•  2
    Die Arbeit veranschaulicht anhand der Argumente von Kant, Strawson und Davidson, daß vier Kriterien für Transzendentalität identifiziert werden können: ein Reductio des skeptischen Zweifels, die Ablehnung einer Schema/Inhalt-Distinktion, die Etablierung einer transzendentalen Präsupposition sowie eine holistische Vorgehensweise. Das Ziel transzendentaler Argumentation ist, darzulegen, daß der skeptische Zweifel entweder lösbar oder nicht kohärent formulierbar ist. Es wird gezeigt, daß transzende…Read more
  •  1
    This chapter contains sections titled: I II.
  •  1
    ‘Resolution’ – an Illusion of Sense?
    In Volker Munz (ed.), Essays on the philosophy of Wittgenstein, De Gruyter. pp. 169-184. 2010.
  •  13
    This paper aims to motivate a scepticism about scepticism in contemporary epistemology. I present the sceptic with a dilemma: On one parsing of the BIV (brain-in-a-vat) scenario, the second premise in a closure-based sceptical argument will turn out false, because the scenario is refutable; on another parsing, the scenario collapses into incoherence, because the sceptic cannot even save the appearances. I discuss three different ways of cashing out the BIV scenario: ‘Recent Envatment’ (RE), ‘Lif…Read more
  •  24
    Introspective Distinguishability
    Midwest Studies in Philosophy 45 241-256. 2021.
    It is generally thought that if introspective distinguishability were available, it would provide an answer to scepticism about perceptual knowledge by enabling us to tell the difference between a good case perceptual experience and a bad kind. This paper challenges this common assumption by showing that even if ID were available, it would not advance our case against scepticism. The conclusion to draw from this result is not to concede to scepticism, however, but rather to give up on the idea t…Read more
  •  48
    Précis of The Illusion of Doubt
    International Journal for the Study of Skepticism 1-6. forthcoming.
    The Illusion of Doubt shows that radical scepticism is an illusion generated by a Cartesian picture of our evidential situation—the view that my epistemic grounds in both the ‘good’ and the ‘bad’ cases must be the same. It is this picture which issues both a standing invitation to radical scepticism and ensures that there is no way of getting out of it while agreeing to the sceptic’s terms. The sceptical problem cannot, therefore, be answered ‘directly’. Rather, the assumptions that give rise to…Read more
  •  33
    Response to Critics
    International Journal for the Study of Skepticism 1-17. forthcoming.
    In this paper I respond to the objections and comments made by Ranalli, Williams, and Moyal-Sharrock, participants in a symposium on my book on scepticism called The Illusion of Doubt.
  •  23
    Introduction
    International Journal for the Study of Skepticism 9 (3): 179-182. 2019.
    This introduction provides an overview of the content of the papers published in the special issue on epistemic vice and forms of scepticism.
  •  59
    Epistemic Angst, Intellectual Courage and Radical Scepticism
    International Journal for the Study of Skepticism 9 (3): 206-222. 2019.
    The overarching aim of this paper is to persuade the reader that radical scepticism is driven less by independently plausible arguments and more by a fear of epistemic limitation which can be overcome. By developing the Kierkegaardian insight that knowledge requires courage, I show that we are not, as potential knowers, just passive recipients of a passing show of putatively veridical information, we also actively need to put ourselves in the way of it by learning to resist certain forms of epis…Read more
  •  29
    The aesthetic as mirror of faith in Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling
    European Journal of Philosophy 27 (3): 661-674. 2019.
    One of the most intractable issues in Kierkegaard scholarship continues to be the question of what one is to make of the relation between infinite resignation and faith in Fear and Trembling. Most commentators follow Kierkegaard's pseudonymous author in claiming that progression to faith is a “linear” process that requires infinite resignation as a first step. The problem with such a reading is that it leads to paradox: It seems to require attributing to the “knight of faith” two inconsistent be…Read more
  •  18
    How Threatening are Local Sceptical Scenarios?
    Wittgenstein-Studien 10 (1): 261-278. 2019.
    In this paper I distinguish between ‘local’ and ‘global’ forms of ‘envatment’. I show that recent envatment arguments work similarly to arguments from perceptual illusion and that neither of them are able, by themselves, to get us ‘global’ scepticism. Consequently, motivating the radical sceptical idea that all of our perceptual beliefs might be false is harder than it looks.
  •  4
    Kierkegaard contra Hegel on the ‘Absolute Paradox’
    Hegel Bulletin 30 (1-2): 54-66. 2009.
  •  23
    ‘Meaning-dawning’ in Wittgenstein’s Notebooks: a Kierkegaardian reading and critique
    British Journal for the History of Philosophy 26 (3): 540-556. 2018.
    ABSTRACTIn this paper, I am going to propose a new reading of Wittgenstein’s cryptic talk of ‘accession or loss of meaning’ in the Notebooks that draws both on Wittgenstein’s later work on aspect-perception, as well as on the thoughts of a thinker whom Wittgenstein greatly admired: Søren Kierkegaard. I will then go on to argue that, its merits apart, there is something existentially problematic about the conception that Wittgenstein is advocating. For the renunciation of the comforts of the worl…Read more
  •  29
    Beliefs-in-a-Vat
    Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 117 (2): 141-161. 2017.
    The over-arching claim that I intend to defend in this paper is that while widespread ‘local’ error is conceivable, we cannot, in the end, make sense of the radical sceptical idea that all our perceptual beliefs might be false – that no one has, as it were, ever been in touch with an ‘external world’ at all. To this end, I will show that an asymmetry exists between ‘local’ and ‘global’ sceptical scenarios, such that the possibility of ‘local’ error does not imply that ‘global’ error must also be…Read more
  •  5
    Vom Zweifel zur Verzweiflung: Grundbegriffe der Existenzphilosophie Sören Kierkegaards (review)
    European Journal of Philosophy 12 (1): 145-148. 2004.
    Books Reviewed:Kristin Kaufmann,Annemarie Pieper, Søren Kierkegaard.
  •  259
    It is the object of this paper to investigate the parallels discernible between Wittgenstein’s Tractatus and Kierkegaard’s pseudonymous writings. While such attempts have, in the past, generally focussed on either trying to show that Kierkegaard’s notion of paradox is similar to Wittgenstein’s concept of the ineffable or that both thinkers seek to undermine the idea that there are things that cannot be put into words, I argue here that we must look for the affinities between the two philosophers…Read more
  •  74
    (No abstract is available for this citation)
  •  272
    No New Kierkegaard
    International Philosophical Quarterly 44 (4): 519-534. 2004.
    The aim of this paper is to contest an infl uential recent reading of one of Kierkegaard’s most important books, the pseudonymously written Concluding Unscientific Postscript. According to the reading offered by James Conant, the Postscript is an “elaborate reductio” of the very philosophical project in which it itself appears to be engaged, namely, the project of attempting to clarify the nature of Christianity. I show that Conant’s position depends upon four inter-related theses concerning Kie…Read more
  •  469
    A “resolute” later Wittgenstein?
    Metaphilosophy 41 (5): 649-668. 2010.
    Abstract: “Resolute readings” initially started life as a radical new approach to Wittgenstein's early philosophy, but are now starting to take root as a way of interpreting the later writings as well—a trend exemplified by Stephen Mulhall's Wittgenstein's Private Language (2007) as well as by Phil Hutchinson's “What's the Point of Elucidation?” (2007) and Rom Harré's “Grammatical Therapy and the Third Wittgenstein” (2008). The present article shows that there are neither good philosophical nor …Read more
  •  196
    In this paper I develop an account of Wittgenstein's conception of what it is to understand religious language. I show that Wittgenstein's view undermines the idea that as regards religious faith only two options are possible – either adherence to a set of metaphysical beliefs (with certain ways of acting following from these beliefs) or passionate commitment to a ‘doctrineless’ form of life. I offer a defence of Wittgenstein's conception against Kai Nielsen's charges that Wittgenstein removes t…Read more
  •  55
    The ‘Default View’ of Perceptual Reasons and ‘Closure-Based’ Sceptical Arguments
    International Journal for the Study of Skepticism 7 (2): 114-135. 2017.
    _ Source: _Volume 7, Issue 2, pp 114 - 135 It is a commonly accepted assumption in contemporary epistemology that we need to find a solution to ‘closure-based’ sceptical arguments and, hence, to the ‘scepticism or closure’ dilemma. In the present paper I argue that this is mistaken, since the closure principle does not, in fact, do real sceptical work. Rather, the decisive, scepticism-friendly moves are made before the closure principle is even brought into play. If we cannot avoid the sceptical…Read more
  •  32
    Kierkegaard contra Hegel on the'Absolute Paradox'
    Bulletin of the Hegel Society of Great Britain 59 54-66. 2009.
    In the Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion Hegel propounds three inter-related theses: (1) The radical continuity of religion and philosophy. (2) The view that philosophy renders in conceptual form the essence of what Christianity consists in and thus transcends the merely subjective vantage-point of faith. (3) Philosophy alone shows Christianity to be rational and necessary. Kierkegaard’s pseudonym, Johannes Climacus, attacks all three of these theses in Conculding Unscientific Postscript, a…Read more
  •  73
    Epistemological Disjunctivism by Duncan Pritchard
    Analysis 75 (4): 604-615. 2015.
    1. In this exciting and ambitious book, Duncan Pritchard defends a novel conception of perceptual epistemic grounds, which can both be factive and reflectively available to the agent. Pritchard calls this position the ‘holy grail’ of epistemology for its power to undercut two of contemporary epistemology’s most central problems: the epistemic internalism/externalism controversy and radical scepticism. While Pritchard’s book manages to make a convincing case for why one should accept epistemologi…Read more
  •  45
    The Illusion of Doubt
    Oxford University Press UK. 2016.
    The Illusion of Doubt confronts one of the most important questions in philosophy and beyond: what can we know? The radical sceptic's answer is 'not very much' if we cannot prove that we are not subject to deception. For centuries philosophers have been impressed by the radical sceptic's move, but this book shows that the radical sceptical problem turns out to be an illusion created by a mistaken picture of our evidential situation. This means that we don't need to answer the radical sceptical p…Read more
  •  23
    Meaning and Conversational Impropriety in Sceptical Contexts
    Metaphilosophy 47 (3): 431-448. 2016.
    According to “disjunctivist neo-Mooreanism”—a position Duncan Pritchard develops in a recent book—it is possible to know the denials of radical sceptical hypotheses, even though it is conversationally inappropriate to claim such knowledge. In a recent paper, on the other hand, Pritchard expounds an “überhinge” strategy, according to which one cannot know the denials of sceptical hypotheses, as “hinge propositions” are necessarily groundless. The present article argues that neither strategy is en…Read more