Essays on Skepticism

by Anthony Brueckner

Overview

The problem of skepticism about knowledge of the external world has been the centrepiece of epistemology since Descartes. In the last 25 years, there has been a keen focus of interest on the problem, with a number of new insights by the best contemporary epistemologists and philosophers of mind. Anthony Brueckner is recognized as one of the leading contemporary investigators of the problem of skepticism.
Essays on Skepticism collects Brueckner's most important work in this area, providing a connected and comprehensive guide to the complex state of play on this intensively studied area of philosophy. The guiding questions of this volume are: Can we have knowledge of the external world of things outside our minds? Can we have knowledge of the internal world of our own contentful mental states? The work divides into four sections: I. Transcendental Arguments against Skepticism; II. Semantic Answers to Skepticism; III. Self-knowledge; IV. Skepticism and Epistemic Closure.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780199585861
Publisher:	Oxford University Press, USA
Publication date:	10/10/2010
Pages:	360
Product dimensions:	6.40(w) x 9.20(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Anthony Brueckner is Professor of Philosophy at University of California, Santa Barbara. He has written extensively in epistemology over the past 25 years. He has also written in philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, Kant, personal identity, free will, and the metaphysics of death.

Table of Contents

Introduction
I. Transcendental Arguments against Skepticism
1. Transcendental Arguments I
2. Transcendental Arguments II
3. The Anti-Skeptical Strategy of the Refutation of Idealism
4. Modest Transcendental Arguments
5. Transcendental Arguments from Content Externalism
6. Stroud's 'Transcendental Arguments' Reconsidered
II. Semantic Answers to Skepticism
7. Brains in a Vat
8. Semantic Answers to Skepticism
9. Trees, Computer Program Features, and Skeptical Hypotheses
10. Cartesian Skepticism, Content Externalism, and Self-Knowledge
11. Terms of Envatment
12. Charity and Skepticism
13. The Omniscient Interpreter Rides Again
14. Singular Thought and Cartesian Philosophy
III. Self-Knowledge
15. Scepticism about Knowledge of Content
16. Knowledge of Content and Knowledge of the World
17. Externalism and Memory
18. What an Anti-Individualist Knows A Priori
19. The Characteristic Thesis of Anti-Individualism
20. Brewer on the McKinsey Problem
21. Wright on the McKinsey Problem
22. Externalism and Privileged Access Are Consistent
23. The Resiliency of the McKinsey Problem
IV. Skepticism and Epistemic Closure
24. Epistemic Universalizability Principles
25. Why Nozick is a Sceptic
26. Skepticism and Epistemic Closure
27. Unfair to Nozick
28. Problems with the Wright Route to Scepticism
29. The Structure of the Skeptical Argument
30. Klein on Closure and Skepticism
31. The Elusive Virtues of Contextualism
32. Strategies for Refuting Closure for Knowledge
33. Knowledge, Evidence, and Skepticism According to Williamso
34. Fallibilism, Underdetermination, and Skepticism
35. Some Comfort for the Closure Skeptic
36. Some Help for the Dogmatist
37. ~K~SK Acknowledgements Bibliography Index

Editorial Reviews

"As a selection of a single contemporary philosopher's essays on skepticism, I harbor little skepticism that Brueckner's Essays on Skepticism is the best that there is to be found. . . . One would be silly to grapple with the skeptical problems that Brueckner discusses in Essays on Skepticism without familiarizing oneself with his discussions. Essays on Skepticism marks the best contemporary writing on skeptical problems in part because it sets a high standard for the work that remains to be done before we have an intellectually satisfying grasp of them." —Mikkel Gerken, International Journal of Skeptical Studies

From the Publisher