Evaluate The Skeptical Hypothesis

The skeptical hypothesis seeks to undermine the credibility of our knowledge by making a claim about the falsity of our beliefs that we cannot disprove. I will explain this hypothesis in further detail and outline two responses to it, the Moorean response and the contextualist response. Finally, I will argue that the Moorean response is the most logically sound of the two, while considering a counterpoint to the Moorean philosophy. The skeptical hypothesis argues that for anything that one might think they know, there are an infinite number of powerful arguments that threaten to disprove that they know such a thing. I claim to know that I have hands, for I can see them and use them to interact with the external world. It is rational that
Contextualism argues that the skeptic makes their claim true by raising the standard of knowing, the standard being that one is able to disprove skeptical claims. The contextualist school of thought argues that if this is how the skeptical argument establishes truth, our ordinary claims to knowledge are protected because the high standards of knowledge that the ordinary sense cannot meet do not show that we don’t know according to our lower standards. Contextualism, as stated in its name, states that knowledge claims are context dependent similar to other claims in language, such as a person being tall vs a building being tall. If I state that the Eiffel Tower is tall, and also state that I am tall, it doesn’t mean that I am false about me being tall just because the Eiffel Tower is much taller than I am. They can both be regarded as true, given their independent contexts. In the case of whether or not I have hands, my ordinary claim that I do in fact have hands can be true even if it would not be true once a skeptical possibility of an evil deceiver is raised. Contextualism claims that our ordinary sense of know is true, when we ignore irrelevant possibilities that our
Moore acknowledges the power of the skeptical argument and its ability to bring into question our current beliefs and enhance our pursuit of knowledge but does not fully concede his ordinary sense of know to the skeptical argument. To me, it seems rational to acknowledge the plausibility of a skeptical hypothesis but unless I am met with evidence that proves the skeptic to be more plausible than my claim to knowledge, I see no reason to reject my original beliefs. As stated by DeRose in their analysis of the Moorean response, “Rejecting something on the grounds that other propositions one finds plausible imply its falsity is not very fulfilling when what one rejects is itself plausible” (DeRose 6). It is absurd to reject one’s belief that is no less plausible than the skeptic’s argument, just because the skeptic’s argument implies falsity in my belief. If anything, I have more reason to believe I have hands, for I have perceived more evidence supporting this claim than evidence supporting the evil deceiver hypothesis, for it is better to reject what seems less certain to us. Contextualism surrenders a lot to the skeptic, because while the contextualist believes that we can be right in the ordinary sense, we can simultaneously be wrong when a higher sense of know is raised by the skeptical hypothesis. I acknowledge the plausibility of the skeptical hypothesis but I see no indication that