Summary of Skepticism

This is a summary of the pages discussing skepticism on this website.

Skepticism enjoys a long history (5th century BC onward) and can presently be found in four basic forms: iterative
skepticism, global skepticism, local skepticism, and methodological skepticism. With iterative skepticism the skeptic simply
replies “How do you know?” while failing to provide sufficient grounds to undermine her opponent or support her own view.
Global skepticism is the view that no one has knowledge in any area of human thought. Such a knowledge claim is
strikingly self-refuting. On the local skeptic approach the skeptic agrees that knowledge is possible in a few areas
of knowledge (e.g., science, mathematics, logic, etc.) but denies that knowledge is possible in other specific areas
of knowledge (e.g., religious knowledge, morality, etc.). The local skeptic is hard pressed to provide support for knowledge
in limited areas like mathematics, logic, etc. while rejecting knowledge in an area such as religious knowledge since many of
the same criteria used to justify mathematical knowledge is used to justify religious knowledge. The methodological skeptic’s
approach is the appropriate position when seeking knowledge. This position uses questions to find out the fact of the matter
on the given issue while not attempting to hide from it. The goal is discovering true beliefs and discarding false beliefs.

The three main arguments for skepticism are: 1) argument from error, 2) brain-in-a-vat and 3) transferring justification. The
argument from error does not succeed since some views are correct. Simply being wrong at times does not guarantee being
wrong every time. The brain-in-a-vat argument fails because we intuitively do not hold to this nor have any supporting
evidence for it. Additionally, if we are a brain-in-a-vat and all that we believe is an illusion, then this view would not be an
illusion and therefore undermine the claim that all we beleive is an illusion. Transferring justification argues that the
justification of knowledge about present experiences does not transfer to knowledge that is not experientially present
to us. This view assumes that present justification is the only type of legitimate justification for a belief, which is not
warranted. This view is not sustained by a present experience and is, therefore, open to its own critique.