Abstract
I will compare Lehrer’s anti-skeptical strategy from a coherentist point of view with the anti-skeptical strategy of the Mooreans. I will argue that there are strong similarities between them: neither can present a persuasive argument to the skeptic and both face the problem of easy knowledge in one way or another. However, both can offer a complete and self-explanatory explanation of knowledge although Mooreanism can offer the more natural one. Hence, one has good reasons to prefer Mooreanism to Lehrer’s anti-skeptical approach, if one does not prefer coherentism to foundationalism for other reasons.
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Notes
For Lehrer’s definitions of an acceptance system and of answered and neutralized objections see Lehrer (2000, pp. 130–136).
For Lehrer’s full account of knowledge which contains further conditions that are not crucial for the following discussion see Lehrer (2000, pp. 169–173).
Hill (1996) argues in the same direction. He presents the example of a person McV with terrible headache, whose employer who has grounds for thinking that McV is a malingerer doubts this. Hill affirms that it is natural to assume that McV knows he is in pain, but that he is nevertheless unable to make his employer believe it.
For this point, see also Pryor (2000, p. 536).
For Lehrer’s reconstruction of the self-explanatory power of reliabilism see Lehrer (1999), chap. 3. In defending coherentism, Lehrer (1999) argues that basic epistemic notions cannot supervene on any non-epistemic natural concepts, since nature is silent about what has worth, about what is worthy of our trust and, hence, about what is justified. (See Lehrer 1999, p. 72) However, this line of argumentation is only a viable strategy against reliabilism, but not against other versions of foundationalism and Mooreanism, especially not against virtue epistemological accounts that are compatible with Mooreanism.
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Acknowledgments
The research was funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF): J 3174-G15. I am very thankful to a referee for numerous helpful comments, to Martina Fürst for fruitful discussions and to Keith Lehrer, nomen est omen, my much admired teacher.
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Melchior, G. Skepticism: Lehrer versus Mooreanism. Philos Stud 161, 47–58 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-012-9936-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-012-9936-1