How hard are the sceptical paradoxes?

Noûs 38 (2):299–325 (2004)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

The sceptic about the external world presents us with a paradox: an apparently acceptable argument for an apparently unacceptable conclusion—that we do not know anything about the external world. Some paradoxes, for instance the liar and the sorites, are very hard. The defense of a purported solution to either of these two inevitably deploys the latest in high-tech philosophical weaponry. On the other hand, some paradoxes are not at all hard, and may be resolved without much fuss. They do not contain profound lessons about the human condition. Where should we place the sceptical paradoxes?

Categories

Keywords

Reprint years

DOI

10.1111/j.1468-0068.2004.00471.x

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 91,897

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

My notes

Similar books and articles

Solving the paradoxes, escaping revenge.Hartry Field - 2007 - In J. C. Beall (ed.), Revenge of the Liar: New Essays on the Paradox. Oxford University Press.
Some Questions About Moral Paradoxes.Saul Smilansky - unknown
Published in philosoohy and phenomenological research 42/166 (january 1992) 95-98.Roy Sorensen - unknown
Paradoxes of intensionality.Dustin Tucker & Richmond H. Thomason - 2011 - Review of Symbolic Logic 4 (3):394-411.
What the liar taught Achilles.Gary Mar & Paul St Denis - 1999 - Journal of Philosophical Logic 28 (1):29-46.
The principle of uniform solution (of the paradoxes of self-reference).Nicholas J. J. Smith - 2000 - Mind 109 (433):117-122.
A new solution to the paradoxes of rational acceptability.Igor Douven - 2002 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 53 (3):391-410.
Paradoxes and Hypodoxes of Time Travel.Peter Eldridge-Smith - 2007 - In Jan Lloyd Jones, Paul Campbell & Peter Wylie (eds.), Art and Time. Australian Scholarly Publishing. pp. 172--189.
Phenomenal Sorites Paradoxes and Looking the Same.Rosanna Keefe - 2011 - Dialectica 65 (3):327-344.

Analytics

Added to PP
2009-01-28

Downloads
190 (#104,290)

6 months
12 (#213,710)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Alex Byrne
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Citations of this work

What's wrong with Moore's argument?James Pryor - 2004 - Philosophical Issues 14 (1):349–378.
Epistemic Angst: Radical Skepticism and the Groundlessness of Our Believing.Duncan Pritchard - 2016 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 93 (3):70-90.
Perception and conceptual content.Alex Byrne - 2013 - In Matthias Steup & John Turri (eds.), Contemporary Debates in Epistemology. Chichester, West Sussex, UK: Blackwell. pp. 231--250.
The Bayesian and the Dogmatist.Brian Weatherson - 2007 - Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 107 (1pt2):169-185.
Intuition.Ole Koksvik - 2011 - Dissertation, Australian National University

View all 33 citations / Add more citations

References found in this work

Knowledge and its limits.Timothy Williamson - 2000 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Philosophical explanations.Robert Nozick - 1981 - Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
The View From Nowhere.Thomas Nagel - 1986 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Mind and World.John Henry McDowell - 1994 - Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Intentionality: An Essay in the Philosophy of Mind.John R. Searle - 1983 - New York: Oxford University Press.

View all 145 references / Add more references