Four years ago, I wrote a blog post about the book Austin’s Way with Skepticism, by Indiana University philosopher Mark Kaplan. You can read it here. However, more broadly, the post was about a certain time in my life. It was about the time I spent at IU in Bloomington, Indiana.

As I worked my way through an undergrad philosophy degree, I liked an approach known as ‘ordinary language philosophy.’ Among other points, I particularly liked the idea that our ordinary position gives us a point of departure for philosophizing. That is to say, given our ordinary position as a starting point, we should be able to reach a philosophical term or viewpoint. Otherwise, we set it aside.

In short, Kaplan interprets the ordinary language philosopher J.L. Austin skillfully. But I thought he missed a broader point in Austin’s work, specifically, and certain kinds of ordinary language philosophy, generally. The point is that we have to understand the communicative functions of our words, even philosophical words like ‘know.’

With that in mind, I turn to the book How to Take Skepticism Seriously. It’s written by Adam Leite, another IU philosopher and my undergrad thesis adviser from 20 years ago. In it, he summarizes much of the epistemological work of his own philosophical career.

Here is one hand…

My own work concerned J.L. Austin on external world skepticism. Given that, I opened Leite’s book expecting to find in it, much as I found in Kaplan’s, a detailed reading of J.L. Austin.

However, while Leite does provide a reading of Austin, he centers his response to skepticism on the work of G.E. Moore.

For any readers unfamiliar with Moore, he’s most famous, on this topic at least, for offering the following ‘proof’ of an external world:

1. Here is one hand.
2. And here is another.
3. There are at least two external objects in the world.
4. Therefore, there is an external world.

Many people who read this take Moore as dismissing skepticism. Leite, however, wants to take skepticism seriously. And he wants to take it seriously, in large part, by taking Moore’s proof seriously as a real proof. For Leite, it’s not just a casual dismissal of the skeptic. And while I’m far less familiar with Moore than I am with Austin, his reading strikes me as both plausible and philosophically generous to Moore.

So, it’s a solid interpretation.

How to Take Skepticism Seriously

Like my post from four years ago, this one is nearly as much a reminiscence as a post about philosophy. And so, what I’ll offer isn’t exactly a book review. Rather, I’ll say a few things about where Leite takes the topic that I found interesting.

So, how does Leite go about taking skepticism seriously?

He wants to use the tools of our ordinary epistemic practice – without philosophical theory – to show that the skeptic can’t convince us that we don’t know anything about the external world. In short, Leite thinks that when we appeal to our concepts, tools, and practices in everyday life, we can demonstrate that we know things about the external world and that the skeptic can’t dislodge us from this.

He grants the philosophical coherence of skeptical arguments. And he lays out many versions of those arguments. But for purposes of this post, I can fairly state the skeptical argument like this: People think they know things about the world. However, they’re unable to rule out [scenario that conflicts with their knowing things about the world]. So, people don’t know what they think they know.

In the brackets go things like “that they are really just dreaming,” “that they are being deceived by an Evil Demon,” “that they are really a brain in a vat (BIV).”

Why doesn’t the skeptical argument work? Leite develops his view at length through a detailed discussion of evidence and various philosophical problems and debates. He arrives at the point that the skeptic isn’t able to counter Moore’s proof. For Leite, we can show we’re not dreaming – or not being deceived by an Evil Demon, or not a BIV – by pointing to things we know in everyday life.

Things such as ‘here is one hand.’

Return to the Function of Knowledge Claims

My reaction to Leite’s book is very similar to my reaction to Kaplan’s book. It brought to mind topics from years ago and memories of working hard on my undergrad thesis. Of course. But, on philosophy, I think the book could’ve used a consideration of the communicative function(s) of knowledge claims.

The idea here is that Austin, in particular, would’ve taken an more contextual approach than the one Leite reads him as taking. I suspect such an approach would involve treating the dream possibility differently from the BIV and Evil Demon possibilities. At least, it would do so in certain cases.

This makes Austin a more radical philosopher. It also helps explain his appeal to such a wide range of figures – from Searle to Butler, Cavell, or Derrida. Furthermore, it raises issues of how radical we want to make Austin.

Dreaming, Brunettes, and BIVs

For Austin, the possibility that we might be dreaming is one we understand reasonably well in certain kinds of cases. This includes cases where we’re drowsy, just took certain kinds of meds, et al. In those cases, I think Leite’s approach works really well. Another case where Leite’s approach works well is on something he introduces as the ‘Children of Brunettes hypothesis.’ On this ‘hypothesis,’ children of brunettes are really bad at evaluating evidence.

The reason why Leite’s approach works for those cases is that we have established ways of proceeding in our ordinary practices. The latter is a bad scientific hypothesis we can rule out. And the former is one we need to work through.

However, Leite’s approach doesn’t work for the BIV or Evil Demon possibilities, at least if we’re using Austin as our guide. (It probably works from Moore’s perspective.)

Why?

These are wild scenarios that are much more difficult to connect to ordinary practice. With the BIV and Evil Demon cases, I think a better reading is to say that these are cases where we just don’t ‘take skepticism seriously’ in the sense that Leite wants. That is to say, we just dismiss the skeptic in those cases and make no knowledge claim for or against ‘I’m a BIV’ or ‘I might be deceived by an Evil Demon.’

The ‘how radical’ question arises over how many distinctions we allow to be drawn. Might we treat even the BIV or Evil Demon possibilities differently, depending on whether we’re in a philosophy seminar or a ‘normal’ conversation?

Final Thoughts

For what it’s worth, that latter bit was largely the answer I gave in my old undergrad thesis. At least, I think it was. It’s been 20 years. It also involves a reading of J.L. Austin closer to Kaplan’s than to Leite’s. That also tracks with my hazy memories of 20 years ago.

The main sticking point I see, at least with Leite’s book (Kaplan’s book is a different story), is on the question of whether the skeptic can establish that we can’t know things about the external world without having evidence that we’re not in a certain state (dreaming, BIV, Evil Demon).

Most philosophers working on this topic seem to find these scenarios interchangeable, at least at a broad theoretical level. That is to say, they think we’ve got to rule all of them out or none of them out.

In thinking about this topic again, I found that very unconvincing. Starting from my ordinary position, I feel no obligation whatsoever to ‘prove’ that I’m not a BIV. Even via the kind of minimal ‘proof’ offered by Moore. However, I can come up with plausible scenarios where I’d need to rule out the dream possibility.

Maybe that was the lesson I took from taking How to Take Skepticism Seriously seriously.