Assertion and Practical Reasoning, Fallibilism and Pragmatic Skepticism
- PDF / 418,263 Bytes
- 19 Pages / 439.37 x 666.142 pts Page_size
- 93 Downloads / 214 Views
Assertion and Practical Reasoning, Fallibilism and Pragmatic Skepticism Christos Kyriacou 1 Received: 21 June 2019 / Accepted: 5 November 2019/ # Springer Nature B.V. 2019
Abstract Skeptical invariantism does not account for the intuitive connections between knowledge, assertion, and practical reasoning and this constitutes a significant problem for the position because it does not save corresponding epistemic appearances (cf. Hawthorne (2004:131-5)). Moreover, it is an attraction of fallibilist over infallibilist-skeptical views that they can easily account for the epistemic appearances about the connections between knowledge, assertion, and practical reasoning (cf. Williamson (2000:249255)). Call this argument ‘the argument from the knowledge norm’. I motivate and develop a Humean, pragmatist strategy for a skeptical response to ‘the argument from the knowledge norm’. Afterwards I outline a ‘toy’ version of pragmatic skepticism that can implement the strategy and save our everyday practice of assertion and practical reasoning. To this effect, I distinguish between assertibility conditions and truth conditions for ‘know’ and suggest that while assertibility conditions are pragmatic conditions sensitive to practical exigencies, truth conditions are semantic conditions sensitive only to truth. I briefly respond to three objections and conclude that pragmatic skepticism is resourceful enough to save our everyday practice of (fallibilist) assertion and practical reasoning and, hence, pay some due respect to corresponding epistemic appearances.
The practical social purposes served by our assertions and claims to know things in everyday life explain why we are normally satisfied with less than what, with detachment, we can be brought to acknowledge are the full conditions of knowledge. Stroud (1984:71)
* Christos Kyriacou [email protected]; http://edinburgh.academia.edu/ChristosKyriacou
1
Department of Classics and Philosophy, University of Cyprus, Nicosia, Cyprus
C. Kyriacou
1 Skeptical Invariantism and ‘the Argument from the Knowledge Norm’ Any standard version of skeptical invariantism is committed to three basic theses: (a) Invariantism: the standard of knowledge is invariant (and purely intellectual). (b) Stringency of Standard: the standard of knowledge is stringent enough to be far less satisfied than we ordinarily think it is satisfied.1 The conjunction of (a) Invariantism and (b) Stringency of Standard entails: (c) Radical Skepticism: We know far less than we ordinarily think we know (if we know anything at all) and, hence, radical skepticism is true. Typically, the stringent standard of knowledge is taken to be deductive justification that entails truth and, hence, skeptical invariantism is naturally conjoined with infallibilism as well.2 But no matter how exactly stringent the standard of knowledge is, given that it is not satisfied as often as we ordinarily think it is satisfied, the implication of the conjunction of (a) invariantism and (b) stringency of standard is (c) radical skepticism. Thus, t
Data Loading...
