Abstract
Anthony Brueckner has argued that claims about underdetermination of evidence are suppressed in closure-based scepticism (“The Structure of the Skeptical Argument”, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 54:4, 1994). He also argues that these claims about underdetermination themselves lead to a paradoxical sceptical argument—the underdetermination argument—which is more fundamental than the closure argument. If Brueckner is right, the status quo focus of some predominant anti-sceptical strategies may be misguided. In this paper I focus specifically on the relationship between these two arguments. I provide support for Brueckner’s claim that the underdetermination argument is the more fundamental sceptical argument. I do so by responding to a challenge to this claim put forward by Stewart Cohen (“Two Kinds of Skeptical Argument”, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 58:1, 1998). Cohen invokes an alternative epistemic principle which he thinks can be used to challenge Brueckner. Cohen’s principle raises interesting questions about the relationship between evidential considerations and explanatory considerations in the context of scepticism about our knowledge of the external world. I explore these questions in my defence of Brueckner.
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Notes
For other discussions on the plausibility of ii) see Wright (2004), Greco (2007), Weatherson (2007), and Briesen (2010). All of these papers claim that at least some sort of argument is needed to support premise ii). Briesen and Weatherson both think that an argument which Weatherson calls the ‘exhaustive argument’ best supports ii). The argument essentially proceeds as follows: S is not justified in believing that they are not a BIV by way of empirical evidence; nor is S justified in believing that they are not a BIV by way of non-empirical evidence; since all evidence is either empirical or non-empirical, S is not justified in believing that they are not a BIV, and thus does not know that they are not a BIV. I don’t want to place too much weight on disputing Briesen’s claim that this argument “does not refer to the underdetermination principle” (Briesen 2010, p.9). I will note, however, that a natural question to ask Briesen (and Weatherson) is: what motivates the claim that S is not justified by way of empirical evidence in believing that they are not a BIV? Is this to be understood as primitively plausible? Or is it plausible in virtue of implicit commitments to an underdetermination principle? I suggest that there must be a reason for thinking that S isn’t justified empirically in her beliefs about not being a BIV, and a good candidate is the reason given by Brueckner below.
Following Briesen (who helpfully paraphrases Brueckner) I will understand the term ‘favouring’ in the following way: “If my evidence favours p over q, then p has some epistemic credit which q lacks. In other words: If my evidence favours p over q, then it is more reasonable for me to believe p than q” (Briesen 2010, p.4).
We appeal to (UP) in the following way:
i*). If my evidence does not favour that I have hands over that I am a BIV (being stimulated to believe that I have hands), then my evidence does not justify that I have hands
ii*). My evidence does not favour that I have hands over that I am a BIV (being stimulated to believe that I have hands)
iii*). My evidence does not justify that I have hands
Therefore, I do not know that I have hands
The argument appeals to the idea that no evidence for my having hands favours that I have hands over that I am a BIV (being stimulated to believe that I have hands). The same evidence would obtain in the BIV scenario. Thus, we derive the radical sceptical conclusion that I do not know any number of ordinary propositions—precisely the radical epistemological conclusion that the closure argument aims for—but without appeal to the closure principle.
Thus, in addition to what I will discuss, Cohen argues contra Brueckner that the above argument (footnote 3) is not logically independent of considerations about closure. But I will not discuss this point here (this issue has been discussed in detail in Pritchard (2005)).
More precisely, Cohen does not claim that (Z) motivates ii) but rather that it motivates a different premise, namely that we’re not justified in believing ~BIV. However, following Brueckner, I have already argued that we need to look at justification in order to understand why one might find it plausible that one doesn’t know ~BIV. This is why I understand Cohen’s (Z) as a potential way of motivating ii). But Cohen also acknowledges (in a footnote) that the ‘order of justification’ between (Z) and ii) is unclear to him. I have proceeded in what follows as though Cohen claims that (Z) is motivation for ii). Given Cohen’s use of (Z) in challenging Brueckner I take this to be a fair way to proceed. However, if Cohen is ambivalent about this matter, the argument in what follows can be understood less as a challenge to Cohen per se than as a challenge to the idea that (Z) can be invoked to motivate ii) (and thus used to challenge Brueckner’s position).
Presumably these are assumptions of a ‘unificationist’ variety. For example, see Kitcher (1981).
As mentioned, the further point that a completely independent argument from underdetermination can be formulated is something that has been discussed and defended by Brueckner and Pritchard.
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Boult, C. Epistemic Principles and Sceptical Arguments: Closure and Underdetermination. Philosophia 41, 1125–1133 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-013-9427-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-013-9427-4