Journal Article

CLOSURE ON SKEPTICISM

ROUSH, SHERRILYN

2010

Overview

The steps of the argument have been scoured in detail to find cracks that will yield under pressure. Some of these efforts have been intriguing, and illuminating, and some even provide dialectical victories that shift the burden of proof back to the skeptic. Here, Roush argues that the thing people seem obviously to know implies the thing they seem on inspection obviously not to know. He will argue that this part of the argument cannot be repaired in a way that preserves the skeptical threat. Thus, if the skeptic wants to convince people to worry about one's ordinary knowledge, one will have to come up with a completely different argument. Closure of knowledge under known implication (hereafter \"closure\"), is necessary for the skeptical argument presented above but obviously not sufficient. Epistemologists are aware that the implication claim first stated by the skeptic does not hold, due to the possibility just described, so the implication claim typically gets propped up in the obvious way, by saying that having hands implies one is not a handless brain in a vat. Sometimes one puts a tone on the emphasized word to convey the judgment that this detail is tiresome. One then moves along in development of the skeptical line to get to the more interesting issues, confident that the patch has done no harm to the argument because implication has been achieved. However, it is not enough that there be an implication.

• Publisher: The Journal of Philosophy, Inc,Journal of Philosophy
• Subject: Astronomical objects / Brain / Burden of proof / Closets / Closure / Counterexamples / Debates / Epistemology / Epistemology. Philosophy of science. Theory of knowledge / Hands / Knowledge / Mental objects / Modus tollens / Outer space / Philosophical logics. Philosophy of language / Philosophy / Residential buildings / Skepticism