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Title: Unnatural Doubts by Michael Williams ISBN: 0-691-01115-X Publisher: Princeton University Press Pub. Date: 22 December, 1995 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $26.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 5 (2 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Epistemological Realism and a Contextualist Remedy
Comment: Michael Williams opens his preface with an interesting claim: "there is no such thing as knowledge of the external world. The same goes for knowledge of other minds, knowledge of the past, and other such familiar objects of epistemological investigation" (xii). At first glance, one might believe that Williams is going to present some thesis for skepticism in a similar fashion to Barry Stoud (The Significance of Philosophical Skepticism) or Peter Unger (Ignorance: A Case For Scepticism). In one sense, he does; in another, he doesn't, for he continues: "I want to suggest that though we correctly credit people with such knowledge all the time, even so there is no such thing as knowledge of the external world" (ibid). How does this work out though?
Williams distinguishes between several types of responses to skeptical inquiry. One approach taken up by Stanley Cavell and P. F. Strawson is to argue that the skeptic's questions are meaningless, a therapeutic diagnosis. Take Cavell's approach of challenging the skeptic of not making a "concrete-claim." Accordingly, the skeptic asks questions similar to somone entering into a conversation making claims such as: "Charlotte was cold today. The sky is not red. Kripke is concerned that water not be taken as H3O." Likewise, when a discussion occurs, the skeptic comes in with questions such as: "Are you sure you're not having a hallucination? Maybe Descartes was right that you are dreaming?" etc. The idea is that the skeptic isn't asking meaningful questions; they just appear linguistically coherent. Williams, however, dismisses this approach as implausible. He thinks we need a more plausible account of challenging the skeptic's questions.
In doing so, he offers a theoretical diagnosis: show the skeptic that he assumes what we don't have to, putting the burden back onto the skeptic. The burden carried is referred to as epistemological realism, which is identical to foundationalism (and internalism), according to Williams. But this is not just "formal foundationalism," where we assume that justification occurs linearly. Rather, foundationalism, if it is to be foundationalism at all, assumes that there are certain beliefs that are fixed or stand fast to justify all other beliefs. These beliefs stand in their relation to others by virtue of their content alone. The traditional epistemological project as followed the Cartesian method of attempting to look at all of our beliefs and assess their truth. Seeing how Descartes' search for those stable indubitable beliefs arises fairly intuitively.
The error, however, is that Descartes and other traditional epistemologists who assert a logical gap between our beliefs and the world is that they put an epistemic priority upon our "experiential knowledge" over knowledge of the world. Again, the Cogito starts with the a priori: "I think." Williams considers this assumption by the skeptic and traditional analysis to be an undefended assumption (318). To deny this is to accept some form of contextualism, where context plays an important role in determining the epistemic status of any belief, though beliefs themselves lack an objective epistemic status by virtue of their content. Williams concludes that the skeptic is conditionally correct: if we assume foundationalism or epistemological realism, skepticism is right: as Hume, we are skeptics in our studies but regular chess players and pipe smokers otherwise. But if such as concession is not made, we do in fact know things in such a way that the skeptic's challenges are no longer threatening.
This book is a thorough defense of a contexualist epistemology, an almost meticulously tiresome one. But as Sosa comments, this book does show that the skeptic is not without his presuppositions too. The question I suspect philosophers should address is this: is Williams right that foundationalism is the presupposition of skepticism? Is it possible to be a foundationalist and deny all the elements that the traditional foundationalists have accepted? Williams knows that moderate foundationalists don't, but his discussion of foundationalism focus most heavily on the stronger (bigger claim) versions.
Unnatural Doubts also has a nice discussion about coherence theories of truth (and justification), showing how they are cleverly disguised versions of foundationalism. Lastly, Williams discusses the closure principle (that if I know P and know that P entails Q, then I know Q), where he thinks externalists like Nozick and Dretske have their denial of closure backwards. So, this is an important work in epistemology from a contexualist perspective and an insightful work for dealing with skepticism. Whether or not contexualism as a distinct philosophical analysis from any form of foundationalism makes sense has to be (and will be) debated.
For more discussion on this, see:
Jacobsen, Stephen. "Contexualism and Global Doubts about the World." Synthese (2001), 129 (3), 381-404.
Fogelin, Robert J. "The Sceptic's Burden." International Journal of Philosophical Studies (1999), 7 (2), 159-172.
Greco, John. Putting Skeptics in their Place. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000. pp.44-51.
Rating: 5
Summary: a difference that matters...
Comment: Michael Williams examines the phenomenon of doubting (in the Cartesian tradition) and finds nothing natural about the helpless sinking feeling that is evoked. He talks about the skepticism that occurs when one stops everything and focuses on what's knowable and what's not. He laments the paralysis that sets in during such periods of silent & still introspection.
The thing is, he says, that life doesn't take place under these constraints. Things keep on being noisy and moving. Real life is permeated with real common sense, real knowledge, and real effective activities.
As a result, we may conclude that we ought to be suspicious of doubt and just go on about our normal business. Let doubt be a kind of self-contained oddity that's devoid of practical relevance. Doubt belongs in a kind of museum of failed ideas.
I take this as extremely useful advice--"Wake-up from the fog of perpetual doubt and get on with living." Happily for us, this fits in nicely with what the pragmatists have been clamoring for us to do for a long time.
To take doubt as unnatural is to take a step away from listless malaise and towards the possibility, as yet unrealized, of getting on with the dynamic business of solving practical problems.
Kurt Vonnegut put the difference vividly in his *Timequake* where his character says repeatedly to a befuddled population, "You were sick for a long time; but now you're better. And there's work to do."
If we can just stop obsessing over doubt taken to unnatural extremes, then we will find that there is, indeed, work for us to do. It's a difference that matters.
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