The role of skepticism in Greco’s Putting Skeptics in their Place

Cornelis van Putten

Free University Amsterdam

In his recent book on skeptical arguments and virtue epistemology, John Greco states that classical skeptical arguments of Hume and Descartes make no obvious mistake and that the analysis of those arguments drives positive epistemology. The analysis of skeptical arguments teaches us important epistemological lessons and is therefore philosophically useful. In this paper, I will argue that on Greco’s own terms those skeptical arguments do make an obvious mistake, and that his arguments depend on an assumption about skepticism that is poorly motivated. Furthermore, Greco must draw a different conclusion then he actually does about the lessons we can learn from the arguments of Hume and Descartes, however, the plausibility of this conclusion depends on the poorly motivated assumption.