Tag Archives: skepticism

Arnold CUSMARIU ABSTRACT: An argument structure that covers both cases Gettier described in his 1963 paper reinforces the conclusion of my 2012 Logos & Episteme article that the justified true belief (JTB) conception of knowledge is inconsistent. The stronger argument makes possible identification of fundamental flaws in the standard approach of adding a fourth condition to JTB, so that a …

Jeremy FANTL, Matthew McGRATH ABSTRACT: We argue that knowledge doesn’t require any of truth, justification, or belief. This is so for four primary reasons. First, each of the three conditions has been subject to convincing counterexamples. In addition, the resultant account explains the value of knowledge, manifests important theoretical virtues (in particular, simplicity), and avoids commitment to skepticism. Download PDF

Ron WILBURN ABSTRACT: Epistemic contextualism (EC) is the thesis that the standards that must be met by a knowledge claimant vary with (especially conversational) contexts of utterance. Thus construed, EC may concern only knowledge claims (“Semantic EC”), or else the knowledge relation itself (“Substantive EC”). Herein, my concern is with “Substantive EC.” Let’s call the claim that the sorts of …

Scott AIKIN ABSTRACT: Michael Hannon has recently given “a new apraxia” argument against skepticism. Hannon’s case is that skepticism depends on a theory of knowledge that makes the concept “useless and uninteresting.” Three arguments rebutting Hannon’s metaphilosophical pragmatism are given that show that the concept of knowledge that makes skepticism plausible is both interesting and useful. Download PDF

Allysson Vasconcelos Lima ROCHA ABSTRACT: There is a difference between the tasks of interpreting Sextus Empiricus and contesting his arguments. Usually, one does the latter relying on some version of the former. Though this seems obvious, it is easy to make mistakes in this endeavor. From this point, I draw two basic recommendations which we should follow, lest we take …

Gregory STOUTENBURG ABSTRACT: Joel Pust has recently challenged the Thomas Reid-inspired argument against the reliability of the a priori defended by Alvin Plantinga, Nicholas Wolterstorff, William Alston, and Michael Bergmann. The Reidian argument alleges that the Cartesian insistence on the primacy of a priori rationality and subjective sensory experience as the foundations of epistemic justification is unwarranted because the same kind …

Michael Shaw PERRY ABSTRACT: In this paper I analyze epistemological externalism and its adequacy as a response to skepticism. Externalism is defined by denial of accessibility: a subject can know if a particular condition beyond truth and belief is satisfied, even if the subject has no reflective access to the satisfaction of the condition. It hence has quick responses to skepticism. …

Ned MARKOSIAN ABSTRACT: AThe topic of this paper is the familiar problem of skepticism about the external world. How can you know that you are not a brain in a vat being fooled by alien scientists? And if you can’t know that, how can you know anything about the external world? The paper assumes Evidentialism as a theory about justification, and …