Brian Ribeiro

Various evangelists of the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries are credited with having asked some version of the question “Why must the Devil have all the good tunes?” If we were to substitute “externalists” for the Devil and “books” for tunes, the question would be a good one to ask about recent work on skepticism. Greco’s book, like Michael Williams’s penetrating Unnatural Doubts, is both a defense of a form of externalism and one of the finest books on skepticism of recent vintage. It seems that on all sides epistemologists are coming to see that dealing with skeptical problems is not only necessary but also philosophically rewarding. In this matter I am in complete agreement with both Greco and Williams, and Greco’s book, like Williams’s, may serve the cause of bringing new converts around to our way of seeing things.

Though it seems rather surprising in retrospect, until about twenty-five years ago no philosopher in the Western tradition had explicitly formulated the question whether there could be an epistemic analogue to practical akrasia. Also surprisingly, despite the prima facie analogue with practical akrasia (the possibility of which is not much disputed), much of the recent work on this question has defended the rather bold view that epistemic akrasia is impossible. While the arguments purporting to show the impossibility of epistemic akrasia have been criticized by some, I propose instead to make a head-on attack and defend the substantive view that epistemic akrasia is possible — indeed, actual. This leaves for another day the project of diagnosing exactly where the arguments for the impossibility of epistemic akrasia go wrong. Here, I content myself with trying to show that they must go wrong, since — as I will argue — epistemic akrasia is possible.

In this paper I aim to address--and also to better understand--what is perhaps the most intuitive objection to Pyrrhonian skepticism, namely, that to completely suspend one's judgment is psychologically impossible. I propose to come to an understanding of Sextus's relation to this objection by trying to more clearly understand Sextus's claims about the "Skeptic". I hope to show that it is at least possible for us to understand Sextus and his claims about the "Skeptic" without being driven to either (1) invoke restrictive interpretations of his claims or (2) adopt implausible hypotheses concerning his sincerity

In an earlier paper ("Skeptical Parasitism and the Continuity Argument," 'Metaphilosophy' 2004: 714-732) I suggested that the well-known "plane-spotters" story-first proposed by Thompson Clarke and later developed by Barry Stroud-distorts the very skeptical view it aims to elucidate. However, considerations of space prohibited me from fleshing out my criticisms of the Clarke/Stroud story in that paper. In this paper I aim to fill in this lacuna by showing how the Clarke/Stroud story distorts the skeptic's view. I conclude the paper by briefly sketching the alternative position I endorse and explaining how it avoids the distortions encouraged by the Clarke/Stroud story