Louis Doulas

It is widely assumed that G. E. Moore was either oblivious or indifferent to circularity worries surrounding his enigmatic proof of an external world. I argue that this assumption is false. Drawing on unpublished archival evidence and overlooked passages in Moore’s posthumously published lectures, I provide, for the first time, an account of Moore on circular proof. I show that, as early as 1928–29 and as late as 1938–39, Moore identified an “important” and “unimportant” sense of begging the question (epistemic circularity and premise circularity, respectively) and maintained that a genuine proof should avoid both forms. Curiously, however, this standard is not upheld in his 1939 “Proof,” where this “important” sense is conspicuously absent from Moore’s discussion. This discrepancy raises an interpretative puzzle: Why does Moore’s standard for proof change? I provide an answer and explore its philosophical implications, clarifying the paradoxical nature of the proof and re-diagnosing the sense of intellectual dissatisfaction experienced by many commentators.

This volume is the first to be dedicated exclusively to the philosophy of Susan Stebbing (1885-1943)-a pivotal figure in early analytic philosophy who has, until recently, been unjustly neglected. The eleven historical essays that comprise the volume explore (many for the first time) various elements of Stebbing's prolific output: the significance of her work on metaphysical analysis, her contributions to public philosophy, including her work in the philosophy of physics, critical thinking, ethics, and counterpropaganda efforts, as well as her work in philosophical logic and the philosophy of language. The volume endeavors to reinstate Stebbing's place in the analytic tradition by examining her ideas in context and elucidating their significance, many of which are still relevant to present day philosophy"-- Provided by publisher.

Just as skepticism about our knowledge of the external world is thought to engender a kind of despair, skepticism about our philosophical knowledge, if true, engenders a despair of a similar kind. We remain optimistic. Despair, we urge, needn’t get the best of us. Philosophical knowledge is attainable. Progress is possible. But we aren’t overly optimistic either. Philosophical skepticism has its place. In this chapter, we show how philosophical knowledge and philosophical progress is possible in light of widespread disagreement in philosophy.

Philosophers disagree. A lot. Pervasive disagreement is part of the territory; consensus is hard to find. Some think this should lead us to embrace philosophical skepticism: skepticism about the extent to which we can know, or justifiably believe, the philosophical views we defend and advance. Most philosophers in the literature fall into one camp or the other: philosophical skepticism or philosophical anti-skepticism. Drawing on the insights of hinge epistemology, this paper proposes another way forward, an intermediate position that appeals both to skeptical and anti-skeptical intuitions concerning the possibility and scope of philosophical knowledge. The main advantage of our account is that it’s able to recover some philosophical knowledge while also being compatible with philosophical skepticism.

This chapter serves as an opinionated introduction to the problem of convergence (that there is no clear convergence to the truth in philosophy) and the problem of peer disagreement (that disagreement with a peer rationally demands suspending one’s beliefs), and some of the issues they give rise to, namely, philosophical skepticism and progress in philosophy. After introducing both topics and surveying the various positions in the literature we explore the prospects of an alternative, hinge-theoretic account.