Pub Date : 2023-06-20DOI: 10.1163/22105700-bja10057
Mark Satta
Susanna Rinard aims to show that it is possible to rationally persuade an external world skeptic to reject external world skepticism. She offers an argument meant to convince a skeptic who accepts her views on “several orthogonal issues in epistemology” to give up their external world skepticism. While I agree with Rinard that it is possible to reason with a skeptic, I argue that Rinard overlooks a variety of good epistemic grounds a skeptic could appeal to in rejecting her argument and its conclusion. More specifically, I argue that the external world skeptic can resist Rinard’s conclusion by (1) distinguishing between skepticism about knowledge and skepticism about justification, (2) by prioritizing obtaining accurate beliefs (maximizing true beliefs and minimizing false beliefs) over being rational, or (3) by treating suspension of judgment as the default rational doxastic attitude.
{"title":"Reasoning One’s Way Back into Skepticism","authors":"Mark Satta","doi":"10.1163/22105700-bja10057","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22105700-bja10057","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Susanna Rinard aims to show that it is possible to rationally persuade an external world skeptic to reject external world skepticism. She offers an argument meant to convince a skeptic who accepts her views on “several orthogonal issues in epistemology” to give up their external world skepticism. While I agree with Rinard that it is possible to reason with a skeptic, I argue that Rinard overlooks a variety of good epistemic grounds a skeptic could appeal to in rejecting her argument and its conclusion. More specifically, I argue that the external world skeptic can resist Rinard’s conclusion by (1) distinguishing between skepticism about knowledge and skepticism about justification, (2) by prioritizing obtaining accurate beliefs (maximizing true beliefs and minimizing false beliefs) over being rational, or (3) by treating suspension of judgment as the default rational doxastic attitude.","PeriodicalId":41464,"journal":{"name":"International Journal for the Study of Skepticism","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-06-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48223519","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-06-12DOI: 10.1163/22105700-bja10056
Peter Königs
{"title":"Diego E. Machuca (ed.), Evolutionary Debunking Arguments: Ethics, Philosophy of Religion, Philosophy of Mathematics, Metaphysics, and Epistemology","authors":"Peter Königs","doi":"10.1163/22105700-bja10056","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22105700-bja10056","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":41464,"journal":{"name":"International Journal for the Study of Skepticism","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-06-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45047171","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-05-24DOI: 10.1163/22105700-bja10055
Dimitri Cunty
{"title":"Critical Notice of Diego Machuca’s Pyrrhonism Past and Present","authors":"Dimitri Cunty","doi":"10.1163/22105700-bja10055","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22105700-bja10055","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":41464,"journal":{"name":"International Journal for the Study of Skepticism","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-05-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41838227","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-05-10DOI: 10.1163/22105700-bja10054
Joshua C. Thurow
In his book, Disagreement, Deference, and Religious Commitment, John Pittard presents and critiques what he calls the “master argument for disagreement-motivated religious skepticism.” This argument purports to show, using only higher-order reasoning and facts about religious disagreement, that nobody’s religious outlook is justified (at least, nobody aware of the argument). The master argument presupposes that any attempt to vindicate one’s religious outlook must employ dispute-independent reasons. Pittard objects to this assumption and argues, instead, for rationalist weak conciliationism: the view that partisan justification can be had when (and only when) one has rational insight into the claim in question. In this paper, I raise a challenge for rationalist weak conciliationism; in short, it is difficult to explain why only rational insight provides partisan justification while maintaining that a wide range of beliefs, including religious beliefs, can be justified in a partisan way.
{"title":"Explaining Rationalist Weak Conciliationism: A Challenge","authors":"Joshua C. Thurow","doi":"10.1163/22105700-bja10054","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22105700-bja10054","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000In his book, Disagreement, Deference, and Religious Commitment, John Pittard presents and critiques what he calls the “master argument for disagreement-motivated religious skepticism.” This argument purports to show, using only higher-order reasoning and facts about religious disagreement, that nobody’s religious outlook is justified (at least, nobody aware of the argument). The master argument presupposes that any attempt to vindicate one’s religious outlook must employ dispute-independent reasons. Pittard objects to this assumption and argues, instead, for rationalist weak conciliationism: the view that partisan justification can be had when (and only when) one has rational insight into the claim in question. In this paper, I raise a challenge for rationalist weak conciliationism; in short, it is difficult to explain why only rational insight provides partisan justification while maintaining that a wide range of beliefs, including religious beliefs, can be justified in a partisan way.","PeriodicalId":41464,"journal":{"name":"International Journal for the Study of Skepticism","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-05-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45938861","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-03-28DOI: 10.1163/22105700-13010001
{"title":"Call for Proposals for Monographs and Edited Volumes","authors":"","doi":"10.1163/22105700-13010001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22105700-13010001","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":41464,"journal":{"name":"International Journal for the Study of Skepticism","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135723276","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-03-28DOI: 10.1163/22105700-13010000
{"title":"Front matter","authors":"","doi":"10.1163/22105700-13010000","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22105700-13010000","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":41464,"journal":{"name":"International Journal for the Study of Skepticism","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135723277","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-03-08DOI: 10.1163/22105700-bja10052
C. Kyriacou
I stipulate and motivate the overlooked problem of demarcating radical skeptics (perceptual and moral) from mentally disordered persons, given that both deny that they know ordinary Moorean propositions (e.g., that they have hands or that killing for fun is morally wrong). Call this ‘the demarcation problem’. In response to the demarcation problem, I develop a novel way to demarcate between mentally disordered persons and radical skeptics in an extensionally adequate way that saves the appearance that radical skeptics are not mentally disordered persons (at least not typically). Finally, I examine how a Moorean, non-skeptical epistemologist would compare radical skeptics with the mentally disordered in terms of what Plantinga calls internal and external rationality. Perhaps surprisingly, by Moorean lights, the mentally disordered fare better than the radical skeptic in terms of (internal) rationality. The upshot is that for Mooreans skeptical philosophy is more of an epistemic evil than mental disorder.
{"title":"Skepticism, Mental Disorder and Rationality","authors":"C. Kyriacou","doi":"10.1163/22105700-bja10052","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22105700-bja10052","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000I stipulate and motivate the overlooked problem of demarcating radical skeptics (perceptual and moral) from mentally disordered persons, given that both deny that they know ordinary Moorean propositions (e.g., that they have hands or that killing for fun is morally wrong). Call this ‘the demarcation problem’. In response to the demarcation problem, I develop a novel way to demarcate between mentally disordered persons and radical skeptics in an extensionally adequate way that saves the appearance that radical skeptics are not mentally disordered persons (at least not typically). Finally, I examine how a Moorean, non-skeptical epistemologist would compare radical skeptics with the mentally disordered in terms of what Plantinga calls internal and external rationality. Perhaps surprisingly, by Moorean lights, the mentally disordered fare better than the radical skeptic in terms of (internal) rationality. The upshot is that for Mooreans skeptical philosophy is more of an epistemic evil than mental disorder.","PeriodicalId":41464,"journal":{"name":"International Journal for the Study of Skepticism","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-03-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48629528","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-03-08DOI: 10.1163/22105700-bja10053
Tomas Bogardus, Michael Burton
There is much to admire in John Pittard’s recent book on the epistemology of disagreement. But here we develop one concern about the role that rational insight plays in his project. Pittard develops and defends a view on which a party to peer disagreement can show substantial partiality to his own view, so long as he enjoys even moderate rational insight into the truth of his view or the cogency of his reasoning for his view. Pittard argues that this may happen in ordinary cases of religious disagreement—cases in which it’s a live skeptical possibility that one is misdescribing his insight, or not having insight at all—and therefore one need not be strongly conciliatory even in the face of peer disagreement. Yet Pittard agrees that one should be strongly conciliatory in cases of disagreement involving, e.g., visual perception and dim rational insight, since the sort of fallible, corrigible evidence involved in such cases may be counterbalanced by symmetrical evidence on the part of one’s disagreeing peer. We worry that there’s an inconsistency here. If it’s unreasonable to show partiality to one’s visual experience (or dim rational insight) in cases like “Horse Race” and “Restaurant Check,” it’s likewise unreasonable to show partiality in religious disagreements to one’s moderate rational insight, fallible and corrigible as it is.
{"title":"Some Reluctant Skepticism about Rational Insight","authors":"Tomas Bogardus, Michael Burton","doi":"10.1163/22105700-bja10053","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22105700-bja10053","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000There is much to admire in John Pittard’s recent book on the epistemology of disagreement. But here we develop one concern about the role that rational insight plays in his project. Pittard develops and defends a view on which a party to peer disagreement can show substantial partiality to his own view, so long as he enjoys even moderate rational insight into the truth of his view or the cogency of his reasoning for his view. Pittard argues that this may happen in ordinary cases of religious disagreement—cases in which it’s a live skeptical possibility that one is misdescribing his insight, or not having insight at all—and therefore one need not be strongly conciliatory even in the face of peer disagreement. Yet Pittard agrees that one should be strongly conciliatory in cases of disagreement involving, e.g., visual perception and dim rational insight, since the sort of fallible, corrigible evidence involved in such cases may be counterbalanced by symmetrical evidence on the part of one’s disagreeing peer. We worry that there’s an inconsistency here. If it’s unreasonable to show partiality to one’s visual experience (or dim rational insight) in cases like “Horse Race” and “Restaurant Check,” it’s likewise unreasonable to show partiality in religious disagreements to one’s moderate rational insight, fallible and corrigible as it is.","PeriodicalId":41464,"journal":{"name":"International Journal for the Study of Skepticism","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-03-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43121022","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-02-16DOI: 10.1163/22105700-bja10051
Miloud Belkoniene
The present paper examines a type of sceptical hypothesis put forward by Adam Carter that specifically targets understanding—the Confusion Hypothesis. After clarifying the nature and scope of that hypothesis, it discusses Carter’s favoured virtue perspectivist answer to the challenge it raises. It is argued that this answer is ultimately unsatisfying as it is unable to explain how a subject can obtain assurance that her grasp of a given body of information actually results from the competences she comes to appreciate as being reliable. A different answer that relies on the practical dimension of the specific grasp involved in understanding is then offered and is shown to avoid the problems faced by Virtue Perspectivism.
{"title":"Confusion, Understanding and Success","authors":"Miloud Belkoniene","doi":"10.1163/22105700-bja10051","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22105700-bja10051","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000The present paper examines a type of sceptical hypothesis put forward by Adam Carter that specifically targets understanding—the Confusion Hypothesis. After clarifying the nature and scope of that hypothesis, it discusses Carter’s favoured virtue perspectivist answer to the challenge it raises. It is argued that this answer is ultimately unsatisfying as it is unable to explain how a subject can obtain assurance that her grasp of a given body of information actually results from the competences she comes to appreciate as being reliable. A different answer that relies on the practical dimension of the specific grasp involved in understanding is then offered and is shown to avoid the problems faced by Virtue Perspectivism.","PeriodicalId":41464,"journal":{"name":"International Journal for the Study of Skepticism","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-02-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42003597","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-20DOI: 10.1163/22105700-bja10048
Santiago Echeverri
{"title":"Christos Kyriacou and Kevin Wallbridge’s Skeptical Invariantism Reconsidered.","authors":"Santiago Echeverri","doi":"10.1163/22105700-bja10048","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22105700-bja10048","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":41464,"journal":{"name":"International Journal for the Study of Skepticism","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-01-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45125435","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}