Radical Skepticism and the Shadow of Doubt: A Philosophical Dialogue

250 Pages·2017·0.01 MB·English

by  Eli Hirsch

Radical Skepticism and
the Shadow of Doubt
ALSO AVAILABLE FROM BLOOMSBURY
The Bloomsbury Companion to Epistemology, edited by Andrew Cullison
Glimpse of Light, Stephen Mumford
Wittgenstein: The Crooked Roads, William Lyons

For Pam
CONTENTS
Preface
Radical skepticism and the shadow of doubt:A philosophical dialogue
Characters, setting, announcement
Act I Vatol’s anxiety
Introduction to Lev’s question
The example of Vatol
Yitzhak’s reaction to skepticism, and Williamson’s
On the nature of this work
The “two-level” view of the impossibility of doubt
The meaning of “reasons” to doubt
Relationships between “doubt,” “belief,” “assertion,” and “certainty”
Further connections between “doubt,” “anxiety,” and “knowledge”
Interlude: Waiting for Godot
A connection to Nagel’s skepticism
Interlude: philosophy and comedy
A challenge to Lev’s assumptions about epistemic anxiety
Act II Vatol and Us
The n-to-n+1 argument
A safety condition on belief
Interlude: memories of Berkeley
Pryor’s epistemic principle
Distinction between one-level and two-level cases
Interlude: Talmudic connections
The “non-circularity” condition
Daniel’s challenges to Yitzhak’s view
Yitzhak’s stringent response to “entering a loop”
Yitzhak’s Austinian answer to the problem of dreams
Interlude: finding an “eitzah”
Summary
Three additional questions
Lev’s disagreement with Yitzhak
Act III The Impossibility of Doubt
Lev’s past epistemic anxiety
Interlude: memories from Yeshiva
Lev’s first argument for the impossibility of doubt
The first premise of Lev’s first argument
A question about valuing one’s life on the basis of probabilities
A comparison of Lev’s position with Kant’s and Wittgenstein’s
Interlude: Yitzhak’s tale
Lev’s second argument
The meaning of “having a self”
Interlude: Yitzhak’s pride and shame
Relationship between the notions of “self” and “identification”
Broughton’s suggestion that Hume did not identify with his belief in an external reality
Lev’s epistemic attitude
Notes
Glossary
References
Index
PREFACE
Some philosophers are familiar with this book under the title “Epistemology Noir: A
Philosophical Dialogue/Play on Skepticism about External Reality,” which was its title
for an extended period of time when I had it on my home page. Although for various
reasons it seemed desirable to change the title, readers can be assured that the book’s
noir-ness is intact and it remains a dialogue-play. It obviously has a lot more philosophy
than a typical play, but it also has a lot more non-philosophical action than a typical
dialogue. The hope is that the different aspects of this book, the pure philosophy and the
rest, fit together to offer a novel perspective on how we might talk about skepticism.
I was helped by a number of people in arriving at the ideas in this book. Many years
ago Dean Kolitch and I spent endless, endless hours talking about Cartesian skepticism,
and the general spirit and mood of those talks haunt this work. I take responsibility,
however, for any mistakes in here about whether the world exists.
Philosophical discussions with Berislav Marušić helped me greatly as I was
developing my ideas. Beri read and critiqued every page of successive drafts of the
book, for which I am enormously appreciative. I am also exceedingly grateful to
Jennifer Smalligan Marušić and Dan Korman for detailed comments on the entire work.
For comments on parts of the work, I give sincere thanks to Georges Dicker, Matti
Eklund, Billy Flesch, Eugene Goodheart, Pamela Hirsch, Matthias Jenny, Adam Leite,
Miriam Schoenfield, and Palle Yourgrau.
And very special thanks to David Shatz for help with transliterations.
This book evolved over a number of years from several talks and papers with which
many people helped me, most especially Georges Dicker and Beri Marušić , as well as
Jonathan Adler, Arudra Barura, Matti Eklund, Pamela Hirsch, Tom Kelly, Dan Korman,
Adam Leite, Matt McGrath, Abe Roth, Jerry Samet, Ted Sider, Tim Williamson, Palle
Yourgrau, and audiences at the philosophy department at Indiana University, at the
Center for Philosophic Exchange at SUNY Brockport, and at the philosophy department
at the University of Vermont.
I am greatly indebted to Jed Lewinsohn for helping me to find the right venue for
this book. And Coleen Coalter at Bloomsbury Press provided exactly the venue that I
wanted, for which I am very grateful.
Above all else, I thank Pam, Dena, and Suzanna for helping always to keep sanity
within sight.