Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

The ordinary language argument against skepticism—pragmatized

  • Published:
Philosophical Studies Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

I develop a new version of the ordinary language response to skepticism. My version is based on premises about the practical functions served by our epistemic words. I end by exploring how my argument against skepticism is interestingly non-circular and philosophically valuable.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. See, e.g. the discussions by Pryor (2000) and White (2006). On the “could ever obtain” aspect of the argument, see esp. Pryor’s pp. 528–531 and material he builds on in Stroud (1984).

  2. See Pryor (2000) for dogmatism; see Wright (2004) and White (2006) for neo-rationalism; see Dretske (1970) for anti-closure.

  3. See Malcolm (1942), Austin (1946/1961), and Strawson (1952, ch. 9). For useful discussions, see, respectively, Soames (2003, ch. 7), Kaplan (2008), and Avnur (ms.).

  4. The objection: who cares if you can, or if we did, make up some word that congratulates people who form certain beliefs on the basis of certain evidence? [See Salmon (1957, pp. 39–42).]. The response: if our analysis is correct, it’s not just an analysis of some or other congratulatory term. It’s an analysis of when a belief is likely true, and we care about that. For, being justified/rational/reasonable just is being likely true. (This is what’s called epistemic or evidential probability. It’s not objective chance, the kind found in quantum mechanics—though the two are linked via the Principal Principle.).

  5. See, e.g. Hookway (2016). The pragmatist tradition has many threads, but I only follow one narrow aspect of it all, namely the idea that Hookway reports like this: ‘All pragmatists… have held that the content of a thought or judgment is a matter of the role it fills in our activities of inquiry. The content of a thought or belief is to be explained by reference to what we do with it or how we interpret it.’ (Sec. 4.4).

  6. See in particular Dogramaci (2012) for why our use of epistemic evaluation is puzzling.

  7. Craig (1990).

  8. See, e.g. Fricker (2007, chs. 5–6), Henderson (2011), Reynolds (2017), Greco and Hedden (2016), and Hannon (forthcoming).

  9. See Dogramaci (2012, 2015a, b).

  10. Williamson (2000, esp. secs. 2.4 and 3.4), Kornblith (2002, esp. sec. 2.6), and Nagel (2013).

  11. A classic defense is Wright (1976). See Sober (2000, sec. 3.7) for a general expository discussion of the use of natural and artificial selection to give teleological explanations. See Millikan (1984), and Neander (1991) for highly plausible analyses of the notion of ‘having a function’ along the lines of ‘having been selected for’.

  12. A similar attempt to merely apply these ideas is the application to the uniqueness debate by Greco and Hedden (2016) and Dogramaci and Horowitz (2016).

  13. See Lewis (1969, ch. 4).

  14. As it’s put by Lewis (1969, pp. 124–125): “I have now described the character of a case of signaling without mentioning the meaning of the signals: that two lanterns meant that the redcoats were coming by sea, or whatever. But nothing important seems to have been left unsaid, so what has been said must somehow imply that the signals have their meaning.”

    Caution! Lewis proposed to naturalize a representational activity, signaling, by reducing it to certain non-representational facts about conventions, but he didn’t propose to naturalize language or representational states more generally in this way. I likewise do not propose to naturalize language or mental representation by reducing it to conventions.

  15. See Skyrms (2010).

  16. See von Frisch (1967); summarized by Skyrms (2010, p. 28).

  17. See Cheney and Seyfarth (1990). Skyrms (2010, p. 22) lists several other monkey species.

    You can listen to the vervet alarm calls for yourself here: http://web.sas.upenn.edu/seyfarth/vocalizations/vervet-monkey-vocalizations/.

  18. Cheney and Seyfarth (1990, p. 139), emphasis in original; see also chs. 1, 4–7.

  19. See Dogramaci (2012, sec. 2.1) for arguments.

  20. Craig (1990) and Reynolds (2017) don’t propose to combat skepticism (though Craig (chs. 12–13) explores where skepticism’s appeal might originate from). Others have considered using the Craigian view to argue against skepticism, though none resembles my approach here; see Hannon (forthcoming), Fricker (2008, sec. 3.3), and a brief remark in Gardiner (2015, p. 42).

  21. See Pryor (2000, pp. 518, 547, and fn. 37).

  22. See Rinard (forthcoming) for an argument that is explicitly as ambitious as this, though targeting only external world skepticism. See also Vogel (1990) for an argument that can be seen as meeting these ambitious standards; Vogel also targets only external world skepticism, a traditional Cartesian sort of external world skepticism that grants us introspective knowledge. Rinard argues that external world skepticism is self-undermining, and Vogel aims to use IBE to rest our external world knowledge on our introspective knowledge. Unlike them, I help myself to premises concerning the external world.

  23. See Pryor (2004, sec. 7, and the cited authors in his fn. 47) for concessions of this point.

  24. See Kotzen (2012) for discussion. Kotzen’s own view would support the worry I say might arise here.

  25. See Miller (2016) for why this is viable. He shows that fans of both dogmatism and Bayesianism can say we perceptually acquire propositions like 〈I have a hand.〉 as our evidence.

  26. See Boghossian (1996).

References

  • Austin, J. L. (1946/1961). Other minds. In J. O. Urmson & G. J. Warnock (Eds.), Philosophical papers (pp. 76–116). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

  • Avnur, Y. (ms.). Justification as a loaded notion.

  • Boghossian, P. (1996). Analyticity reconsidered. Nous, 30(3), 369–392.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cheney, D., & Seyfarth, R. (1990). How monkeys see the world: Inside the mind of another species. Chicago: Chicago University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Craig, E. (1990). Knowledge and the state of nature. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • DeRose, K. (2000). How can we know that we’re not brains in vats? The Southern Journal of Philosophy, 38(Supplement), 121–148.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dogramaci, S. (2012). Reverse engineering epistemic evaluations. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 84(3), 513–530.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dogramaci, S. (2015a). Communist conventions for deductive reasoning. Nous, 49(4), 776–799.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dogramaci, S. (2015b). Forget and forgive: A practical approach to forgotten evidence. Ergo, 2(26), 645–677.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dogramaci, S., & Horowitz, S. (2016). An argument for uniqueness about evidential support. Philosophical Issues, 26, 130–147.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dretske, F. (1970). Epistemic operators. The Journal of Philosophy, 67(24), 1007–1023.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fricker, M. (2007). Epistemic injustice: Power and the ethics of knowing. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Fricker, M. (2008). Scepticism and the genealogy of knowledge: Situating epistemology in time. Philosophical Papers, 37(1), 27–50.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gardiner, G. (2015). Teleologies and the methodology of epistemology. In D. Henderson & J. Greco (Eds.), Epistemic evaluation: Purposeful epistemology (pp. 31–45). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Greco, D., & Hedden, B. (2016). Uniqueness and metaepistemology. The Journal of Philosophy, 113(8), 365–395.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hannon, M. (forthcoming). What’s the point of knowledge? Oxford: Oxford University Press.

  • Henderson, D. (2011). Gate-keeping contextualism. Episteme, 8(1), 83–98.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hookway, C. (2016). Pragmatism. In E. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2016/entries/pragmatism/.

  • Kaplan, M. (2008). Austin’s way with skepticism. In J. Greco (Ed.), The Oxford companion to skepticism (pp. 348–371). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kornblith, H. (2002). Knowledge and its place in nature. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Kotzen, M. (2012). Dragging and confirming. The Philosophical Review, 121(1), 55–93.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lewis, D. (1969). Convention: A philosophical study. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Malcolm, N. (1942). Moore and ordinary language. In P. A. Schilpp (Ed.), The philosophy of G. E. Moore (Vol. 1, pp. 343–368). La Salle, IL: Open Court.

    Google Scholar 

  • Miller, B. (2016). How to be a Bayesian dogmatist. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 94(4), 766–780.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Millikan, R. G. (1984). Language, thought and other biological categories. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nagel, J. (2013). Knowledge as a mental state. Oxford Studies in Epistemology, 4, 273–308.

    Google Scholar 

  • Neander, K. (1991). The teleological notion of ‘function’. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 69(4), 454–468.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pryor, J. (2000). The skeptic and the dogmatist. Nous, 34(4), 517–549.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pryor, J. (2004). What’s wrong with Moore’s argument? Philosophical Issues, 14, 349–378.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Reynolds, S. (2017). Knowledge as acceptable testimony. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Rinard, S. (forthcoming). Reasoning one’s way out of skepticism. In K. McCain & T. Poston (Eds.), The mystery of skepticism. Leiden: Brill.

  • Salmon, W. (1957). Should we attempt to justify induction? Philosophical Studies, 8(3), 33–48.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Skyrms, B. (2010). Signals: Evolution, learning, and information. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Soames, S. (2003). Philosophical analysis in the twentieth century, volume 2: The age of meaning. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sober, E. (2000). The philosophy of biology (2nd ed.). Boulder: Westview.

    Google Scholar 

  • Strawson, P. F. (1952). Introduction to logical theory. London: Methuen.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stroud, B. (1984). The significance of philosophical scepticism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Vogel, J. (1990). Cartesian skepticism and inference to the best explanation. The Journal of Philosophy, 87(11), 658–666.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • von Frisch, K. (1967). The dance language and orientation of the bees. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • White, R. (2006). Problems for dogmatism. Philosophical Studies, 131, 525–557.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Williamson, T. (2000). Knowledge and its limits. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wright, L. (1976). Teleological explanations. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wright, C. (2004). Warrant for nothing (and foundations for free)? Aristotelian Society Supplementary, 78(1), 167–212.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

For their help with this paper I’d like to thank audiences at Arizona State University, Georgia State University, the University of Miami, the University of Nebraska, TEX (the Texas Epistemology Xtravaganza), and the 2018 Pacific APA where Jennifer Nagel gave valuable comments. I’m especially grateful to Yuval Avnur for extensive discussions about the ordinary language argument.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Philosophy, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, USA

    Sinan Dogramaci

Authors
  1. Sinan Dogramaci
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Dogramaci, S. The ordinary language argument against skepticism—pragmatized. Philos Stud 176, 879–896 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-018-1217-1

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-018-1217-1

Keywords

Search

Navigation