Introduction

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-30
Author(s):  
Gail Fine
Keyword(s):  
Recent Literature ◽  
External World ◽  
Central Theme ◽  
External World Skepticism ◽  
Subjective States

This chapter outlines the main themes of the essays that follow. It also occasionally corrects or clarifies them, and sometimes it discusses more recent literature than they do. One central theme is cognitive conditions and their contents. For example, is epistêmê knowledge as it is conceived of nowadays? Are doxa and dogma belief as it is conceived of nowadays? This chapter also asks whether Plato and/or Aristotle countenances some version of a Two Worlds Theory; and whether ancient skeptics countenance subjective states and/or external world skepticism. It also explains some key distinctions used throughout, such as that between concept and conception.

scholarly journals The Appearance of Skepticism: Possibility, Conceivability and Infinite Ascent

2021 ◽  
Vol 51 (2) ◽  
pp. 94-107
Author(s):  
Sorin Bangu
Keyword(s):  
External World ◽  
Skeptical Argument ◽  
External World Skepticism ◽  
Novel Strategy

AbstractThe paper articulates a novel strategy against external world skepticism. It shows that a modal assumption of the skeptical argument cannot be justified.

scholarly journals Skeptical Arguments and Deep Disagreement

Erkenntnis ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guido Melchior
Keyword(s):  
External World ◽  
Deep Disagreement ◽  
Different Types ◽  
External World Skepticism ◽  
Agrippa’S Trilemma

AbstractThis paper provides a reinterpretation of some of the most influential skeptical arguments, Agrippa’s trilemma, meta-regress arguments, and Cartesian external world skepticism. These skeptical arguments are reasonably regarded as unsound arguments about the extent of our knowledge. However, reinterpretations of these arguments tell us something significant about the preconditions and limits of persuasive argumentation. These results contribute to the ongoing debates about the nature and resolvability of deep disagreement. The variety of skeptical arguments shows that we must distinguish different types of deep disagreement. Moreover, the reinterpretation of skeptical arguments elucidates that deep disagreement cannot be resolved via argumentation.

Skepticism and the Prediction Objection

2015 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 193-217
Author(s):  
Esben Petersen
Keyword(s):  
External World ◽  
Error Theory ◽  
External World Skepticism

It is an influential and often repeated objection to external world skepticism that skeptical theories lead to implausible predictions about the patterns of ordinary epistemic discourse and thought. Since skepticism entails that we know nothing, or only very little, about the external world, the skeptic seems unable to explain why competent speakers constantly ascribe such knowledge to both themselves and others. Uncontroversial facts about every day communication hence appear to present a strong reason to reject skeptical conditions on knowledge. In this paper, however, I argue that this objection to skepticism underestimates the means that a skeptic has available to account for people’s anti-skeptical assertions and judgments. A modest and highly plausible error theory enables the proponents of a familiar type of skeptical underdetermination principle to provide a compelling explanation of our linguistic and doxastic behavior. So there is a type of skepticism with a powerful response to the charge that skeptical theories lead to unacceptable predictions.

Philosophy through Computer Science

2019 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 141-153
Author(s):  
Daniel Lim ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Computer Science ◽  
External World ◽  
Teaching Philosophy ◽  
Existence Of God ◽  
External World Skepticism

In this paper I hope to show that the idea of teaching philosophy through teaching computer science is a project worth pursuing. In the first section I will sketch a variety of ways in which philosophy and computer science might interact. Then I will give a brief rationale for teaching philosophy through teaching computer science. Then I will introduce three philosophical issues (among others) that have pedagogically useful analogues in computer science: (i) external world skepticism, (ii) numerical vs. qualitative identity, and (iii) the existence of God.

scholarly journals Moral Error Theory and the Argument from Epistemic Reasons

2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Rowland
Keyword(s):  
External World ◽  
Error Theory ◽  
Bad News ◽  
Epistemic Reasons ◽  
Reasons For Belief ◽  
Moral Error Theory ◽  
Moral Error ◽  
External World Skepticism

In this paper I defend what I call the argument from epistemic reasons against the moral error theory. I argue that the moral error theory entails that there are no epistemic reasons for belief and that this is bad news for the moral error theory since, if there are no epistemic reasons for belief, no one knows anything. If no one knows anything, then no one knows that there is thought when they are thinking, and no one knows that they do not know everything. And it could not be the case that we do not know that there is thought when we believe that there is thought and that we do not know that we do not know everything. I address several objections to the claim that the moral error theory entails that there are no epistemic reasons for belief. It might seem that arguing against the error theory on the grounds that it entails that no one knows anything is just providing a Moorean argument against the moral error theory. I show that even if my argument against the error theory is indeed a Moorean one, it avoids Streumer's, McPherson's and Olson's objections to previous Moorean arguments against the error theory and is a more powerful argument against the error theory than Moore's argument against external world skepticism is against external world skepticism.

scholarly journals Cavell on Outsiders and Others

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Moran
Keyword(s):  
External World ◽  
Other Minds ◽  
Problem Of Other Minds ◽  
External World Skepticism ◽  
Similarities And Differences

Part IV of Stanley Cavell’s The Claim of Reason is an extended meditation on the similarities and differences between external world skepticism and skepticism about other minds. One contrast between the two forms of skepticism is the irreducible duality of perspectives with respect to minds (“inside” and “outside”) and the fact that the skeptical inquirer necessarily occupies both perspectives. Another aspect of this relation character of the problem of other minds is what Cavell calls the possibility for both “Active” and “Passive” directions for skepticism here; that is, skepticism with respect to the knowability of other minds, and skepticism with respect to the possibility of being known by any other mind. This paper argues that a lesson of this part of Cavell’s discussion is the importance of seeing these two directions for skepticism as comprising one single phenomenon which requires understanding them in terms of each other.

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