No description available.

The thesis is argued that Wittgenstein's response, unlike either Moore's or Wright's, is the right answer to scepticism about the existence of an external world. Moore offers his brief 'proof' as an alternative to developed, theoretical responses, which fall prey to higher-order scepticism. As it fails to address the intuitions which give rise to scepticism, however, it seems merely dogmatic. Wright's more detailed argument invokes a principle to delineate factual from non-factual claims and thereby turns the sceptical argument on itself, but depends on our accepting this fundamental epistemological principle as a convention, which the sceptic need not. Wittgenstein declines to legitimate the sceptic by arguing with her, but presupposes that she has made a mistake. This mistake resides in a failure to acknowledge the level of agreement among speakers on which language depends, which includes taking it to be the case that there is an external world.

[No abstract available] / Arts, Faculty of / Philosophy, Department of / Graduate

No description available.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--McMaster University, 2004. / Advisor: P. Travis Kroeker. Includes bibliographical references ( leaves 317-322). Also available online.

I argue that despite the fact that there can be no strong refutation of skepticism it remains that ignoring skeptical hypotheses and relying on one’s sensory experience are both sound epistemic practices. This argument comes in the form of arguing that we are justified in ignoring skeptical hypotheses on the grounds that (1) they are merely logically possible, and (2) the merely logically possible is rarely relevant in the context of everyday life. I suggest that (2) is true on the grounds that the context of everyday life is one in which our epistemic pursuit of truth is mixed with other pragmatic goals. The result of this mix is that the pursuit of truth can conflict with our goal of avoiding error in such a way that we must choose to prioritize one goal over the other. The above choice implies that skepticism comes at an epistemic cost not acknowledge in the contemporary literature on external world skepticism. This epistemic cost of skepticism means that the relative risk of error involved in relying on sensory experience is not as epistemically problematic as has often been assumed. These considerations allow an anti-skeptical position in which relying on sensory experience is prima-facie justified despite the possibility of being a brain in a vat. In this paper I explore what such a position might look like and what the implications of such a view might be for relevant alternatives positions, the closure debate, and the concept of differing epistemic perspectives in contemporary epistemology.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--McMaster University, 1999. / Includes "critical interpretations of the work of G.E. Moore and Ludwig Wittgenstein, as well as some ... detailed critical discussions of recent responses to scepticism by Hilary Putnam and Michael Williams"--Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 184-188). Also available via World Wide Web.

Thesis advisor: Robert Faulkner / The following sketch attempts to look at the ways in which Francis Bacon helped to bring about the modern age by presenting a system of skepticism, in the form of his doctrine of idols, which initiated the break away from classical philosophy and Christian theology and made room for a new, secular science. By looking at Bacon’s peculiar and esoteric writing style as well as his detractors’ assessments of him, I show not only what they got wrong about Bacon but also and more importantly that many of their criticisms of Bacon’s role in the history of science and philosophy depend on his very success in brining about a reformation of men’s minds. I show how far-reaching his doctrine of the idols is and how it initiated the trend in modern philosophy to create systems of skepticisms that are based on human reason’s self-criticism. Finally, I show how Bacon’s doctrine of idols led to his refutations not only of philosophical doctrines but of Christian theology as well. / Thesis (MA) — Boston College, 2015. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Political Science.

Can an error be rational? Hegel traces modern skepticism to the mistaken idea that the object of knowledge is ontologically separate from our rational, subjective minds. Once we subscribe to this idea—which John McDowell has called “the basic misconception of modern philosophy”—we can only represent reality as it appears to us, as subjects, rather than know it in-itself, as it is independently of us. However, and contrary to McDowell and other prominent commentators, I argue that Hegel takes this mistake to be ethically rational; it is grounded in basic and enduring features of the modern socio-political order, features that are necessary for individual freedom and for economic and cultural development. And yet, while it is neither possible nor desirable to eliminate modern skepticism, I argue that Hegel’s social theory offers ethical arrangements that are meant to mitigate its potentially nihilistic effects. I reconstruct his account of the modern (nuclear) family as a case of what I call an “ethical remedy” to skepticism.

Bibliography: leaves 358-383.