combined with a naturalistic and reliabilist conception of epistemic warrant as the basis for a satisfactory response to epistemic relativism. In this paper, I outline this particularist response to relativism, and provide further commentary on the relationship between naturalism and particularism. In addition, I set the approach in contrast with reflective equilibrium approaches in epistemology. I also briefly explore the connection between the particularist response to relativism and G. E. Moore’s defense of an external world.

Regime monetário de meta de inflação em um ambiente de heterogeneidade de estratégias de formação de expectativas de inflação

Estudamos a dinâmica de um regime monetário de meta de inflação em um contexto macroeconômico representado por um modelo de três equações (curva IS, curva de Phillips e regra de juros) e com heterogeneidade de estratégias de formação de expectativas de inflação. Os agentes econômicos escolhem entre usar a meta de inflação anunciada como previsor da inflação futura (estratégia crédula) ou pagar um custo aleatório (e desconhecido a priori) para prevê-la com perfeição (estratégia cética). A distribuição dessas estratégias na população de agentes segue uma dinâmica evolucionária com e sem mutação endógena. Concluímos que a credibilidade plena não é uma condição necessária para o alcance da meta de inflação, dado que a heterogeneidade de expectativas de inflação, na presença de mutação e com alcance da meta de inflação, é um equilíbrio evolucionário.

Descartes's sceptical theism

AbstractIn the first part of the article I show how Descartes employs the sceptical theist strategy as part of his response to the problem of evil in Meditation Four. However, Descartes's use of this strategy seems to raise a serious challenge to his whole project: if Descartes is ignorant of God's purposes, then how can he be sure that God doesn't have some morally sufficient reason for creating him with unreliable clear and distinct perceptions? Drawing on related objections from Mersenne and Hobbes, I show in the second half of the article how Descartes can sidestep this objection.

Why the epistemic relativist cannot use the sceptic’s strategy. A comment on Sankey

In two recent papers in Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Howard Sankey has argued that there is an intimate relationship between Pyrrhonian skepticism and recent approaches to epistemic relativism.Though the general argument and idea of Sankey’s papers is very much appreciated, it is argued that the epistemic relativist’s recourse to the skeptical strategy outlined by the Pyrrhonian is not a good one. This diagnosis gives rise to an objection against the epistemic relativist who argues on the basis of the skeptical strategy that differs from Sankey’s naturalistic response. Furthermore, it can be shown that what is really at stake between epistemic relativism and epistemic absolutism is the question of which criteria there are for variation of epistemic norms and epistemic systems.

Skepticism and Possibilities

One skeptical strategy against A's claim to know that P is to hold that it is logically possible for someone to have the same base (a term needing explaining) for P as A does in spite of its not being true that P. Philosophical replies have focussed on showing that these are not genuine possibilities. Whether they are can be an interesting question of metaphysics, but it is argued in this paper that this metaphysical discussion is not the proper focus for an assessment of skepticism. Even if there are the odd logical possibilities, they do not suffice to warrant skeptical doubts. Rather, there has to be good reason to think that there is a genuine chance of the alleged possibility obtaining. This requirement cannot be satisfied generically, and that is' what is wrong with generic skepticism.

Hegel's Idea of a "Phenomenology of Spirit" (review)

Reviewed by: Hegel’s Idea of a “Phenomenology of Spirit” by Michael N. Forster Günter Zöller Michael N. Forster. Hegel’s Idea of a “Phenomenology of Spirit.” Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998. Pp. xi + 661. Paper, $30.00. Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit (1807) has remained an enigmatic and controversial work. Typically it has been studied and appropriated selectively, by focusing on a few topics or sections of this immense opus. There are also several commentaries on all or part of the work that immerse the reader in plenty of detail, but often with insufficient attention paid to the work’s overall design. Forster’s book is thematically focused but has sufficient scope to provide the reader with an overall orientation about the Phenomenology. Moreover, it is written in a clear, accessible language, with plenty of genuinely philosophical material to balance the more narrowly exegetical aspects of the study. Forster’s work stands in the tradition of a number of German and French studies that seek to unravel the “genesis and structure” (Hyppolite) of the Phenomenology as a key to understanding and assessing the import of Hegel’s singular work. Forster discusses those earlier readings, subjects them to a thorough critique, and develops original positions on a number of key issues in scholarship on the Phenomenology. The entire first half of the book (Parts One and Two) is concerned with the “official project of the Phenomenology,” which Forster reconstructs as three sets of philosophical tasks. First are the pedagogical tasks designed to introduce the reader to the superior viewpoint of Hegel’s system and its ability to overcome the ills specific to modern culture. In particular, Hegel is shown to further advance Herder’s and Schiller’s philosophical project of replacing the multiple, unreconciled dualisms of the modern intellectual and moral outlook with a unified, monistic account of natural and social reality. In a strong interpretive move, Forster attributes a naturalism of sorts to Hegel’s integrationist account of mind and body or self and world. Second are the epistemological tasks designed to justify the cognitive claims of Hegel’s [End Page 541] system (“science”) against those of all other philosophical and popular viewpoints. In particular, Forster shows Hegel’s indebtedness to the ancient (Pyrronic) skeptical strategy of equipollence, i.e., the method of setting into opposition equally strong arguments on both sides of any issue and thereby producing an equal balance of justification on all sides of the issue. Of all possible viewpoints only Hegel’s own, which is not subject to any external opposition, eludes the scope of the method of equipollence. The third, specifically metaphysical set of tasks of the Phenomenology centers around the work’s social and (on Forster’s reading) naturalist conceptions of God, meaning and truth, in which transcendent warrants are replaced by communal consensus. Forster concludes the first half of his study with a detailed consideration of the relation between the Phenomenology and Hegel’s system proper. He stresses that the work is only the “appearance” (Erscheinung) of the philosophical science itself and that it remains systematically independent of the latter. Part Three examines the role of history and historicism in the Phenomenology. Forster distinguishes between teleological or normative historicism and intellectual or descriptive historicism, and limits his investigation to the latter as the philosophically defensible of the two enterprises. He argues extensively for a one-to-one correlation between the various “shapes of consciousness” to be found in the core of the Phenomenology (from the chapter on Consciousness through the chapter on Reason) and specific periods in human history. This chronological history of consciousness is shown to be supplemented by two further accounts of the history of consciousness (in the chapter on Spirit and in the chapters on Religion and Absolute Knowledge, respectively), in which the first history’s focus on individual consciousness is enlarged to include supra-individual mind (“spirit”). In Part Four Forster explains the tripling of the history of consciousness with a shift in the plan of the Phenomenology, away from the more limited project of the original or “Ur-Phenomenology”—to lead individual consciousness to the viewpoint of (Hegelian) science—to the more ambitious goal...

A Theism‐Free Cartesian Analysis of Knowledge

In his Meditations on First Philosophy Descartes provides a clever and insightful analysis of scientific propositional knowledge. This analysis depends upon establishing, in a way immune to skepticism, the belief that God exists and is not a deceiver. Four propositions underlie Descartes' skeptical strategy in the first three Meditations. It is argued that one of these should be rejected. If it is rejected, a theism-free analysis of knowledge can be developed on what remains of the foundation Descartes set down. On this analysis, basic knowledge is of two sorts: (a) those beliefs that even a malicious demon cannot deceive us about and (,3) those beliefs, like I am not being misled by a malicious demon, Space exists, and I am more than a few seconds old, that a malicious demon can deceive us about all too easily because human beings can neither verify nor falsify them. ?2 outlines Descartes' skeptical reasoning and the four assumptions that underlie it. ?3 describes the theism-free analysis of knowledge that can be built upon the foundation Descartes provides.

Why One Shouldn't Make an Example of a Brain in a Vat

1. Graeme Forbes (1995) has argued that, even though Putnam's argument in Chapter 1 of Reason, Truth and History succeeds in establishing that I can know I am not a 'brain-in-a-vat' of the type hypothesized, this victory is a hollow one. For, Forbes maintains, the sceptic can evade Putnam's argument and achieve all she has ever wanted by switching to the hypothesis that I am 'relevantly like a brain in a vat'. Furthermore, this sceptical strategy blocks any attempt to use the 'brain-in-a-vat' [BIV] argument to support the claim that truth cannot outstrip the reach of ideally rational inquiry. For, if it can intelligibly be supposed that we are relevantly like BIVs in that we are in an epistemic context that is disfavoured in a particular way relative to another epistemic context, then there can be truths we could never know. And, if the intended conclusion of Putnam's original argument is that the beliefs of ideally rational inquirers are not open to sceptical challenge, then the revised sceptical strategy defeats Putnam's argument by showing how there could be truths that even ideally rational inquirers could not know. As Forbes acknowledges, Crispin Wright has essayed a similar response to Putnam. Wright claims that Putnam fails to exorcize 'the real spectre', namely, 'the idea of a thought standing behind our thought that we are not brains-in-a-vat in the way that our thought that they are mere brains-in-avat would stand behind the thought ... of actual brains in a vat that We are not brains-in-a-vat' (1992: 93). There is, indeed, an earlier variant on this strategy, to be found in Peter Smith 1984. However, so I shall argue, all versions of this strategy fail. For, in setting up the revised sceptical hypothesis, proponents of this strategy tacitly assume the coherence of the very thing whose incoherence has been acknowledged in granting that Putnam's argument defeats the original sceptical hypothesis. Furthermore, to the extent that the revised sceptical hypothesis is admissible, it cannot underwrite the claim that truth can transcend the reach of ideally rational inquiry in any sense that would be unpalatable to the Putnamian internal realist or would establish the sort of realist conception of truth that Putnam rejects.