Radical Skepticism and the Shadow of Doubt: A Philosophical Dialogue PDF
Preview Radical Skepticism and the Shadow of Doubt: A Philosophical Dialogue
Radical Skepticism and the Shadow of Doubt ALSO AVAILABLE FROM BLOOMSBURY The Bloomsbury Companion to Epistemology, edited by Andrew Cullison Glimpse of Light, Stephen Mumford Wittgenstein: The Crooked Roads, William Lyons For Pam CONTENTS Preface Radical skepticism and the shadow of doubt:A philosophical dialogue Characters, setting, announcement Act I Vatol’s anxiety Introduction to Lev’s question The example of Vatol Yitzhak’s reaction to skepticism, and Williamson’s On the nature of this work The “two-level” view of the impossibility of doubt The meaning of “reasons” to doubt Relationships between “doubt,” “belief,” “assertion,” and “certainty” Further connections between “doubt,” “anxiety,” and “knowledge” Interlude: Waiting for Godot A connection to Nagel’s skepticism Interlude: philosophy and comedy A challenge to Lev’s assumptions about epistemic anxiety Act II Vatol and Us The n-to-n+1 argument A safety condition on belief Interlude: memories of Berkeley Pryor’s epistemic principle Distinction between one-level and two-level cases Interlude: Talmudic connections The “non-circularity” condition Daniel’s challenges to Yitzhak’s view Yitzhak’s stringent response to “entering a loop” Yitzhak’s Austinian answer to the problem of dreams Interlude: finding an “eitzah” Summary Three additional questions Lev’s disagreement with Yitzhak Act III The Impossibility of Doubt Lev’s past epistemic anxiety Interlude: memories from Yeshiva Lev’s first argument for the impossibility of doubt The first premise of Lev’s first argument A question about valuing one’s life on the basis of probabilities A comparison of Lev’s position with Kant’s and Wittgenstein’s Interlude: Yitzhak’s tale Lev’s second argument The meaning of “having a self” Interlude: Yitzhak’s pride and shame Relationship between the notions of “self” and “identification” Broughton’s suggestion that Hume did not identify with his belief in an external reality Lev’s epistemic attitude Notes Glossary References Index PREFACE Some philosophers are familiar with this book under the title “Epistemology Noir: A Philosophical Dialogue/Play on Skepticism about External Reality,” which was its title for an extended period of time when I had it on my home page. Although for various reasons it seemed desirable to change the title, readers can be assured that the book’s noir-ness is intact and it remains a dialogue-play. It obviously has a lot more philosophy than a typical play, but it also has a lot more non-philosophical action than a typical dialogue. The hope is that the different aspects of this book, the pure philosophy and the rest, fit together to offer a novel perspective on how we might talk about skepticism. I was helped by a number of people in arriving at the ideas in this book. Many years ago Dean Kolitch and I spent endless, endless hours talking about Cartesian skepticism, and the general spirit and mood of those talks haunt this work. I take responsibility, however, for any mistakes in here about whether the world exists. Philosophical discussions with Berislav Marušić helped me greatly as I was developing my ideas. Beri read and critiqued every page of successive drafts of the book, for which I am enormously appreciative. I am also exceedingly grateful to Jennifer Smalligan Marušić and Dan Korman for detailed comments on the entire work. For comments on parts of the work, I give sincere thanks to Georges Dicker, Matti Eklund, Billy Flesch, Eugene Goodheart, Pamela Hirsch, Matthias Jenny, Adam Leite, Miriam Schoenfield, and Palle Yourgrau. And very special thanks to David Shatz for help with transliterations. This book evolved over a number of years from several talks and papers with which many people helped me, most especially Georges Dicker and Beri Marušić , as well as Jonathan Adler, Arudra Barura, Matti Eklund, Pamela Hirsch, Tom Kelly, Dan Korman, Adam Leite, Matt McGrath, Abe Roth, Jerry Samet, Ted Sider, Tim Williamson, Palle Yourgrau, and audiences at the philosophy department at Indiana University, at the Center for Philosophic Exchange at SUNY Brockport, and at the philosophy department at the University of Vermont. I am greatly indebted to Jed Lewinsohn for helping me to find the right venue for this book. And Coleen Coalter at Bloomsbury Press provided exactly the venue that I wanted, for which I am very grateful. Above all else, I thank Pam, Dena, and Suzanna for helping always to keep sanity within sight.
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