Scepticism, epistemic luck, and epistemic angst

Australasian Journal of Philosophy 83 (2):185 – 205 (2005)
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Abstract

A commonly expressed worry in the contemporary literature on the problem of epistemological scepticism is that there is something deeply intellectually unsatisfying about the dominant anti-sceptical theories. In this paper I outline the main approaches to scepticism and argue that they each fail to capture what is essential to the sceptical challenge because they fail to fully understand the role that the problem of epistemic luck plays in that challenge. I further argue that scepticism is best thought of not as a quandary directed at our possession of knowledge simpliciter, but rather as concerned with a specific kind of knowledge that is epistemically desirable. On this view, the source of scepticism lies in a peculiarly epistemic form of angst. It is always by favour of Nature that one knows something. [Wittgenstein 1969: §505]

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Duncan Pritchard
University of California, Irvine

Citations of this work

Anti-luck epistemology.Duncan Pritchard - 2007 - Synthese 158 (3):277-297.
Transmission Failure Explained.Martin Smith - 2009 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 79 (1):164-189.
Meta‐Skepticism.Olle Risberg - 2023 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 106 (3):541-565.

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References found in this work

On Certainty (ed. Anscombe and von Wright).Ludwig Wittgenstein - 1969 - San Francisco: Harper Torchbooks. Edited by G. E. M. Anscombe, G. H. von Wright & Mel Bochner.
Epistemic Luck.Duncan Pritchard - 2005 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press UK.
Elusive knowledge.David Lewis - 1996 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 74 (4):549 – 567.
Ignorance: A Case for Scepticism.Peter K. Unger - 1975 - Oxford [Eng.]: Oxford University Press.

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