Maddy, Penelope (Author)
How do you know the world around you isn't just an elaborate dream, or the creation of an evil neuroscientist? If all you have to go on are various lights, sounds, smells, tastes and tickles, how can you know what the world is really like, or even whether there is a world beyond your ownmind? Questions like these -- familiar from science fiction and dorm room debates -- lie at the core of venerable philosophical arguments for radical skepticism: the stark contention that we in fact know nothing at all about the world, that we have no more reason to believe any claim -- that thereare trees, that we have hands -- than we have to disbelieve it. Like non-philosophers in their sober moments, philosophers, too, find this skeptical conclusion preposterous, but they're faced with those famous arguments: the Dream Argument, the Argument from Illusion, the Infinite Regress of Justification, the more recent Closure Argument. If these can't bemet, they raise a serious challenge not just to philosophers, but to anyone responsible enough to expect her beliefs to square with her evidence. What Do Philosophers Do? takes up the skeptical arguments from this everyday point of view, and ultimately concludes that they don't undermine our ordinary beliefs or our ordinary ways of finding out about the world. In the process, Maddy examines and evaluates a range of philosophical methods --common sense, scientific naturalism, ordinary language, conceptual analysis, therapeutic approaches -- as employed by such philosophers as Thomas Reid, G. E. Moore, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and J. L. Austin. The result is a revealing portrait of what philosophers do, and perhaps a quiet suggestion forwhat they should do, for what they do best.
...MoreReview Santiago Echeverri (2018) Review of "What Do Philosophers Do?: Skepticism and the Practice of Philosophy". Metascience: An International Review Journal for the History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Science (pp. 117-121).
Essay Review
Peter Davson-Galle;
(2018)
Radical Scepticism: An Issue for Science Education?
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Book
Duncan Pritchard;
(2015)
Epistemic Angst: Radical Skepticism and the Groundlessness of Our Believing
(/isis/citation/CBB491748558/)
Book
Lee, Maurice S.;
(2012)
Uncertain Chances: Science, Skepticism, and Belief in Nineteenth-Century American Literature
(/isis/citation/CBB001212967/)
Book
Hecht, Jennifer Michael;
(2004)
Doubt: A History: The Great Doubters and Their Legacy of Innovation from Socrates and Jesus to Thomas Jefferson and Emily Dickinson
(/isis/citation/CBB000750344/)
Book
Pierre Janet;
Stéphane Gumpper;
Florent Serina;
(2021)
Les formes de la croyance
(/isis/citation/CBB546764097/)
Article
Jeremy Dunham;
(2015)
Idealism, Pragmatism, and the Will to Believe: Charles Renouvier and William James
(/isis/citation/CBB687579261/)
Book
Leonardo Ambasciano;
D. Jason Slone;
Donald Wiebe;
Luther H. Martin;
Radek Kundt;
William W. McCorkle Jr;
(2018)
An Unnatural History of Religions: Academia, Post-truth and the Quest for Scientific Knowledge
(/isis/citation/CBB840908594/)
Article
Horowitz, Amir;
(2013)
Doubt Accumulation and the Epistemic Validity of Logic
(/isis/citation/CBB001253030/)
Thesis
Hynes, Darren;
(2003)
Descartes as Faust: Dissimulation and Descartes as an Early-Modern Scientist
(/isis/citation/CBB001561851/)
Book
Lloyd P. Gerson;
(2013)
From Plato to Platonism
(/isis/citation/CBB685278391/)
Chapter
De Olaso, Ezequiel;
(2001)
Sur un prince sceptique. Proposition et objections de Saavedra Fajardo
(/isis/citation/CBB000102845/)
Book
William Boos;
Florence S. Boos;
(2018)
Metamathematics and the Philosophical Tradition
(/isis/citation/CBB060593902/)
Chapter
Bernes, Anne-Catherine;
Halleux, Robert;
(2001)
Scepticisme, expérience et calcul chez René-François de Sluse
(/isis/citation/CBB000102838/)
Chapter
Giocanti, Sylvia;
(2001)
La Mothe Le Vayer: scepticisme libertin et pratique de la contrariété
(/isis/citation/CBB000102840/)
Chapter
Brahami, Frédéric;
(2001)
Des Esquisses aux Essais. L'enjeu d'une rupture
(/isis/citation/CBB000102833/)
Article
Capitani, Pietro;
(2000)
La storia tra retorica e scienza: Il pirronismo di La Mothe le Vayer
(/isis/citation/CBB000640749/)
Article
Corti, Lorenzo;
(2002)
Scale pirroniane: “[Greek transliteration begin]onden mallon[Greek transliteration end]” in Sesto Empirico
(/isis/citation/CBB000640756/)
Book
Moreau, Pierre-François;
(2001)
Le scepticisme au XVIe et au XVIIe siècle
(/isis/citation/CBB000100084/)
Book
Thorsrud, Harald;
(2009)
Ancient Scepticism
(/isis/citation/CBB001035979/)
Book
Lagerlund, Henrik;
(2010)
Rethinking the History of Skepticism: The Missing Medieval Background
(/isis/citation/CBB001231096/)
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