Renata Ziemińska

The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Scepticism. R. Bett (Ed.), New York: Cambridge University Press 2010, pp. 380+xii, ISBN 780521697545. The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Scepticism, edited by Richard Bett, consists of an Introduction and fifteen papers written by international authors (three of them have been diligently translated into English by the editor). The volume presents the major figures of ancient skepticism and the major interpretational problems. Separate papers are devoted to Pyrrho of Elis (Svavar Hrafn Svavarsson), Arcesilaus and Carneades (Harald Thorsrud), Aenesidemus (R.J. Hankinson) and Sextus Empiricus (Pierre Pellegrin). Agrippa seems to be the only missing figure on the list. Moreover, we can also find a lot of information about the minor figures of ancient skepticism. Mi-Kyoung Lee presents skeptical ideas in early Greek philosophy and Carlos Levy writes about the later academic skeptics, especially Clitomachus, Philo of Larissa and Cicero. Richard Bett in his Introduction lists the most important problems in interpreting ancient skepticism: What kinds of belief, if any, are open to a skeptic? Can a skeptic allow for choice and action and if so, then how? Is skepticism compatible with an ethical outlook? Is there a real difference between the Academic and Pyrrhonist varieties of skepticism? Casey Perin takes on the first one, Katja Maria Vogt—the second, Richard Bett—the third, and Gisela Striker—the last one. We also have the next five papers presenting other important aspects of ancient skepticism. Paul Woodruff writes about skeptical modes, James Allen about the relation between Pyrrhonism and medical schools, Emidio Spinelli about the critique of specialized sciences, Luciano Floridi about the modern rediscovery of ancient skepticism, and Michael Williams about its Cartesian transformation. The Companion is very rich in content and very up-to-date, presenting the latest hypotheses. Here I would like to discuss the problem of Pyrrho’s place within the skeptical tradition.

I argue against the exclusive female/male divide, referring to the phenomenon of epistemic injustice in the cases of people with nonbinary gender identities and people with intersex traits. Such people have traits that are counterexamples to the binary female/male model. I have separated female and male traits into nine basic layers, five of which belong to sex and four to gender. In every layer, I have found traits that are neither female nor male, and the application of the model to individuals provides examples of clusters of traits for which one layer is male and another female. Such traits and clusters of traits create the category of the nonbinary. Table 1 provides a sketch of a nonbinary model. The nonbinary category takes its name from the existing category of nonbinary gender identity; however, in the current model, it is a third category of traits, not of people. Under the nonbinary model, the basic gender concepts do not disappear. S is a woman if S is a human being with enough female traits, and the trait of having self-determined female gender identity is sufficient but not necessary.

Luca Castagnoli, Ancient Self-Refutation. The Logic and History of the Self- Refutation Argument from Democritus to Augustine, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2010, pp. XX+394. Hardback, ISBN 9780521896313. Abstract. In his book Ancient Self-Refutation L. Castagnoli rightly observes that selfrefutation is not falsification; it overturns the act of assertion but does not prove that the content of the act is false. He argues against the widely spread belief that Sextus Empiricus accepted the self-refutation of his own expressions. Castagnoli also claims that Sextus was effective in answering to the self-refutation charge. The achievement of the book is the disperitropécovery that in passages where Sextus seems to embrace the selfrefutation of his expressions (PH 1.14-15), he does not use the term peritropé, technical for self-refutation, but the term perigraphé, which means self-bracketing. Selfbracketing is weakening one’s own thesis, but not overturning it. Castagnoli claims that Sextus embraces the self-bracketing of his expressions, but never accepts their selfrefutation. However, Castagnoli is not right in saying that self-refutation is a shameful mistake for everybody. The mature skeptic cannot even think that self-refutation is wrong, because it would be a dogmatic view. Sextus seems to accept self-refutation at the end of Against the Logicians, where he presents the argument against proof and the metaphor of the ladder (M 8.480-1). Regardless of Sextus’ declarations, we have reason to think that he does not avoid self-refutation in a pragmatic sense. Self-bracketing of his position is not a consistent dialectical strategy, as Castagnoli writes, but the end of a rational discussion. Sextus avoids absolute self-refutation (we cannot falsify what he suggests), but he is unable to avoid pragmatic self-refutation (there is no way to assert his position without contradiction). This is the case even if Sextus refuses to assert his position.

Academic skepticism is usually interpreted as a type of discourse without an assertion (a dialectical interpretation). I argue against this interpretation. One can interpret Carneades’ notion of approval as our notion of weak assertion and thereby ascribe to him his own views (a non-dialectical interpretation). In Academica Cicero reports the debate about the status of approval as a kind of assent among Carneades’ followers, especially the views of Clitomachus and Philo of Larissa. According to Clitomachus, approving impressions implies acting on them without taking them as true, while according to Philo of Larissa, approval is taking something as true without certainty. In more modern terms, we can say that Philo refers to the notion of weak assertion, and Clitomachus to non-assertion. Thus Clitomachus’ reading correlates with a dialectical reading, and Philo’s reading correlates with a non-dialectical reading. Philo’s reading leads to the interpretation of Carneades as a quasi-fallibilist. It is difficult to establish the precise position of the historical Carneades because he was hesitant in his oral teaching. Still, there is some basis in Carneades’ theory for interpreting approval as weak assertion (comprising three degrees of persuasiveness involving rational consideration of what seems to be truth). My aim in this essay is thus to argue that a quasi-fallibilist and non-dialectical reading is applicable to the historical Carneades.

Two concepts of the internal should be distinguished in the current epistemic internalism/externalism debate: (1) the internal in an introspective sense as what is accessible by introspection and (2) the internal in a biological sense as what is inside the organism's nervous system. When "internal" is meant in the introspective sense, Goldman's process reliabilism is externalist, but when "internal" is taken in the biological sense, Goldman's process reliabilism is internalist. Goldman as a naturalist prefers "internal" in the biological sense, but the concept is unsuitable for presenting the current epistemic internalism/externalism controversy. If one understands "internal" in the introspective sense, Goldman's reliabilism is strongly externalist.

Skepticism described by Sextus Empiricus faces the persistent charge that it is an inconsistent, self-refuting view. However, recently its consistency hasbeen defended in three important ways: it is a thesis with weak assertion, it is a practice without any assertion, and it is a process developing over time.The first option is not well supported by Sextus’ texts, where even a weak assertion is not allowed. The second option cannot explain the rationality of skeptical arguments. The third option reveals two levels of Sextan skepticism; however, the developing skeptic has to accept the self-refutation charge, and the mature skeptic takes flight from the charge without any rational answer. I claim that Sextus embraces the self-refutation charge. The mature skeptic’s speech acts are pragmatically inconsistent: their content cannot be asserted without contradiction. As a result, the charge of inconsistency is not answered

Epistemic externalists offer many arguments against skepticism. They modify the skeptic’s concept of knowledge, justification and meaning and point out which of his presuppositions we need not accept. Dretske claims that a skeptic wrongly presupposes that we cannot know if we do not know that we know. But knowledge need not be self-conscious . According to Nozick a skeptic wrongly presupposes the Principle of Closure . He says that although we do not know that we are not brains in a vat, a skeptic does not have the right to use this principle to argue that we do not know things that are obvious. According to Putnam the skeptical hypothesis that we are brains in a vat is incoherent when we use the external theory of meaning. If the meaning of our words depends on a causal relation with our environment, the sentence “I am a brain in a vat” is false or meaningless. Similarly, Davidson says that the external theory of perceptual beliefs excludes global skepticism. According to Williams skepticism simply presupposes a stance opposite to externalism, namely internalism . When we reject internalism, no skeptical argument can be formulated

I present the notion of epistemic injustice coined by Miranda Fricker and apply it to the situation of people with intersex traits, especially intersex children who are the subjects of “normalizing” surgery. Several studies from Polish hospitals show that both early “normalizing” surgery and the decision to postpone such surgery can result in harm to an intersex child. For this reason, I claim that “normalizing” surgery is only an expression of the epistemic hermeneutical injustice existing before the surgery and that its source is the lack of an empirically adequate notion of sex characteristics. The binary notion is too simple to grasp intersex traits, and this epistemic dysfunction turns into practical harm. In contrast to Morgan Carpenter, I defend the nonbinary gender category as being important to limiting “normalizing” surgery.

Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz understands skepticism as the thesis that there is no criterion of truth and that the justification of any thesis is impossible. According to Ajdukiewicz, a typical skeptic confuses two levels of justification: the first order justification of a proposition s and the second order justification of the proposition that s is justified. However, the first-order justification is possible without second-order justification. This argument presented by Ajdukiewicz in 1923 heralded the epistemic externalism concerning justification developed by Alvin Goldman in 1980 and the externalist response to skepticism developed by F. Dretske and M. Williams. They all suggested weakening the traditional concept of justification and concluded that if we accept the possibility of justification without self-justification, the skeptical regress is blocked. However, such a response to skepticism is dependent on the externalist notion of justification. Ajdukiewicz had opportunity to use the stronger argument from self-refutation, but he underestimated its utility. The other side of Ajdukiewicz’s relation to skepticism is his radical conventionalism that presupposes some moderate form of skepticism in a broad sense. The article is an attempt to determine what kind of skepticism Ajdukiewicz accepted and what kind he rejected. The conclusion is that Ajdukiewicz is an anti-skeptical fallibilist.

The paper presents four stages of author’s epistemological experience: Roman Ingarden’s autonomous theory of knowledge, the anti-naturalistic theory of knowledge by Roderick Chisholm, the naturalistic epistemology by Alvin Goldman, and the epistemology of classical problems of truth and skepticism. The conclusion is the following: epistemology should make use of human knowledge results, especially cognitive sciences and reflect on the problem of truth, the challenge of skepticism, the possibility of knowledge and human cognitive condition (science, religion, art). The social role of the epistemologist is not to resolve all these existentially important questions but to be an expert (to know the state of discussion and to deliver his/her opinions)

This book reconstructs the history of skepticism ranging from ancient to contemporary times, from Pyrrho to Kripke. The main skeptical stances and the historical reconstruction of the concept of skepticism are connected with an analysis of their recurrent inconsistency. The author reveals that this inconsistency is not a logical contradiction but a pragmatic one. She shows that it is a contradiction between the content of the skeptical position and the implicit presumption of the act of its assertion. The thesis of global skepticism cannot be accepted as true without falling into the pragmatic inconsistency. The author explains, how skepticism was important for exposing the limits of human knowledge and inspired its development.

Luca Castagnoli, Ancient Self-Refutation. The Logic and History of the Self- Refutation Argument from Democritus to Augustine, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2010, pp. XX+394. Hardback, ISBN 9780521896313. L. Castagnoli in his book Ancient Self-Refutation rightly observes that self-refutation is not falsification; it overturns the act of assertion but does not prove that the content of the act is false. He argues against the widely spread belief that Sextus Empiricus accepted the self-refutation of his own expressions. Castagnoli also claims that Sextus was effective in answering to the self-refutation charge. The achievement of the book is discovery that in passages where Sextus seems to embrace the self-refutation of his expressions (PH 1.14-15), he does not use the term peritropé , technical for self-refutation, but term perigrafé , which means self-bracketing. Self-bracketing is weakening one’s own thesis but not overturning it. Castagnoli claims that Sextus embraces the self-bracketing of his expressions but never accepts their self-refutation. However, Castagnoli is not right that self-refutation is shameful mistake for everybody. The mature skeptic cannot even think that self-refutation is wrong, because it would be a dogmatic view. Sextus seems accept the self-refutation at the end of Against Logicians where he presents the argument against proof and the metaphor of the ladder (M 8.480-1). Regardless of Sextus declarations, we have reasons to think that he does not avoid self-refutation in pragmatic sense. Self-bracketing of his position is not a consistent dialectical strategy, as Castagnoli writes, but the end of rational discussion. Sextus avoids absolute self-refutation (we cannot falsify what he suggests) but he is unable to avoid pragmatic self-refutation (there is no way to assert his position without contradiction). It is the case, even if Sextus refuses asserting his position

Nozick is the author of the conditional definition of knowledge where two subjunctive conditionals replace internalistic notion of justification. If you know that p, you have true belief that p and also in the close possible worlds you would accept p when p is true and you would not accept p when p is false. Nozick agrees with skeptics that we do not know that we are not brains in the vat. But he claims that we do know all the trivial things we think we know. The only way to accept the two theses is to deny the Principle of Clousure. According to Nozick knowledge is not closed under known logical implication. But is it right to deny the principle? Our everyday knowledge implies that the skeptic is wrong. If I know that I am reading a text on Earth, it is false that I am on Alpha Centauri floating in a tank. To reject skeptic it is enough to deny the transparency principle (if I know, I know that I know). When knowledge is possible without knowledge about that knowledge, we can know even if we are not able to prove that we know

"Introspection" in its broad sense (Shoemaker, Armstrong) is each non-inferential access a person has to his/her own current mental states and events. It includes both introspection as a conscious act and introspection as pre-introspective awareness. "Introspection" in its narrow sense (Ryle, Dretske, Dennett) excludes pre-intro-spective awareness as not self-sufficient kind of access and part of some other conscious act. Introspection as a self-sufficient conscious act can be explained as second-order thought or reduced to third person knowledge but pre-introspective awareness can not (it is left as a mystery). Author claims that either pre-introspective awareness deserves the name "experience" and in source of special first-person knowledge (even if it is part of other sources of knowing and can be brought to consciousness only by proper introspection), either introspection as an act is a kind of experience and source of knowledge (sense experience is also some very fast interpretation of stimuli). Both pre-introspective awareness and proper introspection are kinds of experience if experience equals direct acquaintance, without any inference and stages. "Perception" can be left for sense perception of external objects. The result of introspection are not incorrigible but persons have "privileged access" to their own thoughts