Knowledge and justification
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Global scepticism
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Sometimes philosophers propose arguments of a global kind that are intended to persuade us that nothing is certain. Here is one famous example. From Descartes First Meditation. "However, I must note that I am only human, and consequently that I habitually sleep, and that in my dreams I have images of those same things, or even of more improbable things, that insane people see when they are awake. How many times have I dreamt during the night that I was in this room by the fire, whereas in fact I was asleep, naked in my bed? It seems certain just now that I am not looking at this paper with closed eyes; that as I shake my head I am not asleep; that when I deliberately and intentionally hold out my hand, I am aware of it. The images presented in dreams are not so clear and distinct as these are. Yet, on reflecting more carefully about all of this, I remember that I have often been deceived in my sleep by similar illusions, and thinking even more closely, I conclude that there is nothing that conclusively and clearly distinguishes between waking and sleeping. I am quite amazed at this, and I feel so astonished that I am almost convinced that I am actually asleep right now!" Arguments of this kind also bring to light a distinction between ordinary doubt and philosophical doubt. In the ordinary course of daily events people rarely consider the possibility that what they take to be real is not real. For example, most people would not consider whether their house has popped out of existence when they have left it, or that they are in fact dreaming, and not really awake. Ordinary doubt is taken up with questions of another kind – for example, a worried parent might not be sure that his child has gone to school, a scientist might doubt the validity of another experimenter's observations. Sometimes philosophers, like Descartes, do raise questions about the things that in the ordinary course of events we might take for granted – hence the distinction between ordinary and philosophical doubt. However, for every philosopher that proposes a philosophical doubt there is another who tries to refute it. Not everyone agrees that doubt is the best starting point for philosophical enquiry. In Western philosophy it has historically occupied a central position, especially since Descartes reaffirmed the possibility of global scepticism and also offered his own unique solution to it.
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Contents of
Knowledge and justification
1 The distinction between knowledge and belief
2 Unsound, invalid, possible world and fallacy
3 Counterexample, exposing a fallacy
4 Belief and doubt
5 Believing that and knowing that
6 Knowledge and certainty - the tripartite definition of knowledge
7 True, justified belief
8 Plato: The Theaetetus
9 Plato: Forms
10 The possibility of scepticism and categories of belief
11 Global scepticism
12 The Argument from Authority
13 Valid argument, inference and justification
14 Chain of deductive inferences, self-evident truths
15 Sense experience, empiricism
16 The dialectic method, thesis and antithesis
17 Rationalism and empiricism; the Discourse on the Method
18 The Cogito, Reason and Rational Insight
19 Bertrand Russell, Acquaintance
20 Universals, Forms
21 Scepticism, Existentialism and Faith
22 The evil genius argument
23 Existentialism
24 Soren Kierkegaard - Fear and Trembling - the Absurd
25 Foundation for Knowledge
26 Theory of Knowledge, Epistemology and Metaphysics
27 Rationalism, Mathematics and Logic, Innateness
28 Innate Ideas
29 The a priori
30 Truth by convention, Hume and the Method of Doubt
31 Hume and the distinction between belief and knowledge
32 Hume and the definition of belief
33 Truth as a logical operator on sentences
34 The correspondence theory of truth
35 Wittgenstein: On Certainty
36 Wittgenstein and the coherence theory of truth
37 William James and Pragmatism
38 W.V.O. Quine, pragmatism and the Two Dogmas of Empiricism
39 Postivism and pragmatism
40 Pragmatism and utilitarianism
41 Pragmatism and religiion
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