Skepticism Essays

Philosophical skepticism, according to Scottish philosopher David Hume, is asking whether human beings can perceive the world around us with any degree of accuracy. Practicing this school of thought means that a person initially never believes anything to be true, but at the same time, does not say everything is necessarily false; instead, he maintains a position of doubt. The final source of truth for a skeptic is experience. In terms of skepticism vs. rationalism vs. romanticism and their…

Descartes, Hume and Skepticism Descartes is responsible for the skepticism that has been labeled Cartesian doubt. Hume critiques this skepticism in his Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. After his discussion of Cartesian doubt, he offers a different type of skepticism that he considers as being more effective philosophically. Is Hume right in his characterization of Cartesian doubt and is the skepticism he offers better? Descartes introduced the idea of universal doubt to philosophy. If…

that what we determine to be acknowledged as “knowledge” must present justification in order to be accepted believed as knowledge. This is important because Skepticism doubts the validation of knowledge and how we come to any such conclusion of justifying what we “know” indubitably as knowledge. This is the overarching problem with skepticism. Instead of having a solid stance on how to define knowledge, skeptics simply doubt that a reason or proposition offered is correct and suppose it to be false…

Is Global Skepticism Justified? Introduction Skepticism is something that we all have to one degree or another. Some of us who carry some Limited (Local) Skepticism might question whether we can really know if the news anchor is giving us correct information or if the five day forecast is really on track this time regarding the rain it is predicting. Others subscribe to the Global Skepticism view; that is, they would argue that we cannot know anything at all, and, therefore, we can’t have knowledge…

“Skepticism about a Refutation of Skepticism” In “The Refutation of Skepticism”, Jonathan Vogel establishes an “Inference to the Best Explanation” (hereafter, “IBE”) as a means to refute skepticism about the external world. In this refutation, Vogel acknowledges that skepticism about IBE still remains a possibility, but that this kind of skepticism would be rather outlandish in character and thus could be ignored. This paper shall both establish and evaluate Vogel’s reasoning as to why he confidently…

Philosophy Paper Skepticism is an aspect of philosophy that has been studied throughout history. Within the realm of skepticism lies the difference between knowledge and mere true belief. Descartes and Moore are two philosophers who explore the existence of an external world in their writings. In Descartes’ “Meditations” and Moore’s “Proof of an External World,” we find opposing viewpoints on what we actually have knowledge on. A mere true belief is an opinion that happens to be true. It is…

Epistemological skepticism is the idea that individuals lack knowledge or justification for a specific group of propositions (Barnett, 2014). Skepticism with respect to all propositions is known as global skepticism, and it reveals that knowledge is nonexistent (2014). The regress problem is a difficulty in epistemology, where an idea has to be justified, because the justification itself has to have further reasoning (2014). The infinite regress argument concludes that individuals lack justification…

Abstract People wonder how they, and others, know what they know. There is a skepticism about accepting that there are inherent pieces of knowledge that people simply possess, that there is no such thing as true knowledge because it is so personal, that there is no way to prove what is truly right or wrong. This paper considers the views of Chuang Tzu and Roderick Chisholm, how their ideas should be researched further in order for leaders to address sharing knowledge with their followers. Scholars…

Professional Skepticism and Auditors' Workpaper Review Kathy Hurtt University of Wisconsin Martha Eining and David Plumlee University of Utah Draft version March, 2001 February, 2002 Please do not quote without permission of the authors. Comments are welcome. We thank the workshop participants at Arizona State University, University of Utah, University of Wisconsin and Bentley College for their comments on earlier versions of this paper. Professional Skepticism and Auditors'…

necessarily." In fact, this can be the skeptic's answer to just about any attempt to refute his position. It has long been pointed out by opponents of skepticism that such an attitude cannot be taken to its extreme conclusion in the real world in which we operate- even skeptics must live their lives according to rules they must rely upon not to fail. Skepticism (and all philosophy) cannot avoid the cumbersome nature of human language and the simple fact that the only tool humans have to investigate the…