Skepticism About a Refutation of Skepticism
“Skepticism about a Refutation of Skepticism”
In “The Refutation of Skepticism”, Jonathan Vogel establishes an “Inference to the Best Explanation” (hereafter, “IBE”) as a means to refute skepticism about the external world. In this refutation, Vogel acknowledges that skepticism about IBE still remains a possibility, but that this kind of skepticism would be rather outlandish in character and thus could be ignored. This paper shall both establish and evaluate Vogel’s reasoning as to why he confidently dismisses any skepticism pertaining to his IBE, and furthermore will illuminate some points as to why Vogel may have mischaracterized potential threats to his method, leaving his refutation of skepticism vulnerable to doubt that is not as unorthodox as he believes it to be. IBE is a method for promoting our ordinary, everyday beliefs about the external world (referred to as “mundane propositions”) into knowledge in the face of equally plausible skeptical competitors, which aim to deny that we have such knowledge. It is founded upon the underdetermination principle, which governs knowledge by evaluating competing hypotheses for whichever has the most epistemic merit compared to the alternatives. However, the question of “what factors add to or subtract from epistemic merit is a crucial, but controversial, matter” (Vogel, 73) that leaves the criteria for knowledge in a susceptible state. The issue that IBE sets out to solve is that both mundane propositions and their competing skeptical arguments have equal epistemic merit in virtue of the underdetermination principle – giving skeptics the ability to use a form of the deceiver argument to “show…by our own lights, we lack knowledge of the world we think we have” (Vogel, 73). Vogel identifies this position as “domestic skepticism” because it aims to challenge our ordinary knowledge claims by use of accepted epistemic principles (thus not challenging these principles as well) – and he targets this as the skepticism
In “The Refutation of Skepticism”, Jonathan Vogel establishes an “Inference to the Best Explanation” (hereafter, “IBE”) as a means to refute skepticism about the external world. In this refutation, Vogel acknowledges that skepticism about IBE still remains a possibility, but that this kind of skepticism would be rather outlandish in character and thus could be ignored. This paper shall both establish and evaluate Vogel’s reasoning as to why he confidently dismisses any skepticism pertaining to his IBE, and furthermore will illuminate some points as to why Vogel may have mischaracterized potential threats to his method, leaving his refutation of skepticism vulnerable to doubt that is not as unorthodox as he believes it to be. IBE is a method for promoting our ordinary, everyday beliefs about the external world (referred to as “mundane propositions”) into knowledge in the face of equally plausible skeptical competitors, which aim to deny that we have such knowledge. It is founded upon the underdetermination principle, which governs knowledge by evaluating competing hypotheses for whichever has the most epistemic merit compared to the alternatives. However, the question of “what factors add to or subtract from epistemic merit is a crucial, but controversial, matter” (Vogel, 73) that leaves the criteria for knowledge in a susceptible state. The issue that IBE sets out to solve is that both mundane propositions and their competing skeptical arguments have equal epistemic merit in virtue of the underdetermination principle – giving skeptics the ability to use a form of the deceiver argument to “show…by our own lights, we lack knowledge of the world we think we have” (Vogel, 73). Vogel identifies this position as “domestic skepticism” because it aims to challenge our ordinary knowledge claims by use of accepted epistemic principles (thus not challenging these principles as well) – and he targets this as the skepticism
Cited: Vogel, Jonathan. "The Refutation of Skepticism." Contemporary Debates in Epistemology. Ed. Matthias Steup and Ernest Sosa. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2005. 72-84. Print.