CH1. The Skeptic’s Challenge

THE TRADITIONAL QUESTIONS

• Theory of knowledge, as part of philosophy, deals with questions like:

  • “What can I know?”

  • “How can I distinguish those things I am justified in believing from those I am not?”

  • “How can I decide whether I am more justified in believing one thing than another?”

• These are called Socratic questions because they concern ourselves.

• The reason for our interest in these questions is not for causal explanations (which philosophy does not provide), but the fact remains that these epistemological questions arise and are taken seriously by those who encounter them.

• The proposal is that we also take these questions seriously.

• The purpose of raising these questions is to correct and improve our own epistemic situation.

• The goal is not necessarily to attain perfect knowledge, but rather to:

  • Improve our set of beliefs.

  • Replace unjustified beliefs with justified ones.

  • Replace beliefs with a lesser degree of justification by those with a greater degree of justification.

THE PHILOSOPHICAL SKEPTIC

• Some philosophers doubt whether there is anything we can know, and also doubt whether we can find out if anything is knowable. These are called philosophical skeptics.

• Such skeptics seem to challenge traditional epistemology.

• The question is not whether we can refute skeptics or make them see they are misguided, but whether they provide reasons for thinking we ourselves are misguided.

• Skeptics might argue:
  (I) There are good reasons to suppose we cannot know what most people think they can, supported by evidence of human fallibility.

• Even if we have information about human fallibility, it does not mean it is unreasonable to assume we can answer epistemological questions. We must consider both fallibility and that we have some knowledge about ourselves and others.
  (II) Skeptics might present information about fallibility but without being justified in believing it true. In that case, they have no ground for skepticism since we only have reason to doubt if there is justification to doubt.
  (III) “Perhaps-you-are-wrong” skeptics argue logical possibilities like Descartes’ malicious demon or Hilary Putnam’s brain-in-a-vat scenario.

• Putnam’s scenario: a person’s brain is in a vat connected to a computer creating illusions of a normal world; therefore, they are not justified in believing they exist outside the vat.

• These skeptics do not claim we are justified in believing we are in the vat, only that we are not justified in believing we are not.

• The skeptical argument’s structure:

  1. You have experiences you believe come from perceiving things around you and memories.

  2. It is logically possible these experiences are caused by a malicious demon or computer illusion instead of physical reality.
     Therefore,

  3. You are not justified in believing you are surrounded by familiar physical things and beings.

• The conclusion does not logically follow from the premises; affirming premises and denying conclusion is logically consistent.

• Skeptics would need a third premise linking the premises to the conclusion, such as:
  “If it is logically possible to have these experiences without perceiving external things, then you are not justified in believing you perceive external things.”

• This premise is challengeable by asking skeptics: “What justification do you have for affirming this premise over the common belief that we perceive a familiar physical world?”

• Skeptics might aim for a reductio ad absurdum to show that if we follow our epistemic assumptions, we find we cannot have justified beliefs.

• But until skeptics actually show this, the mere possibility of such an argument does not provide positive grounds for skepticism.

• We cannot claim to have refuted skeptics, but there are no positive reasons to doubt the possibility of succeeding in epistemology.

• Therefore, it is not unreasonable to continue the epistemic enterprise.

EPISTEMOLOGISTS’ FAITH IN THEMSELVES

• Considering the question: (A) What am I justified in believing? naturally leads to: (B) What am I justified in presupposing when trying to find out what I am justified in believing?

• Without being justified in making any presuppositions about (A), there is no reasonable way to evaluate answers to it, including the presupposition itself.

• The ability to ask questions about knowledge and justification presupposes having the concepts of knowledge and epistemic justification.

• It would be absurd to look for something without any idea of what one is looking for.

• Therefore, one must at least be capable of figuring out what it means to have an epistemically respectable set of beliefs.

• One key presupposition (P1) is:

  • I have an idea or can conceive what it means for a belief to be justified or unjustified.

  • I have an idea of what it means to know something.

  • I have an idea of what it means for one belief to be more justified than another.

• Having a concept does not require being able to define or analyze it fully, but allows assessing the adequacy of proposed definitions or analyses.

• Answering these questions requires reflecting on and ranking my beliefs by their degree of justification, which presupposes I can know something about my beliefs and current state of mind.

• Another presupposition (P2) is:

  • I am justified in believing I can improve and correct my system of beliefs.

  • I can eliminate unjustified beliefs, add justified ones, and replace less justified beliefs with more justified beliefs on matters of concern.

• If (P2) is true, some properties exist that I can know directly that I have them.

• This justifies calling traditional epistemology internalistic, since it presupposes knowledge about oneself without external assistance.

• Epistemologists assume they are rational beings with properties such that, when asked if they have those properties, they can know evidently that they do.

• They can know what they think and believe and recognize inconsistencies.

• Epistemologists presuppose they can succeed, which entails a kind of faith in themselves.

ON THE JUSTIFICATION OF THIS FAITH

• Regarding whether I am justified in making such presuppositions, there are three possible belief-attitudes toward the proposition that my faith in myself is justified:

  1. I may deny the proposition.

  2. I may affirm the proposition.

  3. I may withhold the proposition.

• If I deny that the faith is justified, it would be unreasonable to pursue traditional epistemology.

• If I affirm that the faith is justified, I face further questions about the justification for believing the traditional presuppositions are justified, leading to an infinite regress.

• Therefore, the wise epistemologist would provisionally withhold belief in the proposition that this faith is justified.

• An objection might be: “It is unreasonable to proceed if you do not think you are justified in proceeding.”

• The reply is: It is not unreasonable to proceed without thinking you are justified; what is unreasonable is to proceed when you think you are not justified.

• Also, not thinking you are justified does not imply thinking you are not justified.

THE PROBLEM OF THE CRITERION

• The ancient problem of the criterion challenges epistemology.

• Two fundamental questions are distinguished:

  • “What do we know?” (or “What is the extent of our knowledge?”)

  • “How are we to decide in any particular case whether we know?” (or “What are the criteria of knowing?”)

• Knowing the answer to one question might help answer the other:

  • If we specify the criteria of knowledge, we can decide how far our knowledge extends.

  • If we know what we know, we might formulate criteria to distinguish known from unknown.

• But if we do not know the answer to one, it seems we cannot answer the other, creating a circular problem.

• Two possible approaches to this problem:

  1. Try to find out what we know or are justified in believing without using any criterion of knowledge or justification — called particularism.

  2. Try to formulate a criterion of knowledge without appealing to any known instances of knowledge or justified belief — called generalism or methodism.

• We can know some beliefs we hold (e.g., “I believe there are dogs”) without applying a criterion for knowing we believe that — starting as particularists.

• According to D. J. Mercier, the concept of epistemic justification is:

  • Objective — it can be an object of justification and knowledge itself.

  • Internal and immediate — one can find out directly by reflection what one is justified in believing at any time.

• If a person S is internally justified in believing something, S can know this by reflecting on their own state of mind.

• Once S has acquired the concept of epistemic justification, S can also know, by reflection, that they are justified in believing that thing.

• The passage prepares to consider the concept of epistemic justification in more detail.