- [UNTITLED]
- Dedication
- Contributors
- Introduction
- The Pyrrhonian Problematic
- The Problem of the Criterion
- Cartesian Skepticism: Arguments and Antecedents
- Hume's Skepticism
- Skepticism about the External World
- Skepticism about Induction
- Skepticism about A Priori Justification: Self‐Evidence, Defeasibility, and Cogito Propositions
- Moral Realism, Quasi Realism, and Skepticism
- Religious Skepticism
- Live Skeptical Hypotheses
- Berkeley's Treatment of Skepticism
- Kant's Response to Skepticism
- Reid's Response to the Skeptic
- Peirce and Skepticism
- Moore and Skepticism
- Austin's Way with Skepticism
- Wittgenstein on Certainty
- The Relativist Response to Radical Skepticism
- Ascriber Contextualism
- Sensitivity, Safety, and Antiluck Epistemology
- Closure and Alternative Possibilities
- Contemporary Responses to Agrippa's Trilemma
- Externalist Responses to Skepticism
- Internalist Responses to Skepticism
- Virtue‐Theoretic Responses to Skepticism
- Disjunctivism and Skepticism
- Index
Abstract and Keywords
This article considers two arguments that purport to show that inductive reasoning is unjustified: the argument adduced by Sextus Empiricus and the (better known and more formidable) argument given by Hume in the Treatise. While Sextus’ argument can quite easily be rebutted, a close examination of the premises of Hume’s argument shows that they are seemingly cogent. Because the sceptical claim is very unintuitive, the sceptical argument constitutes a paradox. And since attributions of justification are theoretical, and the claim that they are never (or seldom) true isn’t preposterous, the correct response to the paradox may well be to admit that the sceptic has exposed our error in making them.
Keywords: skeptical argument, induction, Sextus Empiricus, David Hume, false conclusion, true premises, K. R. Popper, L. J. Savage
Ruth Weintraub is professor of philosophy at Tel‐Aviv University.
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- [UNTITLED]
- Dedication
- Contributors
- Introduction
- The Pyrrhonian Problematic
- The Problem of the Criterion
- Cartesian Skepticism: Arguments and Antecedents
- Hume's Skepticism
- Skepticism about the External World
- Skepticism about Induction
- Skepticism about A Priori Justification: Self‐Evidence, Defeasibility, and Cogito Propositions
- Moral Realism, Quasi Realism, and Skepticism
- Religious Skepticism
- Live Skeptical Hypotheses
- Berkeley's Treatment of Skepticism
- Kant's Response to Skepticism
- Reid's Response to the Skeptic
- Peirce and Skepticism
- Moore and Skepticism
- Austin's Way with Skepticism
- Wittgenstein on Certainty
- The Relativist Response to Radical Skepticism
- Ascriber Contextualism
- Sensitivity, Safety, and Antiluck Epistemology
- Closure and Alternative Possibilities
- Contemporary Responses to Agrippa's Trilemma
- Externalist Responses to Skepticism
- Internalist Responses to Skepticism
- Virtue‐Theoretic Responses to Skepticism
- Disjunctivism and Skepticism
- Index
