Skepticism: Impractical, therefore implausible

Hannon, Michael

Abstract

The truth of skepticism would be depressing and impractical. Our beliefs would be groundless, we would know nothing (or almost nothing) about the world around us, and epistemic success would likely be impossible. But do these negative consequences have any bearing on the truth of skepticism? According to many scholars, they do not. The impractical consequences of skepticism are typically regarded as orthogonal to its truth. For this reason, pragmatic resolutions to skepticism are regularly dismissed. I will argue, however, that skepticism is implausible because it is impractical. In particular, skepticism is implausible because it goes against the point of epistemic evaluation.

Citation

Hannon, M. (2019). Skepticism: Impractical, therefore implausible. Philosophical Issues, 29(1), 143-158. https://doi.org/10.1111/phis.12145

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jul 17, 2019
• Online Publication Date: Sep 2, 2019
• Publication Date: Oct 31, 2019
• Deposit Date: Sep 9, 2019
• Publicly Available Date: Sep 3, 2021
• Journal: Nous-Supplement: Philosophical Issues
• Print ISSN: 1533-6077
• Electronic ISSN: 1758-2237
• Publisher: Wiley
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 29
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 143-158
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/phis.12145
• Keywords: Philosophy
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/2593889
• Publisher URL: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/phis.12145
• Additional Information: This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Hannon, M. Skepticism: Impractical, therefore implausible. Philosophical Issues. 2019; 1– 16. , which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1111/phis.12145; . This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Use of Self-Archived Versions