Is There Reason for Skepticism?

Joe Cruz
Williams College

I offer two thoughts about skepticism that stem from an attempt to understand epistemic achievement in terms of principles of belief formation.  The first claims that we can understand the origin and the nature of skepticism’s grip on our philosophical imaginations by treating it as resulting from the interaction between otherwise seemingly exemplary epistemic principles. If we can make sense of how our principles interact in this way, we can take a pragmatically resigned meta-stance with regard to skepticism, namely that the advantage of being a cognitive agent whose principles can be brought into conflict far outweighs the disadvantage of being subject to skeptical arguments.  A second and more ambitious approach to skepticism seeks to nullify skeptical arguments. If the principles involved in skeptical arguments are suspect, then we have a way of addressing skepticism and perhaps of answering the skeptic.  I will pursue this line here by arguing that a crucial epistemic principle used in skeptical arguments has nothing to recommend it to non-skeptics or skeptics because reasoning according to that principle inevitably collapses.  I conclude that skeptical arguments are not ones that we should view as normative with respect to our reasoning.