Anti-Skepticism

Anti-Skepticism

We know what skepticism says: it says that we don’t know what we think we know. At its extreme, it says we don’t know anything; typically, it says we know nothing about the external world and other minds. It asserts this; it claims to know it. We definitely know that we don’t know. We might rephrase it thus: we know one thing only—that we don’t know anything (except that). We can be certain of our ignorance. Alternatively, the only justified belief we have is that we have no justified beliefs—except that one. But what does the opposite view say—the view that we do have knowledge? This view has no established name, so I will call it “gnosticism”: it says that we have a lot more knowledge than that, because we don’t have that knowledge, viz. the alleged knowledge that we have no knowledge. Gnosticism says that what we take ourselves to know we really do know. It’s like realism and anti-realism: anti-realism says that nothing is real (or that a restricted class of things isn’t real), while realism says that things (or things of a certain class) are real. Gnosticism says that knowledge is real (it is realist about knowledge) while skepticism says that knowledge is unreal—it doesn’t exist (skepticism is anti-realist about knowledge). The idea is that we are natural commonsense gnostics, but skepticism challenges this. It questions an epistemological doctrine that we allegedly hold. We believe that knowledge is real and the skeptic denies that.

I think this is all wrong. There is no such doctrine as gnosticism that we all believe and skeptics deny. The reason for this is not hard to discover: we don’t believe that all our beliefs count as knowledge; we accept that many of our beliefs are probably false or unjustified. Error somewhere is a certainty. I believe that many beliefs held by humans are false; I am not a global gnostic. And I also believe that I myself have many false beliefs—I am fallible. I can’t tell you which, obviously, but I believe there must be some. The skeptic says that no beliefs count as knowledge, but no sane person thinks that all beliefs count as knowledge! False unjustifiable belief is only too real. So, what is the state of epistemological belief that we all supposedly share? This is where this whole way of thinking runs into the ground—for we cannot specify what precisely we are all supposed to believe about our state of knowledge. Consider our knowledge of the external world: what do I believe about this? I don’t believe that all my beliefs are knowledge, so what is the relevant quantifier? Do I believe that some count as knowledge? That seems much too weak. Do I believe that most count as knowledge? No, because I have never reflected on the question and have no belief to that effect (I haven’t surveyed the extent of my knowledge). The same for “many” and “a few” and “nearly all”: I just have no epistemic beliefs of the kind in question. Do I even believe that my current belief that I am typing counts as knowledge? Doubtful: that belief goes beyond merely believing the proposition at issue, and I might never have entertained the question. People don’t normally have anti-skeptical beliefs about their state of knowledge; they don’t believe what I am calling gnosticism. So, there is no commonly accepted epistemic doctrine with which skeptics disagree. And it would be hard to formulate such a doctrine: for what precisely would it maintain? We just don’t have any idea about the quantity of our knowledge, and there is much disagreement among us about what we truly know. The skeptic is saying we don’t have any knowledge about a given area, and that is clear enough; but we don’t have any positive beliefs about the extent of our knowledge—that is, about how extensive the phenomenon of knowledge is. That would seem to be a matter of anthropology—local anthropology not universal, varying over time and place. How many of my beliefs about the external world are true? I haven’t the foggiest, to tell you the truth—and how would I find out? I am agnostic on the question. It would be weird if I were to reply to the skeptic by saying that I have exactly two true justified beliefs about the external world, not zero. See, I do have some knowledge of the external world!

The above is not the proper form of the dialectic. Its proper form is what I call agnostic anti-skepticism: the view that the skeptic is wrong confidently to claim zero knowledge, because we don’t know how much we know. We must be agnostic about the extent of our knowledge and not insist that it is non-existent. Our non-skeptical attitude is that the skeptic does not have a convincing proof that we have no knowledge and that his position is self-refuting. For anything he has said, we might have extensive knowledge—how extensive we are not in a position confidently to assert. We are strictly agnostic about how much we know, but not about the soundness of the skeptic’s arguments—we reject these with confidence. We are anti-skeptical but not pro-gnostical (whatever that view may be). We are not committed to any positive belief about the extent of human knowledge, but we deny that the skeptic has a convincing argument against knowledge. So, we don’t have any positive view of the amount of our knowledge; we just think that the skeptic is wrong in his arguments. Why he is wrong is another matter; I am merely sketching the form of the dialectic not stating its final outcome. The usual method is to question the skeptic’s conception of justification and to point to the self-refuting character of his position. My point here is that we can refute the skeptic without having a positive view of our own—to the effect that we do have knowledge. We are agnostic about that but dogmatic about the soundness of the skeptic’s argument. I don’t know with certainty whether knowledge exists, but I do know the skeptic hasn’t proved it doesn’t. That is my official position philosophically (if not practically). Privately, I may have all sorts of beliefs, more or less well-founded, about what I know; but in point of refuting the skeptic I stick to the agnostic position, since I don’t need to take a stand on the substantive question in order to stop the skeptic in his tracks. It’s smart to be an agnostic anti-skeptic not a dogmatic (or devout) anti-skeptic. Maybe the existence of knowledge can’t be proved, but I can at least prove the skeptic hasn’t shown that it doesn’t. I don’t have to be a firm believer in knowledge in order to be a disbeliever in skepticism. These are two separate questions. The skeptic may try to portray the anti-skeptic as a dogmatist about the existence of knowledge, but he needs to be no such thing—he is just skeptical about skepticism. Or rather dogmatic about it, given that he has (he thinks) undermined the skeptic’s argument. Granted, this is not a trivial task, but at least we don’t need to take on the burden of defending knowledge in order to achieve it. For all we know, we may know nothing (or very little), but the skeptic hasn’t demonstrated that. I may not know that I know, but the skeptic hasn’t shown that I don’t know. I might be an ignorant brain in a vat, but the skeptic hasn’t shown that this possibility undermines my claim to knowledge of the external world—if his arguments are invalid. I might indeed know nothing, but the skeptic hasn’t established that fact—that is my considered position. I don’t have to prove anything positive about the existence of knowledge in order to defeat the skeptic. I don’t have to present a single case of knowledge (pace G.E. Moore and his two hands). I am not a skeptic and I am not a gnostic; I am an agnostic anti-skeptic.[1]

[1] This position accepts that proving the existence of knowledge is a difficult philosophical task but argues that the skeptic has not proved his case. Indeed, the skeptic’s case is paradoxical, since it affirms knowledge of itself—it isn’t skeptical about the truth of skepticism! Skepticism, however extreme, isn’t skeptical enough; it can be turned against itself. There is much to be said in criticism of skepticism that doesn’t require us to undertake the task of proving that we know this or that thing. To prove that I have knowledge of the external world I must prove the existence of the external world—and good luck with that! But seeing the flaws in skeptical arguments is a much less daunting enterprise. To show that the skeptic hasn’t disproved knowledge of the external world you don’t have to prove knowledge of it, and hence it. You can remain neutral about the latter while being vehemently anti-skeptical.