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I aim to provide a satisfying response to radical scepticism, a view according to which our knowledge of the external world is impossible. In the first chapter I investigate into the nature and the source of scepticism. Radical scepticism is motivated both by the closureRK-based and the underdeterminationRK-based sceptical arguments. Because these two sceptical arguments are logically independent, any satisfying anti-sceptical proposal must take both of them into consideration. Also, scepticism is a paradox, albeit a spurious one, so we need to provide a diagnosis as to why we are lead into the paradox and why the alleged paradox misrepresents our epistemic standings. Hence, I advocate an obstacle-dissolving strategy for combating the sceptical problem. In chapter two, I discuss the anti-sceptical import of transcendental arguments. Although ambitious transcendental arguments are vulnerable to Stroud’s dilemma, I argue that modest transcendental arguments are promising. Modest transcendental arguments start from an undoubted psychological fact and then reveal some necessary theoretical commitments that we must make. Regarding these commitments, I submit that we are type II epistemically justified in believing them. Our commitments are type II justified in the sense that making these commitments can promote our epistemic goals, namely, the attainment of true beliefs and the avoidance of false beliefs. After that, in light of Cassam’s objection to transcendental arguments, I contend that a modest transcendental argument should be used as a stepping stone for a diagnostic anti-sceptical proposal. In chapter three, I develop a Davidsonian response to closureRK-based radical scepticism. This form of sceptical argument rests on the idea that there is no limitation on our acquisition of rationally grounded knowledge. I discuss Davidson’s theory of radical interpretation, the principle of charity and triangulation. Crucially, he argues that the content of a knowledge-apt everyday belief is determined by its typical cause and other relevant beliefs. Further, among different propositional attitudes, belief is prior to doubt. What follows is that doubt must be local because it must presume other content-determining beliefs. Also, I explore Davidson’s view on the concept of belief. On his view, in order to have a knowledge-apt belief, we must have the concept of knowledge-apt belief. We can command this concept by having the concept of objective truth. Objective truth requires that we are aware of and are capable of appreciating the possibility of a belief’s being true or false. And this possibility cannot be appreciated unless we have some related contentful beliefs to identify the content of the very belief. However, we are committed to, as opposed to believing, the proposition that the sceptical hypothesis does not obtain. It is impossible to appreciate the possibility of our fundamental commitments being false from our own perspective, because fundamental commitments specify the general cause of our beliefs. A change in this regard would cause a total change of the content of all beliefs, which leaves us no contentful belief at all to make this possibility intelligible. Therefore, the closureRK principle is not applicable to the evaluation of the sceptical hypothesis. Hence, we can retain the closureRK principle while evading the closureRK-based sceptical challenge. Unfortunately, the Davidsonian response cannot deal with the underdeterminationRK-based sceptical challenge, because we are not shown whether our rational support in the good case favours one’s everyday belief over its sceptical counterpart. In chapter four, I examine how epistemological disjunctivism can deal with underdeterminationRK-based radical scepticism. This form of sceptical argument assumes that our rational support provides at best inconclusive support for our beliefs. Therefore, a belief’s being rationally supported, no matter in the good case or in the bad case, is compatible with the belief’s being false. Epistemological disjunctivism claims that in paradigm cases of perceptual knowledge, our rational support can be both factive and reflectively accessible. The factive rational support at issue is one’s propositional seeing. I discuss both McDowell’s and Pritchard’s proposals for motivating factive seeing, and I argue for epistemological disjunctivism against three prime facie objections, i.e., the distinguishability problem, the basis problem and the access problem. When epistemological disjunctivism is shown to be a plausible view, I argue that underdeterminationRK-based radical scepticism can be dismissed. In particular, in the optimal case, factive rational support favours our everyday belief over the sceptical hypothesis. However, regarding closureRK-based radical scepticism, epistemological disjunctivism seems to licence a robust answer. The ambitious answer is that, in the good case, we can after all know the denial of the sceptical hypothesis in virtue of possessing factive rational support. And it is the immodesty of this answer that renders this response unpalatable. In the last chapter, I propose a combined treatment of the sceptical problem. Although both the Davidsonian response and the epistemological disjunctivist response can only deal with one aspect of the sceptical problem, their views are in fact mutually supportive. On the one hand, the Davidsonian response, together with a Wittgensteinian insight, shows that why rational support can only be provided in a local manner; on the other hand, epistemological disjunctivism reminds us that rational support can be factive in the good case. Putting these two points together allows us to answer the whole sceptical challenge in a uniform way. This combined proposal has three claims. First, our rational support can be both local and factive, so we can dismiss both sceptical arguments in one go. Second, the sceptical problem is a spurious paradox, so the combined treatment involves a diagnosis. This diagnosis starts from a modest transcendental argument which reveals some necessary commitments that we must make, and then proceeds to expose faulty assumptions in the sceptical paradox. Third, once the dubious assumptions are dislodged, we can evade the sceptical problem once and for all. In the end, we are offered with a satisfying response to radical scepticism.

The epistemological problem of the external world asks: (1) “How is knowledge of the world possible given certain obstacles which make it look impossible?” This is a “how-possible?” question: it asks how something is possible given certain obstacles which make it look impossible (cf. Cassam 2007; Nozick 1981; Stroud 1984). Now consider the following question, which asks: (2) “How is a philosophically satisfying answer to (1) possible?” Scepticism is the thesis that knowledge of the world is impossible. It therefore represents a negative answer to the first question. Meta-epistemological scepticism is the thesis that a satisfying philosophical explanation of how our knowledge of the world is possible is itself not possible. It therefore represents a negative answer to the second question. In this thesis, I explore the prospects of meta-epistemological scepticism. In particular, I structure the thesis around two master arguments from Stroud (1984, 2000, 2004, and 2009) for meta-epistemological scepticism. The first argument is what I call “Stroud’s puzzle”, and the second argument is “Stroud’s dilemma” (cf. Cassam 2009). I argue that Stroud’s puzzle fails to provide adequate support for meta-epistemological scepticism. However, I also argue that Stroud’s dilemma withstands serious objections (e.g., from Sosa 1994, Williams 1996, and Cassam 2009). In short, while Stroud’s puzzle fails to provide adequate support for meta-epistemological scepticism, Stroud’s dilemma does seem to provide adequate support for meta-epistemological scepticism. This thesis therefore represents a partial defence of meta-epistemological scepticism. Meta-epistemological scepticism is therefore a live option in epistemology. In Chapter 1, I explain what meta-epistemological is, present Stroud’s puzzle and Stroud’s dilemma for meta-epistemological scepticism, and argue that meta-epistemological sceptics are not committed to first-order scepticism. In Chapter 2, I examine what I call the “anti-revisionist” premise of Stroud’s puzzle and argue that it lacks adequate support. In Chapter 3, I examine the “conditional scepticism” premise of Stroud’s puzzle and argue that it lacks adequate support. In Chapter 4, I look at Williams’s (1996) master argument against Stroud’s dilemma, and argue that it fails. In Chapter 5, I look at externalist responses to Stroud’s dilemma, and in particular, Sosa (1994). I argue that Sosa’s objection fails, and therefore Stroud’s dilemma survives serious externalist objections. In Chapter 6, I explain Cassam’s (2009) argument against Stroud’s dilemma, and I argue that it fails. Chapter 7 concludes the thesis, summarising the main results.

The studies here reported involve two crosses, one of which was between a pure line of Kanred and a pure line of Martin from a bunt resistant selection. The other was between a pure line of G-149, a rust-resistant segregate from Sevier X Dicklow, and a pure line of Ridit. These were both economic breeding projects made in an effort to combine the good commercial qualities of Kanred and G-149 with the high bunt resistance of Martin and Ridit, respectively. These crosses also furnished, as a by-product, some good genetic data, as in each cross one parent was fully awned and the other awnless, one had red grain and the other white grain.

This thesis develops a postmodernist theory of institution, Discursive Organisation Theory (DOT), by building on elements of the work of Jacques Derrida and Giles Deleuze. One aspect of the theory is demonstrated by analysing transcriptions of eight focus groups composed of students studying in the field of business and management studies in universities in London. Postmodernists have so far eschewed theory development of this type but this study explicitly argues for the legitimacy of the project. The version of postmodernism to be used is carefully defined and takes as its central feature arguments from Derrida’s “Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences”. Derrida’s “absence of presence” is taken as the defining characteristic of this version of postmodernism. Its epistemology is developed from Derrida’s notion of différance. Its ontology is based on the realist ontology of Deleuze and places emphasis on the notion of assemblage (agencement). The theory assumes that the physical world is only knowable through the mediation of a system that is symbolic in nature which processes sense data. Since organisation of action is the ultimate purpose of this processing system, and is more fundamental than perception or cognition, it is necessary to build a model of this processing system in order to arrive at an understanding of institution, which is taken as the ultimate manifestation of organisation. This processing system is labelled as “discourse” in this thesis and includes all human symbolic systems and chiefly, but not limited to, language (Iedema 2007). The theory is developed by constructing a series of mutually dependent assemblages beginning with discourse itself, then the institution assemblage, then the organisation assemblage and ultimately the assemblage of everyday life, or society as a whole. These assemblages are fictions, reality is itself a continuum, but they are convenient for understanding the nature of the phenomena included at these levels and how they are interrelated. These phenomena traditionally come under the headings of subjectivity, identity, communication, conversation, power, institution, bureaucracy (Weber, 1964), culture, organisation and many others. Derrida’s concept of deconstruction is used as a method to analyse the processes of constructing and maintaining organisation. Bureaucracy is taken to be a diagram (Deleuze) belonging to the assemblage of everyday life and generates the only legitimate form of organisation in the fields of government and private enterprise that can be used today. Grid-Group Cultural Theory, as developed by Mary Douglas, Michael Thompson and others, is reinterpreted and used to analyse institutional construction. This part of the theory is tested empirically. The data gathered from the focus groups is analysed using Grid-Group Cultural Theory as a typology of thought styles. The analysis shows that the thought styles interact with each other both antagonistically and co-operatively in a way that confirms the contention that Grid-Group Cultural Theory may be used to deconstruct bureaucracy. This study makes several theoretical contributions by developing theory in an area where little has been done before. It makes a practical contribution by demonstrating how practitioners may be helped to make more effective decisions. It points the way to further development and applications of the theory.

In this thesis I give a response to external world scepticism. I first argue that scepticism arises when we accept that it is an empirical question whether I am in a sceptical scenario, that is, a scenario in which my beliefs are coherent, and yet my empirical beliefs are false. The idea that it is an empirical question whether I am in a sceptical scenario gets its plausibility from the realist claim that our empirical beliefs have an objective subject matter. I then attempt to give a response to scepticism that is compatible with this realist claim. Three promising responses to scepticism are considered, but are found to be inadequate. Seeing why these responses are inadequate helps us to appreciate some of the conditions on an adequate response to scepticism. By drawing on the work of Donald Davidson I develop a response to scepticism that is compatible with the realist claim, and that meets these conditions. According to this response, when we get clear about the concept of belief we see that sceptical scenarios are a conceptual impossibility. Thus, just as it is not an empirical question whether I am a married bachelor, it is not an empirical question whether I am in a sceptical scenario, and the argument for scepticism breaks down.

The historiography of philosophy presents many difficulties to anybody addressing its more general features. How easy it would be if we had only one skeptic philosopher - who calls himself a skeptic or is believed to be one - and just one 'other' philosopher who is not a skeptic or at least does not want be known as such. The third person would be the historian of philosophy who informs us about what befalls the skeptic philosopher and his skepticism. Does be have many followers or many critics or both? Does he stick to his opinions throughout his life or does he change them? ls he ignored by the other philosopher or rather criticized by him? The historian would report all of this to us; we would read his story and be in a position to discuss it, to compare it with the skeptic''s own writings and with those of his opponent, and so on. Unfortunately, this ideal constellation does not exist. History is more complex; the historians of philosophy reporting on skepticism have to deal with several skeptical philosophers - self-declared or suspected - from ancient and modern times, and with various theories of skepticism - apologetic and polemic, prompted by religious, scientific or other considerations. Most importantly, historians of philosophy are not a third party. This can be learned from Stäudlin''s History of Skepticism.

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Languages differ in the means they avail themselves of for the structural realization of information structure, where available options are word order, prosody and morphology. Turkish has long been characterized as predominantly using word order and its variation in realizing information structure, where certain positions in a sentence are associated with certain pragmatic functions related to information structure. Prosody has been proposed to play only a secondary role interacting with word order. Contrary to this widely established view, the thesis argues that the notion that sentential positions have pragmatic functions and word order variation is a syntactic means to realize these functions can be abandoned, without any loss of explanatory power, in favor of a tune-based perspective where prosody is the sole structural determinant of information structure. In this setting word order variations are argued to be prosodically motivated, in that Turkish phonology imposes some precedence constraints on intonational contours. Word order variation then turns out to be just a consequence as opposed to being a determinant in attaining the right information structure required by the discourse context. To substantiate these claims a tune-based account, based on Steedman&#039 / s account of English information structure, is proposed for the structural realization of information structure in Turkish, whereby information structural units are directly associated with prosodic phrases intonationally marked in certain ways. Validity of the account is tried to be established by intonational analysis of recorded speech data. As for the explanatory value, the information structure phenomena that has received positional explanation in the relevant literature, are tried to be captured only in prosodic terms, without committing to positions, syntactic strategies and such.