Skepticism and epistemic principles

Abstract

The identification and analysis of epistemic principles have enabled significant gains in the study of skepticism in recent decades; this does not mean that we are near a consensus about which principles should be accepted. Taking p for any proposition that we normally accept to be known, like “here is a hand”, and sk for any incompatible proposition, such as "I'm being deceived by a genius that leads me to believe in things that do not exist", the canonical argument for academic skepticism can be formalized as follows: (1) If S can be justified in believing that p, then S can be justified in believing that ~sk, (2) S  cannot be justified in believing that ~sk , then (3) S cannot be justified in believing that p. Implicitly, the skeptic argues that an epistemic relation with respect to a proposition should be preserved with the propositions it entails, and once this requirement fails to be met skepticism is the inescapable answer. In order to solve this issue, some philosophers have rejected skepticism by denying the first premise. Others, like Klein, grant (1) to the skeptic, but deny its conclusion, arguing that there is no good reason to accept (2). This paper discusses the feasibility of these alternatives.