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(HPaa) How is it possible to rule out all alternatives? Simon Sauter 97 For it seems plausible that, in order to rule out sceptical scenarios, we have to be able to distinguish them from non-sceptical scenarios; after all, if I wouldn’t notice if I were the victim of a sceptical scenario, then how can I rule out the possibility that I actually am such a victim? Here we are faced with an obstacle that clearly cannot be overcome, as it is the very nature of sceptical scenarios that they are indistinguishable from nonsceptical scenarios. Therefore, the only option available here is an obstacle-dissipating strategy, showing how we can rule out possibilities without being able to distinguish them from the actual state of the world. Some readers will complain by now that on my construal the only conservative position is scepticism: there is no possible obstacle-overcoming response to (HPaa) and therefore no anti-sceptical theory which is at no point revisionist. Moreover, since it seems reasonable to assume that conservatism is the default position, it seems that at each junction I lay the burden of proof on the anti-sceptic: closure-retaining theories are more conservative than closure-denying theories, infallibilist theories are more conservative than fallibilist theories, and internalist theories are more conservative than externalist theories. The rationale is that if there is a serious reason for asking a howpossible question in the first place, then an obstacle-dissipating response cannot be conservative. If it were conservative to assume that baseball players can use ladders during baseball games, there would be no point in asking (HPcb). If it wouldn’t be revisionist to assume that we can acquire synthetic a priori knowledge through construction in pure intuition, Kant wouldn’t have had to raise (HPsap). Therefore, epistemologists who want to count one of the theories which I have classified as being at one point or other revisionist as conservative would have to show that the apparent obstacles which the theory in question dissipates are not intuitive at all but the product of mistaken theorizing. This in turn would imply that scepticism has no pretheoretical bite and that really there is no such thing as a sceptical paradox, because the principles which would be needed to establish it are not platitudinous at all but rather highly artificial products of philosophical theory-building.
Comments on Possibility of Knowledge Considering that most epistemologists claim that their theories of knowledge capture our everyday concept of knowledge and best concord with our everyday use of the word “knowledge” and with our pretheoretical intuitions about knowledge claims, the claim that most of these theories are revisionist may easily be misunderstood as the claim that these theories are all wrong. For this reason I want to emphasize two points. First, as I have just noted, theories are only revisionist if the obstacles they dissipate are not just products of mistaken theorizing. So unless these principles really are as intuitively plausible as some epistemologists believe, theories which offer dissipating instead of overcoming strategies are not revisionist at all. The second point I want to emphasize is that a theory of knowledge can be revisionist or conservative in more than one way. So far I discussed only the acceptance or denial of certain epistemic principles. Let’s call a theory which denies an intuitively plausible epistemic principle principle-revisionist and a theory which accepts it principle-conservative. In these terms scepticism may be the only completely principleconservative epistemology. But of course an epistemologist cannot simply rely on what epistemic principles people intuitively assent to; we also have to consider our everyday use of the word “knowledge” and our pretheoretical intuitions concerning knowledge claims. Call a theory which respects our everyday use of “knowledge” as well as our intuitive judgments about knowledge claims use-conservative and a theory which for some reason discards them use-revisionist. As we all know, when asked, people subscribe to many principles which they fail to live up to. Thus, there is no reason to expect that principle-conservatism will always go hand in hand with use-conservatism. It is therefore perfectly possible that some theory of knowledge best captures our everyday use of “knowledge” and our intuitions about knowledge-claims while at the same time being principle-revisionist. In fact, one possible explanation of the sceptical paradox is that no theory of knowledge can be principle-conservative and useconservative at the same time. Thus denying (1) is certainly use-revisionist, while denying (2) or (3) is probably principle-revisionist. 110 110 Thanks to Andreas Erz for comments on an earlier draft of this paper. 98 Simon Sauter Heidelberg University Simon.Sauter@stud.uni-heidelberg.de
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ABSTRACTA Linguagem, Mente e Ação
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Editorial We proudly present the fo
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Precis 3 is an obstacle-dissipating
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Precis 5 priori knowledge, the key
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Abstracta SPECIAL ISSUE IV, pp. 7-
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Denis Bühler 9 A similar ambiguity
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Denis Bühler 11 successful reasoni
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Denis Bühler 13 More generally, ap
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Denis Bühler 15 And he succeeds in
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Denis Bühler 17 His answer goes as
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Denis Bühler 19 thus threaten both
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Abstracta SPECIAL ISSUE IV, pp. 21
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Daniel Dohrn 23 which can be remove
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Daniel Dohrn 25 there is to be expe
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Daniel Dohrn 27 3. Problems of the
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Daniel Dohrn 29 Firstly, a means is
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Daniel Dohrn 31 knowledge, but in h
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4. Transcendental Arguments Strike
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Daniel Dohrn 35 not always necessar
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Daniel Dohrn 37 In Cassam´s opinio
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Daniel Dohrn 39 For this reason it
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Daniel Dohrn 43 trivial but they ca
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Abstracta SPECIAL ISSUE IV, pp. 45
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