Skepticism

Chomsky’s (1986) notion of I-language holds that human linguistic competence is grounded in an internal, intensional system of rules and representations. Large language models (LLMs) now produce syntactically rich and context-sensitive language without any evident symbolic grammar, which raises a question of explanatory necessity: when a system performs linguistically, must an I-language be posited to explain that performance, or does the posit merely redescribe the very behavior it was meant to explain? This paper argues for the latter and develops a (...) formal eliminative argument. Drawing on Lohndal’s minimalist syntax, Glanzberg’s contextual semantics, and Field’s paracomplete logic, it first shows that transformer parameter spaces fail the structural criteria of an I-language, namely discrete, asymmetric, recursive operations such as Merge. It then shows that continuous vector geometry, through multi-head attention and paracomplete negation, accounts for syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic behavior without discrete rules or modular boundaries. A further discussion of Chomsky’s internalist rejection of semantic values, and its Moorean critique, clarifies what is at stake for reference and meaning. The conclusion is methodological: internal computational structure does not amount to an internal language in the theoretically relevant sense, and fluent output alone therefore provides no ground for attributing an I-language, or richer mental states, to such systems. (shrink)

In his book How to Take Skepticism Seriously, Adam Leite observes that in ordinary life we proceed under the assumption of “epistemic asymmetry”: the principle that we are permitted to draw on knowledge that we wouldn’t have were the counterpossibilities that threaten our knowledge true in order to rule out those very counterpossibilities. Leite argues that epistemic asymmetry allows us to rule out the skeptical possibilities, and further, that it allows us to do so even if we accept the view (...) that the most that sensory experience can provide on its own is knowledge about how things merely appear in sensory experience. While I agree with his observations about our ordinary position, I raise questions concerning the decisiveness of Leite’s appeal to what we accept there in the dialectical engagement with the skeptic. I also raise questions about his attempt to neutralize the skeptical threat posed by the restricted conception of what we immediately perceive. And finally, I briefly explore the question whether there might not be a “truth in skepticism.”. (shrink)

Adam Leite’s core claim is that there is no need for epistemological theory in addressing the challenge of external world scepticism, that our “pre-philosophical position” already contains resources sufficient to neutralise it. It is argued on the contrary that, properly understood, the best of the sceptical paradoxes arise within our pre-philosophical position. An “upper-level” paradox, targeting not knowledge but the notion of being in a position to claim knowledge, is developed to illustrate this, and it is suggested that the real (...) lesson of scepticism is one repeatedly hinted at in Wittgenstein’s On Certainty: that all enquiry rests upon framework presuppositions which are not themselves the product of enquiry, and of which we accordingly have no knowledge when that is understood as requiring cognitive achievement. The mistake of ‘The Sceptic’ is to interpret this point as somehow debunking our knowledge, rather than as teaching us something about its nature. (shrink)

In his excellent book, Adam Leite argues that we can give a “fully satisfactory refutation” of Cartesian skepticism without epistemological theory. Here Leite claims to be defending the tradition of Moore, Austin, and Wittgenstein against the dominant methodology of contemporary epistemology. This essay clarifies Leite’s thesis and the anti-theoretical methodology that he recommends, and then argues for the necessity of epistemological theorizing in a philosophically satisfactory refutation of skepticism. In effect, there are two central issues before us. First, what does (...) “epistemological theorizing” or “development of an epistemological theory” amount to? Second, what would constitute a philosophically satisfactory refutation of the kind of skepticism that Leite’s analysis targets? (shrink)

This paper addresses a new skeptical argument called “meta-skepticism.” Unlike traditional skepticism, which is concerned with whether our beliefs are justified or amount to knowledge, meta-skepticism is concerned with whether the epistemic concepts we use to assess our beliefs are important at all. If there are many coherent knowledge-like concepts available and no principled reason to privilege ours over the alternatives, then meeting our epistemic standards might be insignificant. The paper answers that meta-skeptical challenge. By taking a functionalist approach, I (...) argue that epistemic concepts get their significance from the role they play in identifying reliable believers, regulating inquiry, and coordinating information exchange. A comparison of rival epistemic concepts reveals that our ordinary notion of knowledge is better suited to these roles than various rivals. I conclude that pluralism about epistemic concepts is perfectly compatible with having good reasons to prefer some concepts over others, and that meta-skepticism rests on a mistaken demand to evaluate epistemic importance independently of the functions our concepts serve. (shrink)

Everyone with a platform seems to be waiting for something before they will speak plainly about the American presidency: some final, unambiguous event that would retroactively authorise what they already believe. This essay argues that such an event, if it arrives, will arrive after saying so could still change anything, and that the waiting is a recurring form of cowardice that has presented itself as restraint for a century. -/- The argument turns on a recursion that ordinary caution ignores. Epistemic (...) restraint assumes that evidence accumulates independently of the thing being judged. That assumption fails when the process under suspicion acts on the institutions that produce evidence about it. Inspectors general who are fired write no reports, prosecutors who are forced out file no cases, and newsrooms that are banned ask no questions. Under those conditions, waiting for stronger evidence lowers the probability that decisive evidence ever becomes public, and the confidence required to speak falls in proportion to the gap between what a false alarm costs, which is a reputation, and what silence costs, which is the set of mechanisms by which a republic notices and corrects its own failures. -/- The essay grounds this in a documentary record: a retired four-star general's on-the-record account of the President's praise for Hitler; the New York Times's 1922 assurance that Hitler's antisemitism was bait rather than belief; a Republican election official's sworn testimony to a hearing convened to prove the opposite of what he said; the President's own financial disclosures and a dated sequence of donations and pardons; and a single week in September 2026 in which the House examined 0.009 percent of one state's ballots and then cancelled a session rather than vote on a war both chambers had ordered ended. It closes on fifteen documented charges, each standing on its own sourcing, none depending on the pattern being real. -/- An investigative feature of the Hannah Arendt Institute, Golden Physics Project. (shrink)

Crispin Wright urges that there is a compelling skeptical argument that the method of my book, How to Take Skepticism Seriously (OUP, 2024), cannot satisfactorily address. This charge is incorrect, as this paper explains: materials already in the book provide a satisfactory response. The paper clarifies my approach of working from within the ordinary, pre-philosophical epistemic position, detailing methodological obligations it involves and highlighting ways in which Wright mischaracterizes the nature of my response to skeptical argumentation. The paper then directly (...) confronts the skeptical argument offered by Wright, showing how it involves requirements that are belied by the commitments of ordinary epistemic practice (as shown by clear examples). Wright offers nothing whatsoever in favor of these requirements, and the only example he provides does not do the needed work. His skeptical argument consequently fails. The paper ends with some lessons from this discussion. (shrink)

Most people are suspicious of conspiracy theories. The claims that water fluoridation is mass poisoning, that the UN deliberately released the COVID-19 virus, and that George Bush was responsible for 9/11 are, to many of us, obviously absurd. Nevertheless, it has proven surprisingly difficult to explain why we should be suspicious of conspiracy theories as a class, in any general way. -/- In this article, I present a solution to this problem. I identify a general feature of conspiracy theories and (...) argue that this feature makes it impossible for high credences regarding conspiracy theories to be rationally justified. More specifically, I argue that conspiracy theories are claims that, if true, imply that certain skeptical-hypothesis-like claims (“cover-up claims”) are extremely likely to be true. As a consequence, if we think that high credences regarding skeptical hypotheses cannot be rationally justified, we should also think that high credences regarding conspiracy theories cannot be justified. (shrink)

This paper provides a brief overview of the chapters and main themes of How to Take Skepticism Seriously (Oxford University Press, 2024). It sketches the book’s approach to its primary aim: showing how external world skepticism can be satisfactorily refuted without building or depending upon epistemological theory. While drawing upon the pioneering work of J.L. Austin and G.E. Moore, the book engages a wide range of issues in contemporary epistemology.

This paper clarifies the methodology of my book, How to Take Skepticism Seriously (OUP, 2024). The book aims to dispose of external world skepticism without building or appealing to epistemological theory. John Greco urges this can’t be done. In response, this paper clarifies what is meant by “epistemological theorizing” in this context. I then address Greco’s argument that no refutation of skepticism can be satisfactory as a refutation unless it involves epistemological theory. I show how an approach like mine, which (...) works from within the commitments, practices, and procedures of ordinary epistemic life, can explain why the skeptic is wrong and yield deeper understanding of the contours of ordinary epistemic life as well as of what knowledge and reasonable belief require. Three moments from my book illustrate how my methodology yields refutation, explanation, and understanding—without engaging in the form of theorizing that Greco demands. (shrink)

Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī was one of the most influential philosophers, theologians, and mystics of the medieval Islamic world. In his autobiographical work, The Deliverance from Error, al-Ghazālī describes his intellectual and spiritual crisis, during which he doubted the reliability of everything he thought he knew. Beginning with his senses, he asks whether they might deceive us, and then turns his skepticism against reason itself. Just as waking reveals our dreams to be illusions, al-Ghazālī wonders whether there might be a higher (...) state of consciousness from which our present experience would appear similarly illusory. In this piece, I examine al-Ghazālī’s argument for global skepticism and his attempt to overcome it through mystical experience. Can we know that we are not dreaming? And if we cannot, what would it take to recover our confidence in reason once more? (shrink)

En la literatura en torno a la filosofía tardía de Wittgenstein, se ha debatido ampliamente si sus ideas apoyan un relativismo epistémico. Por este motivo, es menester examinar en qué medida su obra, particularmente Sobre la certeza, sostiene una postura relativista, definida por la dependencia de las creencias y de su justificación a un sistema epistémico específico. A través de una revisión de sus tesis sobre la justificación, los sistemas epistémicos y el rol de las creencias bisagra, se argumenta que (...) Wittgenstein rechaza un fundacionalismo absoluto y que, aunque permite la variabilidad y dependencia de sistemas, no suscribe a una equivalencia entre ellos. En última instancia, el texto concluye que Wittgenstein ofrece un relativismo epistémico moderado que descarta la posibilidad de resolver racionalmente desacuerdos entre sistemas incompatibles. Sin embargo, su anti-fundacionalismo no deriva en escepticismo radical, sino que clarifica la operación efectiva de nuestras prácticas epistémicas, sugiriendo que las creencias pueden justificarse en su propio contexto sin necesidad de una validación universal. (shrink)

Duncan McDonald claims his philosophy of Mystrikism supersedes the long distinguished tradition of humanism. He alleges humanism has a human-centric focus, ignoring our moral obligations to other sentient creatures and the environment. This hubris and egotism, he insists, blinds humanists to a sense of wonder and the spiritual dimension in our lives. Leslie Allan shows how McDonald’s criticisms result from an uncharitable reading of core humanist documents and from paying insufficient attention to the history of humanism and the strategic priorities (...) of the humanist movement. (shrink)

Arata Hamawaki proposes that external world skepticism arises from dissatisfaction with the limitations of ordinary epistemic life. He offers a Davidson-style transcendental argument in response, urges that certain views of perceptual knowledge lead to skepticism, and suggests that we can’t properly claim to know there is an external world. I address each of these charges. After reviewing failings in Barry Stroud’s attempt to get skepticism going, I explain why dissatisfaction with the limitations of ordinary epistemic life does not lead to (...) a reasonable skeptical conclusion. The Davidson-style argument is not needed for a satisfactory response. It risks obscuring our epistemic fallibility and vulnerability and perhaps expresses a yearning for more security than we can have. Finally, there is no good argument for the claim that we can’t properly claim to know that there is a world outside of our minds. An appendix addresses considerations about perceptual knowledge. (shrink)

I set out to find a definition of skepticism as a virtue. To do so, I first argue against three meanings that philosophers have attached to skepticism: error theory, epistemic humility, and careful treatment of evidence. For each, I explain why conflating them with skepticism undermines the specificity of what skepticism means, and thus cannot serve as part of a redemptive project of skepticism. I then make my own suggestion: skepticism is the virtue concerned with the proper treatment of alternative (...) theories, theories we reject despite their being consistent with all available evidence. (shrink)

This essay examines the overall strategy and structure of Kevin McCain’s proposed solutions to skeptical subjects, with some further application to the particular topic of external world skepticism. More specifically, I argue that his Phenomenal Explanationist account of propositional justification as the key to answering skeptical concerns runs into difficulty, especially when it comes to the justification of beliefs about necessary truths.

During a conversation about skepticism at a closed 1986 Stanford Conference, Donald Davidson remarks that an envatted brain might correctly be interpreted as talking about the world outside its vat, to which it could have access via an “indirect causal chain.” In this paper, I examine this puzzling suggestion in the context of Davidson’s theory of triangulation, which would seem to preclude the interpreter being a mediate cause in the chain stemming from objects to the subject of interpretation. By prying (...) apart a range of scenarios that the conference participants discuss, I distinguish Davidson’s antiskeptical argument from others in the semantic externalist family to which it belongs, and argue that his approach to language and mind may provide particular consolation to a person made anxious by the threat of solipsism. (shrink)

My essay draws attention to several little-known texts by Wittgenstein in which he addresses the processes which may precede a genocide. I seek to demonstrate that Wittgenstein’s thought contains resources that may be drawn on in confronting such ethical and political problems, and more specifically, in addressing issues that arise in relation to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. The resources I locate in Wittgenstein’s work include techniques for shifting attitudes and for redirecting attention, for unsettling interlocutors from their complacency and for leading (...) them to transform their ways of seeing the problems they confront. In this connection, I reflect on the ethical and political efficacy of experiences of the uncanny. I also find in Wittgenstein the suggestion that moral philosophy calls for a mode of engagement which is essentially first-personal, and refuses to separate the biographical from the philosophical. In order to put this suggestion to the test, the essay is written in the idiom of autotheory. (shrink)

Under contract, publication: 2027. Contributors (alphabetically): Idit Chikurel, Katherine Dunlop, Timothy Franz, Gideon Freudenthal, Paul Franks, Katharina Kraus, Maria Caterina Marinelli, Yitzhak Melamed, Karin Nisenbaum, Benjamin Pollock, Peter Thielke, Yoav Schaefer, Jelscha Schmid, Jason Yonover.

How can the joint work of structure and agency be conceived, and made testable, within a cognition that has no external point of support? We propose a framework in which cognition is enclosed in a capsule that is closed and opaque: its rules are inaccessible from without, yet different configurations of its internal structure yield internally distinguishable consequences, so that the framework remains testable from within. Within this enclosure, the observed human world is presented as the joint and asymmetric product (...) of two contributions: a throw on the side of matter, whose content consciousness does not author, and an actualization on the side of consciousness, whose measure it does govern. The throw sets the ceiling of possible amplitude; the measure, coded as a two-input gradient between the height of reflective sight and the integrity of its substrate, sets the realized fraction and the form. From the closure we derive a parity of influence between knowledge and ignorance, offered as the observable signature of a closed cognition. The structural side is furnished with a minimal apparatus synthesized from previously published works: three layers, moral, epistemic, and cultural-civilizational, a navigational pool treated as a channel rather than a layer, and three inter-layer connections of declared and unequal epistemic standing. The apparatus undertakes one prediction and two refusals: it predicts the corridor, the ceiling and the set of possible modalities legible in the antecedent state of the layers, and it refuses to predict the throw or the playing. The pianist of the title is the acting consciousness so placed: dealt a part it did not compose, within a corridor it can read but not choose. All connections have so far been examined retrospectively; the decisive prospective test lies ahead. We suggest the framework as a way of seeing, not as a proven result. (shrink)

Streumer argues that all normative properties are descriptive properties. His first argument is based on the principle that necessarily coextensive predicates ascribe the same property (N), and the claim that there is a descriptive predicate that is necessarily coextensive with normative predicates. From this Streumer concludes that normative properties are identical with descriptive properties. I argue that, even if we accept (N), this conclusion does not follow. Normative properties could only be descriptive properties if there is some descriptive way in (...) which all instances of normative properties are similar. But Streumer does not show that, and the prospects for doing so are, I believe, not good. His second argument rests on the premise that the nature of normative properties cannot depend on which first order normative theory is true. I argue that this premise is false, and that the argument for it does not sit comfortably with (N). (shrink)

We state and defend the Epistemic Incompleteness Principle (EIP), consisting of two claims. Claim 1 (Incompleteness of Content): no knower can represent all propositions in its domain. Claim 2 (Recursive Non-Certifiability): no internal certification procedure by which a knower estimates the magnitude of its own incompleteness can itself be certified as adequate from within the knower’s representational resources. Every proposed certification procedure is itself an epistemic object requiring certification, generating a regress that does not terminate within the system. Claim 1 (...) is well-established and independently confirmed by Gödel’s incompleteness theorems and recent formal work in AI self-modeling and recognition-based decision theory. Claim 2 is EIP’s distinctive contribution. It does not assert that internal estimates of incompleteness are worthless — they may be useful — but that no such estimate can be certified as adequate from within the system that generated it. The argument for the central premise of Claim 2 takes the form of an exhaustive dilemma: whatever grounds the warrant for any certification procedure must be either internal to the knower, in which case the regress resumes, or external, in which case it fails the criterion of internal certification. No third alternative exists. This recursive non-certifiability arises from the structure of justification itself rather than from diagonalization, and applies wherever justification applies. We examine independent convergences from Kozłowski (2026) and Vadagam (2026), show that neither reaches Claim 2, formalize the regress structure, and develop two principal applications: the structural non-certifiability of AI self-assessment, and the unavailability of any terminating justificatory chain for classical theism’s omniscience claim. (shrink)

Modern cosmology rests on a foundation it cannot directly see. According to Planck satellite observations, baryonic matter—ordinary matter, everything we can detect— constitutes only 4.9–5.0% of the total energy-matter content of the observable universe; the remaining ~95% consists of dark matter (~27%) and dark energy (~68%) that have never been directly observed. This paper argues that this figure is not merely a scientific fact but also marks a structural boundary of human cognition, which it names the Baryonic Epistemological Ceiling. Humanity (...) observes, theorizes, and reasons primarily within the 5% baryonic region, while the ~95% admits, at present, neither direct observation nor direct comprehension. The Gray Zone Principle of Paper 1 is proposed as a mediating mechanism for reasoning across this boundary under constraint, rather than merely lamenting it. The paper defines the Ceiling, states the conditions under which the thesis would be falsified, analyzes its structural features, and shows how the Gray Zone Principle mediates it through three coupled operations. Implications for philosophy, cosmology, artificial intelligence, and the theory of knowledge are discussed. A note on scope precedes the argument: the central thesis is a claim about the present epistemic structure of human cognition, not a metaphysical decree of permanent impossibility. Crucially, the thesis is framed to be falsifiable: it would be disconfirmed by a reproducible direct detection revealing a non-gravitational coupling of the dark sector to Standard-Model matter (one that does not reduce to gravitational inference), by an unmodified baryonic theory predicting dark-sector phenomena at its own evidential standard, or by a substantial revision of the measured ~5% fraction. (shrink)

Belief in malevolent global conspiracies is often treated as a defeater for philosophical seriousness. Engaging with Lee Basham's defense of conspiracy theorizing and Genia Schönbaumsfeld's critique, I make two claims. First, we must distinguish the ambitious multi-institutional schemes of non-total malevolent global conspiracies, which nevertheless remain evidentially vulnerable, from conspiracy theories that are self-sealing. Only the latter are epistemically vacuous. Second, properly understood, Cartesian doubt is a norm-governed temporary device for re-ordering reasons, a standing commitment to the view that everything (...) can be doubted. The assumed kinship between radical skepticism and self-sealing conspiracy theories, therefore, overstates their structural similarity. -/- Keywords: conspiracy theories, Descartes, epistemology, malevolent global conspiracy, radical skepticism, Wittgenstein. (shrink)

Lewis’s reference magnetism is meant to address worries raised by Putnam’s anti-realist model-theoretic argument (MTA). I won’t try to determine whether it succeeds in that regard. But suppose – as many contemporary metaphysicians do – that it does succeed. Putnam’s got another argument. Putnam’s brain-in-a-vat argument (BVA) is not just another attempt to respond to Cartesian skepticism. It is also, like the MTA, an attack on realism. And because the brain-in-a-vat argument proceeds on the basis of different – and more (...) conservative – assumptions about the nature of reference, a solution to the MTA does not automatically extend to the BVA. So: if we suppose that reference magnetism succeeds in addressing the worries raised by the MTA, what should we think of its prospects for mounting a response to the BVA? I argue that the metaphysical realist does have a response to the BVA. That response, however, is importantly different from what the realist might have thought going in. I argue that the realist should insist on a distinction between a theory’s truth and its overall epistemic success. In turn, the realist can maintain that there are genuinely radical yet non-self-refuting skeptical hypotheses, but that such hypotheses concern not the truth of a theory but a different aspect of epistemic success, namely the fundamentality of its ideology. Such a response is consistent with the conclusion of the BVA. Nevertheless, it deprives that argument of its anti-realist force. The view I suggest thus makes theoretical space for the semantic considerations Putnam brings to bear while preserving the spirit of the metaphysical picture he attacks. (shrink)

This paper is a critical examination of Phenomenal Explanationism (PE), as defended in Kevin McCain’s Explanatory Solutions to Skeptical Problems. I begin by discussing McCain’s characterization of PE as a kind of internalism, and the related question of what possession of evidence requires. I then examine the account of presentational appearances, argue that it overintellectualizes ordinary perceptual experience, and suggest a more phenomenologically apt picture in its place. I also examine McCain’s appreciation condition for doxastic justification, which is only briefly (...) mentioned in the book but developed elsewhere, arguing that the account has counterintuitive results, and I raise a related difficulty regarding the justification of logical falsehoods. I then show that there is a gap in McCain’s argument against memory skepticism that the skeptic can exploit. Finally, I question whether skeptical hypotheses carry the asymmetric theoretical commitments McCain attributes to them. (shrink)

This article responds to critical commentaries on Explanatory Solutions to Skeptical Problems. It demonstrates that the insightful and penetrating criticisms of Jonathan Dixon, Everett Fulmer, Ali Hasan, Blake McAllister, and Kevin Meeker ultimately fail to undermine the plausibility of Phenomenal Explanationism and its responses to skeptical problems.

The argument of this dissertation is built through sustained and critical dialogue with several figures in the (Western) history of hermeneutical thought and pivots on a problem that defined the early development of hermeneutics: the problem of the criterion for interpretation. This problem poses a unique set of philosophical challenges and moves us in the direction of a distinguishing mark, not merely for the justification of some particular interpretation, but a mark that would testify to the legitimacy of hermeneutical inquiry (...) itself. Although this dissertation pays tribute to the far-reaching, substantial, and severely neglected history of hermeneutics, and contributes to expanding our understanding of the hermeneutical beyond canonical figures and boundaries, tribute is not its main objective. Instead, the deeper profit of this amplified vista – which stems directly from my retrieval of the problem of the criterion – is the recovery of a systematic unity of approach to the hermeneutical stretching across the confines of historiographical division. It is thus the reconstruction of an integrated line of thought, rather than lines of historical influence, that is the chief purpose of this work. Specifically, this dissertation aims to provide (1) the reconstruction of a line of response to the problem of the criterion for interpretation – and the problem of grounding interpretation; (2) the general formulation of this line of argument as one that involves a transcendental modality, and (3) its defense. To these ends, Chapter 1 retrieves the problem of the criterion for interpretation, initially posed in the context of a strand of semantic skepticism endemic to the German Enlightenment called “exegetical skepticism”. Chapter 2 examines the doctrine of hermeneutical probability in the work of Christian Thomasius, distinguishes it from exegetical skepticism, and diagnoses its failure to reply to the skeptic. Chapter 3 provides an analysis of Christian August Crusius' reply to the problem of the criterion and associates it, if successful, to the idea of “transcendental grounding”. Next, Chapter 4 leverages the apparent similarity between the Crusian and Gadamerian positions into an opportunity to further define transcendental grounding as an approach to understanding in Gadamer. Chapter 5 then presses the Crusian line of argument further and reconstructs a Gadamerian reply to the problem of the criterion, defending it against the skeptic. Aims (1) and (3) thus attained, the final two chapters shift focus form the hermeneutical to the transcendental in pursuit of aim (2). Accordingly, Chapter 6 identifies an engagement with a version of the problem of the criterion in Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, the Transcendental Deduction specifically. And, finally, Chapter 7 draws a comparison between the proof-structure of Kant's Transcendental Deduction and the transcendental line of reply to the problem of the criterion that will have been my focus. (shrink)

Young people need help finding purposes worth pursuing. They also enter identity-shaping settings with uneven knowledge, material dependence, and a powerful need for belonging. A ready-made purpose can therefore provide genuine orientation while also becoming a vehicle of control. The central ethical problem is not that meaning is inherited or socially formed. It is that an authority may condition care, status, information, or safety on premature surrender of the young person's continuing power to assess and revise a life-defining commitment. -/- (...) This paper develops a process standard for distinguishing formation from capture. It integrates work on adolescent identity and purpose with self-determination theory, research on conditional regard and psychological control, relational accounts of autonomy, and the child's interest in an open future. The resulting audit protects four freedoms: inquiry; comparison and delay; revision; and safe exit. These protections do not require neutrality, emotional detachment, or weak conviction. They require that a commitment remain answerable to reasons under conditions in which honest doubt does not predictably cost the person the relationships and basic goods needed to think. -/- The main result is bounded. A purposeful life, strong community, or sincere profession does not by itself show that the process of commitment was legitimate. Conversely, an inherited or demanding commitment is not thereby imposed. Guidance becomes exploitative when a duty-bearing authority uses dependency to obstruct the four freedoms and thereby takes custody of meaning-making. Institutions can repair that wrong by separating care from assent, making alternatives discussable, permitting developmentally appropriate delay, treating revision as possible growth, and making departure practically survivable. (shrink)

I’m looking with this article to present the main themes of Lukács’s last work, Prolegomena zur Ontologie des gesellschaftlichen Seins. For reach this objective I consider the reflexion on ontology and social dramaturgy. The main concern of Lukács is social ontology, but I change that to political experience. In a way to realize political ontology as a reflection opened by the inconsistency of the dramaturgy mainly as presupposed in the idea of political representation. For this, I need to talk about (...) some problems coming from philosophical skepticism. (shrink)

This paper examines the relationship between sceptical attitudes and religious belief in the Dialogues.

A current debate in philosophy focusses on whether propositional knowledge is necessary for wisdom. In this paper I defend the view that propositional knowledge is necessary for wisdom. I call Weak Reductionism the view that propositional knowledge is merely necessary for wisdom, but not sufficient. I also examine two rival accounts of wisdom –Strong Reductionism, the view that propositional knowledge is both necessary and sufficient for wisdom, and Non-Reductionism, the view that propositional knowledge is neither necessary and nor sufficient for (...) wisdom. I critique both of these views and find them wanting in light of various wisdom-related intuitions that we have. (shrink)

Arguments from reason claim that naturalism cannot accommodate rational inference because physical causes track causal history rather than logical grounds. Their strongest versions identify a serious explanatory burden: a theory of mind must explain how beliefs possess content, respond to reasons, and produce conclusions because those reasons support them. This paper argues that apologetic uses of that burden routinely outrun what it establishes. Two bridges are missing. First, physical realization does not by itself exclude rational explanation. A belief may be (...) causally implemented and still be explained at the personal level by the evidence an agent recognized; naturalistic proposals concerning content, function, and mental causation are contested, not nonexistent. Second, even a successful refutation of naturalism would not entail Christian theism, still less Christian ownership of rational norms. The conclusion would leave multiple non-naturalist views open and would impose positive explanatory debts on any Christian account. The social consequence matters. Human inquiry necessarily depends on testimony and expertise, but rational dependence remains answerable to public criteria: track record, relevant competence, independence, responsiveness to objections, and the comparative quality of reasons. It becomes outsourced rationality when deference is used to pre-authorize a conclusion or disqualify a critic before the critic's argument is considered. The paper therefore offers a bounded verdict. The argument from reason may challenge some forms of reductionism; it does not supply a Christian monopoly on thought. Using it as such is not a defense of reason but an evasion of reason's reciprocal burdens. (shrink)

Ordinary belief-talk is often treated as binary: a person believes a proposition or does not. Ordinary speech is less crude. Speakers say that a claim is possible, plausible, probable, almost certain, or still doubtful. This paper argues that such modifiers are not verbal decoration. Although they do not encode fixed probabilities or reveal inner credence with mechanical precision, they alter the strength of a public commitment and the reliance invited from a listener. That function exposes a neglected form of epistemic (...) misconduct: removing a warranted qualifier can launder evidential uncertainty into social authority. The argument distinguishes graded confidence, outright belief, and assertion, then replaces exact numerical matching with an ordered calibration norm. A body of evidence may permit a range of reasonable confidence grades. A speaker is miscalibrated when an utterance undertakes a grade above that range. Existential importance, emotional intensity, identity protection, and communal reward can rationally alter attention, inquiry, caution, or action; unless they change the truth-relevant evidence, however, they do not raise the evidential ceiling. Applied to religious discourse, the result is pointed but bounded. A person may rationally hope, trust, practice, investigate, or act under uncertainty. The paper condemns the narrower practice of using unqualified certainty, knowledge language, or revelation-like authority when the speaker's grounds remain mixed, private, or defeasible. The constructive alternative is gradient honesty: state the confidence actually licensed, identify the source of support, disclose live defeaters, and let language weaken or strengthen as the evidence changes. (shrink)

William Lane Craig has said that if Christianity had even one chance in a million of being true, it would be worth believing. He later clarified that the number was colloquial and distinguished epistemic justification from pragmatic justification. The stronger interpretation is therefore not that a valuable outcome becomes more probable. It is that the value of the Christian outcome can make belief rational despite very weak evidential support. This paper argues that the proposal is intrinsically irrational as a basis (...) for belief: it offers a reason to want or use a belief, not a truth-directed reason to hold it. The argument turns on a separation between belief and action. Evidence governs credence—how likely a claim appears—and thereby governs honest belief. Risks and rewards govern what to do with that credence. A large benefit can make a specified action rational at a very low probability: one may investigate, take a precaution, try a reversible practice, or accept a working assumption. Yet the action calculation holds the low probability fixed. It gives no rational route from probably false to believe true. Craig's free, safe experimental-drug analogy confirms the distinction, because taking a drug with a tiny chance of success is rational without believing that it will work. The wager also faces an internal Christian problem. The Gospel describes saving confession as joined to belief in the heart, acknowledges honest mixed belief rather than demanding a performance of certainty, and portrays the biblical deity as knowing human hearts. If the wagerer does not inwardly take Christianity to be true, professing belief is pretense that such a deity would detect. If the wagerer honestly reports extremely low confidence, the honesty is commendable but concedes that wager-driven belief has not occurred. Practices may produce new evidence or merely induce confidence: in the first case evidence, not payoff, warrants the later belief; in the second, the belief remains epistemically defective. The rational response to high stakes may therefore be action under uncertainty, but belief should remain proportional to the evidence. (shrink)

Christian arguments from reason often press a legitimate meta-level question: can a wholly nonrational causal history preserve rational inference, truth-directed function, and warranted trust? A common apologetic relay then moves from that challenge to a positive assurance that Christian theism secures cognition. This paper argues that the relay changes questions without supplying the required bridge. It distinguishes (1) a metaphysical-enabling question about what makes rational cognition possible, (2) a global-entitlement question about whether human faculties are generally reliable enough for knowledge, (...) and (3) a local-calibration question about whether a particular faculty, person, process, or judgment is reliable under specified conditions. Lewis's argument from reason primarily addresses the first question. Plantinga's proper-function epistemology and evolutionary argument against naturalism concern the first two. Neither view, merely by being true, answers the third. The paper grants two important objections. A Christian design account is compatible with testing fallible minds, and an externalist account of warrant need not require reflective proof of reliability before first-order knowledge. The target is instead distinctive public assurance: a comparative claim, offered to an interlocutor, that the Christian premise improves the warranted assessment of actual cognition. Christian practice itself supplies the paper's central evidence. Christian parents use developmental assessments; Christian health systems use cognitive testing and caregiver interviews; churches authenticate records and references; Christian ministries require independent financial review; and Bible translators use consistency checks, source comparison, consultant review, and correction. In each setting, confidence changes with the test result while the origin premise remains fixed. These methods are not worldview-neutral in every philosophical respect, but their force does not depend on first accepting the disputed Christian premise. They therefore bear the local discriminatory load. The conclusion is conditional and limited. The analysis neither disproves theism nor vindicates every form of naturalism, and calibration cannot noncircularly certify reason as a whole. It shows instead what a genuine comparative advantage would require: an independently supported bridge from the theological premise to identifiable reliability differences, new predictions, or a dependable channel of correction. Without such a bridge, the apologetic relay ends in a background explanation, not a public assurance of cognitive trust. (shrink)

Apologetic discussions of Gospel dating often answer concerns about delay by invoking papyrus cost, limited literacy, oral culture, persecution, ancient biography, or expectation of Jesus’ return. These factors can help explain why immediate narrative records did not survive. They do not settle the evidential question: how strongly does the record we possess discriminate specific extraordinary event claims from a live alternative involving early sincere belief, oral proclamation, communal memory, scriptural interpretation, and later literary composition? This paper separates three claims too (...) often treated as one: that Jesus was crucified, that resurrection belief and proclamation arose early, and that later canonical narrative details accurately report extraordinary events at high resolution. Paul’s letters in the 50s and the tradition reported in 1 Corinthians 15 are important evidence for the second claim. They are not, by themselves, independent narrative depositions for every later empty-tomb, appearance, angelic, or public-portent detail. The surviving narrative Gospels add substantial information, but conventional dating ranges place them later than the alleged events, and major solutions to the Synoptic Problem treat much of their material as literarily related. The argument does not apply a mechanical rule that later means worse. Instead, it asks four graded questions about proximity, independent control, transmission, and expected public traces. Oral transmission can preserve characteristic memories, and proposals involving eyewitness control deserve serious consideration. Yet those possibilities must be shown to secure the particular detail at issue; they cannot be assumed from the mere existence of an oral culture. Likewise, lost earlier documents are possible, but possible lost support cannot carry the public weight of extant evidence. The result is bounded. The actual record strongly supports an early movement convinced that Jesus had been raised. It provides less public event-level confidence for later extraordinary details when delay, dependence, and theological shaping remain underconstrained. Explanations of delay may lower our surprise at the record. They do not, without further discriminating evidence, remove its comparative cost or establish a revelatory Christian God-concept over an ordinary religious-transmission comparator. (shrink)

This article provides a brief overview of the solutions to skeptical problems offered in Explanatory Solutions to Skeptical Problems.

“Modal” accounts of knowledge-level evidence assume that some evidence is knowledge-level only if it rules out error across a range of possible worlds. Against these accounts, I marshal the fact that we tend to deny and defend knowledge-claims by pointing out the track record of the relevant type of evidence in our actual world. This linguistic data suggests that some evidence is knowledge-level evidence for a proposition just in case evidence of that type has sufficiently often led to truth about (...) propositions of that type and sufficiently rarely led to falsehood. The view accounts for the linguistic data and tells a sensible story about skepticism, knowledge of necessary truths, and the possibility of knowing lottery propositions. (shrink)

This is an exploratory essay about epistemological horror, which can be understood broadly as horror fiction that engages with epistemological questions, and more narrowly as horror fiction that engages with questions about the boundaries of human knowledge. It’s suggested that there are at least two interesting categories of epistemological horror. One relates to the question of what should and shouldn’t be known, while the other relates to the question of what can and can’t be known. These categories can be broken (...) down further into the categories of Promethean, Cartesian, and Lovecraftian epistemological horror. After explaining and investigating these categories of epistemological horror, I briefly consider the idea that horror fiction has epistemological value. Throughout the essay, I offer some thoughts about the general nature of horror fiction and the alleged paradox of horror fiction. (shrink)

Strong Christian assurances about petitionary prayer can function as confidence-generating promises of intervention: faithful asking should make a practical difference. The problem is not that every petition fails or that a free deity must behave like a repeatable mechanism. It arises when favorable outcomes count as confirmation while every unfavorable outcome is reassigned to prior will, a better hidden gift, indefinite timing, or a defect in the petitioner. This paper proposes a content-preservation constraint: a qualification preserves a public promise only (...) if it can be stated before the result, materially guides expectation, and permits some result or pattern to lower confidence in the promise. Controlled studies and reviews do not establish that no petition has ever been answered, but neither do they show a robust, replicated clinical advantage in the settings studied. An every-outcome rule supplies no independent contrast; it becomes more troubling when failure is displaced onto petitioners, eroding confidence in ordinary evidence while protecting institutional authority. That structure warrants a cautious gaslighting analogy in some cases, not a blanket charge of conscious abuse. Prayer may still function as relationship, lament, solidarity, attention, or coping. Those goods, and the logical possibility of occasional opaque answers, do not confirm dependable intervention. On the outcome evidence considered here, the stronger promise lacks the public warrant its rhetoric claims. (shrink)

We all have been deceived, whether by politicians, pundits or peers. Likely more often than we would wish to admit. But what is it to be deceived? As we argue, victims of deception settle on a false answer to a question. This settling proposal not only makes good on the intuitive idea that sceptical agents are harder to deceive than their non-sceptical peers, but also finds support in the infelicity of reporting an agent as both inquiring and deceived. Want to (...) avoid being duped? Our proposal provides an answer: inquire further, don't settle. (shrink)

This paper defends the existence of a largely overlooked cognitive virtue within the framework of telic virtue epistemology: doxastic courage. Doxastic courage is an exercise of doxastic control that mediates between the vices of excessive doubt and reckless belief. On this view, doxastic courage focuses on one’s own reflective assessment of the strength of the justification for their beliefs, assessing when it is prudent to risk being wrong to achieve truth. I argue that doxastic courage operates as an Aristotelian mean (...) between four vices of belief including: hyperbolic doubt (excessive skeptical suspension), gullibility (deficient skeptical suspension), anti-expertise (deficient self-confidence), and dogmatism (excessive self-confidence). Using lessons from Cartesian methodological skepticism, I demonstrate how doxastic courage enables one to critically assess defeaters without succumbing to skepticism or unfounded ‘certainty.’ I argue that Cartesian and skeptical doubts, in being excessively timid, do not access the aim of cognitive prosperity that is implicit in theories of justified belief. With this telos in mind, doxastic courage is meant to support a nuanced balance that fosters intellectual growth without compromising necessary rigor. (shrink)

The twenty-first century is characterized by drastic changes in epistemology, as a result of academical shifts in important fields since the 60s. The decline of metanarratives – defined by Lyotard as grand-narratives about narratives (which, in turn, legitimate historically-situated events) – provided a fertile research ground for new methodological practices based on sharp critiques of Enlightenment rationality. One of the founding authors of the “postmodern condition” (as Lyotard labels it) is Michel Foucault. Foucault’s archaeological and genealogical project regarding epistemology redefined (...) our conceptual approach to knowledge and its legitimation, by situating both concepts in specific historical contexts, at specific historical times. Recurring themes in the Foucauldian project involve skepticism about objective truths, anti-historicism and subjectivity. In this dissertation, I seek to answer the question “Why is Foucauldian methodology relevant in the (post-)modern world, especially in light of the decline of metanarratives?”. The main goal is to address the role of Foucault’s works in the rethinking of historically given narratives and expose the contingency of practices embroiled in power-knowledge relations, while keeping in mind the dispersibility of the origins of those narratives. This is particularly relevant under the framework of an emptying of over-arching narratives about knowledge and the human condition, i.e., the Lyotardian metanarrative. Human societies are usually seen in a context of a larger narrative to which each of our lives in an element. The metanarrative serves as an umbrella for smaller narratives in which other epistemic and moral narratives find their place. There seems to be a clear intersection in Lyotard and Foucault’s works: the former studies the conditions in which the metanarratives empty themselves, while the latter occupies himself with the archaeological/genealogical study of the narratives within the metanarratives that, in turn, occupy the vacuum left by the original metanarrative. There is, nonetheless, a distinction between both authors: while Lyotard sees this replacement as normative-laden, Foucault focuses on a strictly analytical view of discourse and practice. (shrink)

A abordagem foucaultiana à epistemologia rejeita verdades absolutas e enfatiza a construção contingente do saber. Diferente do estruturalismo clássico, que encara fenómenos como subordinados a estruturas fixas, Foucault propôs uma abordagem genealógica para analisar discursos, práticas e relações de poder. O conhecimento não é neutro, mas moldado por mecanismos de poder que influenciam a sua legitimidade. A genealogia foucaultiana, inspirada nas obras de Nietzsche, procura desvendar a forma como diferentes narrativas históricas são construídas e como sustentam verdades socioculturalmente aceites. Nesse (...) sentido, a verdade é um processo dinâmico e discursivo, sujeito a disputas e reconfigurações. O conceito de “dispositivo” foucaultiano destaca a interconexão entre discursos, instituições e práticas sociais. A análise genealógica visa desconstruir narrativas dominantes, promovendo uma visão crítica do conhecimento e da ciência. Consequentemente, o método foucaultiano não procura apenas explicar eventos históricos, mas revelar os processos que os moldaram e as alternativas que poderiam ter sido seguidas. (shrink)

This paper develops a cognition-relative account of realism by reconsidering the opposition between realism and solipsism. Classical realism usually presupposes that one can meaningfully speak of a relation between consciousness and an external world, while solipsism emphasizes the inescapability of one’s own experience. The paper argues that this opposition already presupposes too much: not only the assertion of an external world, but the very concept of an “outside” gives positive form to what lies beyond the limit of positive determinability. -/- (...) The central thesis is that the so-called outside is not a positively determinable domain standing independently over against a cognitive system, but a stabilized interpretation of the limit of positive determinability as a counter-domain. This does not entail dogmatic solipsism. Rather, it leads to a cognition-relative realism: realism is real in the sense that it stabilizes the form in which reality can acquire meaning, resistance, corrigibility, and orientational force within a cognitive system. -/- The paper distinguishes this position from naïve realism, metaphysical realism, and flat anti-realism, while also situating it in relation to Kant, Husserl, Sellars, Carnap, Putnam’s internal realism, van Fraassen’s constructive empiricism, Goodman, Luhmann, and Wittgenstein. Scientific realism is not rejected, but reinterpreted as a functional-empirical form of stabilized reality rather than as access to a world-in-itself. The result is a realism without a metaphysical outside: reality can be stable, binding, and orientationally effective without being positively determined as a world-in-itself. (shrink)