An Answer to the Skeptic

An Answer to the Skeptic

Skepticism gains traction from the true justified belief theory of knowledge, because it can be argued that our beliefs are seldom if ever justified. But that is just one theory, not a datum. What if we adopt another type of theory? I observe, to begin with, that other types of knowledge than knowing-that are not subject to skeptical argument: knowing-how and knowledge by acquaintance. You can’t use a brain-in-a-vat scenario to undermine the claim that we have knowledge-how and knowledge by acquaintance, because these are far removed from what is called propositional knowledge (Russell’s knowledge-by-description). I have knowledge-how if I have a certain ability, whether I can justify the claim that I have this ability or not, even while I am a brain in a vat and have never done the thing in question, e.g., throw a ball. I can also know by acquaintance what red is without knowing whether there is an external world; it just depends on what I have experienced not what beliefs I can justify. These are not evidence-based types of knowledge, so the quality of the evidence cannot be impugned. So, the concept of knowledge is not inherently susceptible to skeptical challenge. But what about knowledge-that?

Suppose we go for a perception-based theory of knowledge not a justified true belief theory: that is, we extend acquaintance to knowledge of facts.[1] For example, I might take myself to know that I am lying in bed, and suppose I am: do I really know that I am? That depends on whether I perceive that I am lying in bed, which doesn’t follow from taking myself to be and this actually being the case. Suppose I do perceive this (the fact of my being in bed causes me to have the experience); then we say I am acquainted with this fact—whether I can justify the belief or not. My knowledge depends only on the facts not on my ability to have true justified beliefs about them. Even if I can’t rule out the hypothesis that I am a brain in a vat, I am still causally connected to the fact in question, if indeed it is a fact. Thus, I can know this fact independently of my ability to justify my beliefs about it: for my knowledge is not based on any such justification; it just arises from my being in a perceptual relation to the fact. Knowing facts by acquaintance (perceiving them) isn’t susceptible to the standard skeptical argument. But if that’s what knowledge is, then we have defeated the skeptic about knowledge: the knowledge exists—whether we can know this or not (we are not discussing second-order knowledge). Perceptual knowledge does not depend on possessing justified beliefs. The skeptic has no argument against the possibility of first-order knowledge of facts based on direct acquaintance.

This point may be conceded, but what about all the putative knowledge that is not based on acquaintance but on inference? What about belief-based knowledge based on evidence and justification? Surely the skeptic can get his fangs into that! Here we might agree but insist that no sensible person has ever supposed otherwise: of course, we can’t know what goes beyond our direct apprehension of fact; we can only surmise. It is a misuse of the concept of knowledge to suppose otherwise.[2] Perhaps we can stretch a point and agree that we might call such belief “knowledge” in a relaxed frame of mind, but it was never really knowledge, as distinct from reasonable speculation, just loose talk for pragmatic purposes. I don’t know that atoms exist, though I might have reason to believe that they do; I only truly know what I myself directly perceive. If so, it was never part of (sensible) common sense to apply the concept of knowledge beyond its proper domain, so the skeptic is tilting at windmills and parading truisms. I know hugely many facts about the external world just by perceiving it, even though there are many things I reasonably believe that don’t count as knowledge. Isn’t that what we normally suppose?

Here the skeptic may retract his horns: okay, he says, but we still don’t have adequate justification for the beliefs we hold, despite the fact that we have a lot of knowledge by acquaintance. To that weakened form of skepticism we can reply as follows. We can simply agree with the skeptic but point out that he has said nothing to rule out knowledge in the areas proper to it; he is talking about something else entirely, i.e., justified belief. But second, we could recommend a comparative notion of justification combined with some absolute cases of it. Thus, I am fully justified in believing I am in pain and I am more justified in believing that eagles fly than that pigs fly. We need not claim that all justifications are created equal in order to rebut the justification skeptic—that would be absurd. Justification comes in degrees of cogency and not all measure up to the perfect case—whoever denied it? So, the justification skeptic has not raised a startling new epistemological challenge that undermines commonsense epistemology. We can all agree that our justifications are pretty shabby, judged objectively, but still maintain that the concept of justification is in good order with useful applications. What we are not going to agree on is that there is no such thing as knowledge of the external world; and the correct concept of knowledge does not invite any such conclusion. So, the skeptic has left commonsense epistemology more or less where it was, not counting those rash epistemological optimists who ought to know better. Sound minds have always known that human knowledge is a more limited affair than has sometimes been advertised; that is not skepticism but realism. Human knowledge: its scope and limits.

In case you think this kind of anti-skepticism is toothless, let me note its consequences for knowledge of other minds and the past. For we can now be said to know facts about other minds and the past: that is, such facts can act as the cause of our perceptual states. I know you are in pain because your pain has caused behavior that I perceive as pain-expressing—that is a fact. I can’t justify my belief that you have a mind to the skeptic’s satisfaction (and not unreasonably), but that doesn’t prevent me from being in a knowledge relation to the fact in question. Similarly, past facts cause current memories, so I know them by something akin to perception (it might even be perception)—even if I can’t justify my belief that there is a past. Thus, I can know facts about other minds and the past by something like perceptual acquaintance, though (arguably) I can’t justify my beliefs about these things. Knowing facts is one thing, justifying beliefs is another. To put it simply, if knowing is seeing, then I know a great many things; what beliefs I can justify is another matter, and may well be shakier than some people have supposed. Since no genuine knowledge is constituted by true justified belief—that is just an incorrect analysis—it is irrelevant to knowledge if adequate justifications for belief are unforthcoming.[3]

[1] See Michael Ayers, Knowing and Seeing (2019); also, my “Perceptual Knowledge”.

[2] See my “Non-Perceptual Knowledge”.

[3] A virtue of the account given here is that it concedes some territory to the skeptic—he isn’t just barking up the wrong tree—but it doesn’t concede his most radical claim, namely that nothing is known about the external world (or other minds and the past). Our alleged justifications don’t really warrant the kind of strong belief we are apt to derive from them, but that has nothing to do with our ability to have knowledge; and indeed, we have a lot of that. Knowledge proper was never about warranted belief. Human knowledge, like animal knowledge, is in good shape, though quite restricted; belief on the other hand cries out for justification and often falls short of it. That’s why some philosophers (e.g., Popper) dispense with it in serious contexts.