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Skepticism and the Prediction Objection

Skepticism and the Prediction Objection 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. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png International Journal for the Study of Skepticism Brill

Skepticism and the Prediction Objection

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Publisher
Brill
Copyright
© 2014 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands
Subject
Articles
ISSN
2210-5697
eISSN
2210-5700
DOI
10.1163/22105700-03041129
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

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.

Journal

International Journal for the Study of Skepticism – Brill

Published: Aug 14, 2015

Keywords: contextualism; error theory; theory of knowledge; Lewis; predictions; skepticism

References

  • The Emperor’s New ‘Knows
  • The Indexicality of ‘Knowledge’
  • How to be a Fallibilist
  • Contextualist Solutions to Epistemological Problems: Skepticism, Gettier, and the Lottery
  • Contextualism, Skepticism, and the Structure of Reasons
  • Contextualism Defended: Comments on Richard Feldman’s ‘Skeptical Problems, Contextualist Solutions’
  • Contextualism and Unhappy-Face Solutions: Reply to Schiffer
  • Contextualism and Knowledge Attributions
  • Solving the Skeptical Problem
  • Bamboozled by Our Own Words: Semantic Blindness and Some Arguments Against Contextualism
  • Contextualism, Contrastivism, and X-Phi Surveys
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  • Elusive Knowledge
  • Skepticism, Contextualism, and Discrimination
  • From Contextualism to Contrastivism
  • What Shifts? Thresholds, Standards, or Alternatives?
  • A Defense of Skepticism
  • Contextualism, Subject-Sensitive Invariantism and Knowledge of Knowledge