Williamson, Timothy Wykeham Professor of Logic, University of Oxford
Print publication date: 2002 (this edition)
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: November 2003
Print ISBN-13: 978-0-19-925656-3







doi:10.1093/019925656X.003.0009

Timothy Williamson
Abstract: The chapter analyses a leading argument for scepticism, according to which one has the same evidence in one's actual case as in a sceptical scenario in which one is deceived and therefore does not know which case one is in. The sceptic's argument for the sameness of evidence depends on the idea that one must always be in a position to know what one's evidence is, but this idea is refuted by a version of the anti-luminosity argument. Thus, we are not compelled to accept the sceptic's original argument. Appeals to indiscriminability do not help the sceptic. That we are not always in a position to know what our evidence is has unsettling implications for the nature of rationality, since it is rational to proportion belief to the evidence.

Keywords: anti-luminosity, belief, evidence, indiscriminability, rationality, scepticism,

You have access to the abstract for this item.     You have access to the full text for this item.



 










Quick Search Form

 
scroll up fast
scroll up
 
scroll down
scroll down fast