Jean-Baptiste Guillon

Common-sense philosophers typically maintain that common-sense propositions have a certain kind of epistemic privilege that allows them to evade the threats of skepticism or radical revisionism. But why do they have this special privilege? In response to this question, the “Common-Sense Tradition” contains many different strands of arguments. In this paper, I will develop a strategy that combines two of these strands of arguments. First, the “Dynamic Argument” (or the “starting-point argument”), inspired by Thomas Reid and Charles S. Peirce (but which will be strengthened with the help of Gilbert Harman’s epistemology of belief revision). Second, G.E. Moore’s “greater certainty argument” (interpreted along the lines of Soames’ and Pollock’s construal). This combined strategy, I will argue, is the strong core of Common-Sense Philosophy, and relies on extremely modest and widely held assumptions.

The problem of the Trinity is often framed as a paradox between some propositions central to the doctrine of the Trinity that seem to be logically in tension with each other. However, a problem of Paradox presupposes that we have a sufficient understanding of the meanings of the propositions (otherwise we wouldn’t even have any appearance of conflict between these meanings). My claim in this paper is that the main problem of the Trinity is more radical than a problem of Paradox: it’s rather a problem of Meaninglessness, in the sense that the difficult challenge is to grasp a meaning for the central propositions of the doctrine (not to render logically compatible some meanings clearly grasped). I show how we can respond to the problem of Meaninglessness and how, once we have solved it, there is no need to try and dissolve the appearance of contradiction which constitutes the problem of Paradox. As far as the problem of Paradox goes, the solution adopted here is therefore a form of Mysterianism.

Common-sense philosophers typically maintain that common-sense propositions have a certain kind of epistemic privilege that allows them to evade the threats of skepticism or radical revisionism. Butwhydo they have this special privilege? In response to this question, the “Common-Sense Tradition” contains many different strands of arguments. In this paper, I will develop a strategy that combines two of these strands of arguments. First, the “Dynamic Argument” (or the “starting-point argument”), inspired by Thomas Reid and Charles S. Peirce (but which will be strengthened with the help of Gilbert Harman’s epistemology of belief revision). Second, G.E. Moore’s “greater certainty argument” (interpreted along the lines of Soames’ and Pollock’s construal). This combined strategy, I will argue, is the strong core of Common-Sense Philosophy, and relies on extremely modest and widely held assumptions.

Cet article tente d’établir un diagnostic épistémologique du phénomène contemporain de développement des théories complotistes. Il part de la critique de deux approches du phénomène. L’approche « hyper-critique » consiste à dire que le développement du complotisme manifeste un manque « d’esprit critique », et prescrit donc comme thérapie d’enseigner aux élèves à ne rien croire sans l’avoir vérifié soi-même. Je réponds que cette stratégie « individualiste épistémique » est inefficace voire contre-productive, car une étude des discours conspirationnistes révèle que le conspirationnisme se nourrit précisément d’une rhétorique individualiste. La seconde approche que je rejette consiste à nier l’existence de tout phénomène problématique de « théories du complot ». Cette approche s’appuie essentiellement sur la difficulté qu’il y a à définir précisément ce qu’est l’état d’esprit conspirationniste. Je réponds en définissant le conspirationnisme comme une exacerbation de l’individualisme épistémique, c’est-à-dire l’incapacité à distinguer les sources testimoniales fiables des sources testimoniales non fiables.

One version of the Problem of Divine Hiddenness is about people who are looking for God and are distressed about not finding him. Having in mind such distressed God-seekers, Blaise Pascal imagined Jesus telling them the following: “Take comfort; you would not seek me if you had not found me.” This is what I call the Pascalian Conditional of Hiddenness (PCH). In the first part of this paper, I argue that the PCH leads to a new interpretation of Pascal’s own response to the problem, significantly different from Hick’s or Schellenberg’s interpretations of Pascal. In short: for any person who is distressed about not finding God, and who (for this reason) seriously considers the Argument from Hiddenness, the PCH would show that their own distress constitutes evidence that God is in fact not hidden to them (because this desire for God has been instigated in them by God himself). In the second part of the paper, I set aside the exegetical question and try to develop this original strategy as a contemporary response to one version of the Problem of Divine Hiddenness, which I call the “first-person problem.” I argue that the PCH strategy offers a plausibly actual story to respond to the first-person problem. As a result, even if we need to complement the PCH strategy with other more traditional strategies (in order to respond to other versions of the problem), the PCH strategy should plausibly be part of the complete true story about Divine Hiddenness.

Dariusz Łukasiewicz has investigated in depth the “Argument from Chance” which argues that the data revealing chance in the world are incompatible with Divine Providence. Łukasiewicz agrees that these data undermine the traditional model of Providence—a fine-grained model in which every single detail is controlled by God—but maintains that they are not incompatible with a coarse-grained model—in which God leaves to chance many aspects of history (including some horrendous evils). Furthermore, Łukasiewicz provides independent reasons to prefer this coarse-grained model. Even though I agree that a maximally fine-grained model is undermined by the scientific data, I argue that this is no sufficient reason to adopt a model as coarse-grained as Łukasiewicz’s. I propose a model of intermediate level of fine-grainedness which could avoid the drawbacks of both extremes, and seems to me to provide a more traditional approach to the problem of evil.

When the meta-philosophies of Nominalism and Realism are compared, it is often said that Nominalism is motivated by a methodology of ontological economy, while Realism would be motivated by an appeal to Common Sense. In this paper, I argue that this association is misguided. After briefly comparing the meta-philosophy of Common Sense and the meta-philosophy of economy, I show that the core motivation in favour of Realism relies in fact in a principle of economy which violates the methodology of Common Sense. I conclude that Common Sense philosophers should endorse Nominalism.

Cet article tente d’établir un diagnostic épistémologique du phénomène contemporain de développement des théories complotistes. Il part de la critique de deux approches du phénomène. L’approche « hyper-critique » consiste à dire que le développement du complotisme manifeste un manque « d’esprit critique », et prescrit donc comme thérapie d’enseigner aux élèves à ne rien croire sans l’avoir vérifié soi-même. Je réponds que cette stratégie « individualiste épistémique » est inefficace voire contre-productive, car une étude des discours conspirationnistes révèle que le conspirationnisme se nourrit précisément d’une rhétorique individualiste. La seconde approche que je rejette consiste à nier l’existence de tout phénomène problématique de « théories du complot ». Cette approche s’appuie essentiellement sur la difficulté qu’il y a à définir précisément ce qu’est l’état d’esprit conspirationniste. Je réponds en définissant le conspirationnisme comme une exacerbation de l’individualisme épistémique, c’est-à-dire l’incapacité à distinguer les sources testimoniales fiables des sources testimoniales non fiables.

Descartes’s Evil Demon argument has been the subject of many reconstructions in recent analytic debates. Some have proposed a reconstruction with a principle of Infallibility, others with a principle of Closure of Knowledge, others with more original principles. In this paper, I propose a new reconstruction, which relies on the combination of two principles, namely the Meta-Coherence principle and the principle of Closure of Justification. I argue that the argument construed in this way is the best interpretation of what is really at play in the Evil Demon intuition, and also that this argument is dialectically much stronger than previous reconstructions. If this is right, then the “Closure plus Meta-Coherence” argument is what anti-sceptics should really be attacking.

There are three families of solutions to the traditional Amputation Paradox: Eliminativism, Contingent Identity Theories, and Theories of Coincident Entities. Theories of Coincident Entities challenge our common understanding of the relation between identity and parthood, since they accept that two things can be mereologically coincident without being identical. The contemporary discussion of the Amputation Paradox tends to mention only one theory of Coincident Entities, namely the Constitution View, which violates the mereological principle of Extensionality. But in fact, there is another theory, namely the Unique Part View, which violates another mereological principle. In this paper, I argue that the contemporary focus on the Constitution View is unmotivated, at least when we are confronted with the Amputation Paradox, and that a balanced comparison of the two views should favour the Unique Part View.

Dans cet article, je discute l’épistémologie de Pascal Engel, en particulier sa stratégie de réponse aux arguments sceptiques dans Va Savoir!. Après avoir présenté de manière synthétique les grands axes de cette stratégie, je reviens avec plus d’attention sur deux éléments de cette stratégie avec lesquels je suis en désaccord : le rejet par Engel de tout principe de réflexivité épistémique, et le rejet par Engel d’une défense « forte » du sens commun. Je défends qu’un certain principe de réflexivité ne peut pas être raisonnablement rejeté ; puis je montre que l’épistémologie d’Engel ne permet pas d’apporter une réponse satisfaisante au défi sceptique que pose le principe de Méta-Cohérence. Enfin, je soutiens que la seule manière de répondre de manière satisfaisante à ce défi est de recourir à une défense « forte » du sens commun, c’est-à-dire à une stratégie dans laquelle les propositions de sens commun sont justifiées parce qu’elles sont de sens commun.

Any philosopher who defends Free Will should have an answer to the epistemological question: “how do we know that we have such a capacity?” A traditional answer to this question is that we have some form of introspective access to our own Free Will. In recent times though, many philosophers have considered any such introspectionist theory as so obviously wrong that it hardly needs discussion, especially when Free Will is understood in libertarian terms. One of the rare objections to appear as an explicit argument was proposed by van Inwagen in his Essay on Free Will. In this paper, I address van Inwagen’s anti-introspection argument; I argue that it is both inconsistent with his overall treatment of the Existence Question (namely, with his defence of the existence of Free Will from reflections about morality), and inconclusive in itself (at least for anyone not ready to endorse general scepticism about perception). In passing, I give a clarification of the notion of Introspection, in the case of Freedom, that also sets a more favourable stage for the evaluation of further objections