Scott Aikin

Evidentialism is the view that subjects should believe neither more than nor contrary to what their current evidence supports. I will critically present two arguments for the view. A common source of resistance to evidentialism is that there are intuitive cases where subjects should believe contrary to their evidence. I will present modest evidentialism as the view that subjects should believe in accord with what their evidence supports, but that this norm may be overridden under certain conditions. As such, a modest evidentialismaccommodates the intuitions behind a good deal of traditional anti-evidentialism.

Simply stated, Pragmatic Invariantism is the view that the practical interests of a person can influence whether that person’s true belief constitutes knowledge. My primary objective in this article is to show that Pragmatic Invariantism entails external world skepticism. Toward this end, I’ll first introduce a basic version of Pragmatic Invariantism (PI). Then I’ll introduce a sample skeptical hypothesis (SK) to the framework. From this I will show that it is extremely important that the phenomenally equivalent skeptical scenarios generated by SK are actually false. We’ll then see that by combining PI and SK, the effect will be to place extremelyhigh demands upon evidence for ~SK. It will finally be observed that, while we may have good evidence for ~SK, we do not have extremely strong evidence sufficient for establishing ~SK. This supports my conclusion that any standard version of Pragmatic Invariantism ultimately entails external world skepticism. If successful, my conclusion will critically undermine the current view that Pragmatic Invariantism is actually a skeptically resistant position.

Though textbook tu quoque arguments are fallacies of relevance, many versions of arguments from hypocrisy are indirectly relevant to the issue. Some arguments from hypocrisy are challenges to the authority of a speaker on the basis of either her sincerity or competency regarding the issue. Other arguments from hypocrisy purport to be evidence of the impracticability of the opponent’s proposals. Further, some versions of hypocrisy charges from impracticability are open to a counter that I will term tu quoque judo