More than Ordinarily Skeptical Mark Kaplan Noûs, Vol. 25, No. 2, 1991 A.P.A. Central Division Meeting. (Apr., 1991), pp. 205-206. Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0029-4624%28199104%2925%3A2%3C205%3AMTOS%3E2.0.CO%3B2-G Noûs is currently published by Blackwell Publishing.
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http://www.jstor.org Fri May 18 08:48:20 2007
Scepticism and Dreaming:
Imploding The Demon
CRISPINWRIGHT UNIVERSITY O F MICHIGAN
This paper develops a "straight" solution to the whole family of sceptical arguments which make play with the idea that some very general cognitively disabling state-Brain-in-Vathood, victimisation by Descartes' demon, long-term coherent dreaming, etc.,-might afflict one undetectably. These arguments purportedly undermine our justification for beliefs based on our senses. An analysis is offered of the shared essential form of these arguments, and an argument of that same form is then constructed whose drift is to undermine the deliverance of intellection and reflection. Naturally, the premisses of such an argument cannot be credible, since-if the argument is valid-any warrant for them is self-undermining. The crux comes with the reflection that any considerations which might make the premisses of the perception-directed arguments credible would have to do the same for the premisses of the intellection paradox. The premisses which the perception-directed paradoxes need are accordingly necessarily rationally incredible; and consequently not at the service of paradox. The demon implodes.
More than Ordinarily Skeptical MARKKAPLAN UNIVERSITY O F WISCONSIN-MILWAUKEE
According to Crispin Wright, the situation is this. I have available no warrant to believe the proposition that I am not dreaming. From this premise and a couple of reasonable-sounding principles governing justification be granted ('justification is transmitted across entailment, justification is iterative), what follows is that I have available no warrant to believe any of what I normally regard as perceptually grounded beliefs. This result is intolerable. We have a paradox on our hands and our charge is to find a way out-to arrive at
a diagnosis that will both tell us where the argument has gone wrong and expose the source of the argument's power to seduce us. How, then, can we see that the argument goes wrong? By seeing, Wright argues, that it admits of an analogue that undermines my entitlement to rely upon my cognitive faculties, and thus my entitlement to think I can appreciate what support the premises of the original argument may have. His conclusion is that it is wrong to think that the proposition that I am dreaming is one for which warrant need be earned: its warrant is given. What I don't see is why we were supposed to think otherwise to begin with. After all, what goes into Wright's motivation for his premise-far from being the deliverance of innocent intuition-is a quite substantial, and (so I will argue) unconvincing, bit of philosophy theory. The theory is that, to believe with justification that I am not dreaming, I must acquire a warrant that takes the form of an inference from experience (unavailable, of course). It is a theory that can hardly receive any support from reflection on our actual practice of argumentation and inquiry. These, of course, are themes from Michael Williams one and all. But for all my sympathy with Williams' contribution (and it is great indeed), I think he is mistaken to blame the prevalence of (what he calls) epistemological realism-the doctrine that justified beliefs constitute a theoretically integrated kind-for philosophers' fascination with skepticism. Clear cases confute the thesis that epistemological realism necessitates a concern with skepticism. And other cases suggest that Williams has not told us enough to establish what exactly counts as epistemological realism and/or why it is supposed to be bad. For the philosophical romance with skepticism, it is something else-a failure fully to appreciate the fact that there is no source of epistemic insight apart from our ordinary practice of argumentation and inquiry-which (I will argue) is to blame.
