Philosophical skepticism

Many have thought that it is impossible to rationally persuade an external world skeptic that we have knowledge of the external world.  This paper aims to show how this could be done.  I argue, while appealing only to premises that a skeptic could accept, that it is not rational to believe external world skepticism, because doing so commits one to more extreme forms of skepticism in a way that is self-undermining.  In particular, the external world skeptic is ultimately committed to believing a proposition P while believing that she shouldn’t believe P, an irrational combination of beliefs.  Suspending judgment on skepticism is also problematic, for similar reasons; and, I argue, epistemic dilemmas are not possible; so, we should believe that skepticism is false.

The intended title was “Universe Oriented Ontology” or “Multiverse Oriented Ontology”, or “Universe or Multiverse Metaphysics”.
I mention this as it gives an idea about the meaning and intention of the title and the work as well as the titles I considered and why I moved away from them to the present one.
The sub-title provides a further hint towards the intentions of the work, namely: ” Beyond Earth- and Human-centricity’. I opted for ‘transcending’ rather than beyond, as I am still in the process of describing the process of transcending and many of the ideas I am obliged to use from our conceptual system and practices are still earth- and anthropo-centered, And, they have not yet gone to a state beyond those two -isms.
I say something about universe-centeredness, then about planet earth as point and frame of reference and anthropo-centricity.
The socio-cultural practice of philosophy and the doing of philosophy is merely one of many human, social and cultural practices. I post different notions of philosophy by a number of writers, some of them philosophers. These notions are about their perceptions of what philosophy is. Few of them go into detail about the subject-matter of philosophy. No one really deal with the aims, purposes and objectives of the discipline and none deal with the nature of the doing of philosophy or philosophizing. Activities that I suggest resemble certain features of the processes of theorizing.
I end with explorations of possible characteristics of original- and creative thinkers. I do this by mentioning a number of themes of meta-philosophy listed and described by Peter Suber. I make a number of comments in them and highlight aspects relevant to these type of thinkers.
One find them of course in all disciplines and socio-cultural [racticesand disciplines be they the arts,humanities, sciences, etc. I am of course specifically concerned with original andcreative thinkers inthe Western tradition of philosophy.
As I am a radical and absolute sceptic, I end with an article on this theme.
It is said by everyone, for example Hume, Russell and Pascal, that such a radical position is psychologically impossible and that it cannot be lived 24/7. Pascal for example opted for believe or faith and he and a number of writers suggest that that  is the only way out and the final position of radical sceptics. I disagree with him.

Abstract

Some pages from the « Apology for Raymond Sebond » and the last chapter of the Essays suggest that Montaigne conceive the experience of scepticism (i.e. both the experience we have of scepticism and the experience that scepticism still allows us to have) through the concept of reformation. In this respect, in the pages on sickness and « body’s health » in the chapter « On experience », Montaigne describes also indirectly the « health » of a mind which has reformed itself.

Résumé

Deux pages capitales de l’« Apologie de Raimond Sebond » et du dernier des Essais suggèrent que Montaigne pense l’expérience du scepticisme (c’est-à-dire autant l’expérience qu’on fait du scepticisme que celle que le scepticisme permet, malgré tout, de faire) à partir du concept de reformation. À ce titre, dans le long développement sur la maladie et la « santé corporelle » de « De l’expérience », Montaigne décrit aussi indirectement la « santé » d’un esprit qui a réformé son entendement.

« Notre héritage du scepticisme n’est précédé d’aucun testament. Par-delà les vicissitudes de l’épistémologie traditionnelle et de l’anti-scepticisme, le spectre du « scepticisme à visage humain » selon Thompson Morgan Clarke, entre contextualisme, perspectivisme, pragmatisme et pyrrhonisme. » in Skepsis, Journal of Skepticism / Skepsis Journal : Revista de Filosofia ISSN 1981-4534, Vol. XI, N°23 " Thompson Clarke's Legacy and Hinge Epistemology", 2021, pp. 122-147.

Neste ensaio tento responder as críticas de E. Marques, C. Mizutano e A. Abath ao meu texto "Levando a sério o ceticismo acerca do autoconhecimento" publicadas na Sképsis: Revista de Filosofia (http://philosophicalskepticism.org/skepsis/revista-skepsis-volume-7-numero-10/).

Christopher Nolan’ Inception is more than its folding cityscapes and mind-bending ambiguous ending. It’s a film that makes its viewer question the very nature of reality. Not only is it possible that the entire movie is a dream, but multiple viewings of Inception leaves one wondering whether the same might be true of one’s experience. Indeed, according to the author of “The Fiction of Christopher Nolan” Todd McGowan, Inception calls its viewers to abandon any concern they have for knowledge of reality and instead choose to believe what they want. But does this moral hold up? Is it philosophically defensible? In this essay, after a close inspection of the movie itself, this moral will be identified and evaluated. An examination of a number of related arguments by important philosophers will reveal that, although knowledge of reality is sometimes difficult to attain, it should always be sought.

Pragmatic responses to skepticism have been overlooked in recent decades.  This paper explores one such response by developing a character called the Pragmatic Skeptic.  The Pragmatic Skeptic accepts skeptical arguments for the claim that we lack good evidence for our ordinary beliefs, and that they do not constitute knowledge.  However, they do not think we should give up our beliefs in light of these skeptical conclusions.  Rather, we should retain them, since we have good practical reasons for doing so.  This takes the sting out of skepticism: we can be skeptics, of a kind, without thereby succumbing to practical or intellectual disaster.  I respond to objections, and compare the position of the Pragmatic Skeptic to views found in the work of (among others) David Hume, William James, David Lewis, Berislav Marusic, and Robert Pasnau.

Resumen: La reciente aparición del SARS-CoV-2, causante del covid-2019, ha afectado al mundo entero. Diversas estrategias políticas y sanitarias han sido emprendidas para contenerlo. Como era de esperarse, los defensores de diversas pseudociencias han aprovechado la ocasión para pronunciarse y promocionar sus falsos tratamientos. En este artículo revisaremos algunas actitudes anticiencia, lo cual incluye pseudoterapias, teorías de conspiración, soluciones religiosas y la actitud negacionista de políticos populistas y nacionalistas durante esta crisis.

This paper offers a resolution to the Gettier paradoxes. Knowledge is a categorical concept; justification, however, comes in degrees. The mismatch between the two means that there can be no definition of "x knows that p" that doesn't EITHER sets the standard of justification so high as to imply skepticism, OR allows Gettier-type paradoxes. The important question is what makes evidence better or worse, a belief more or less justified.

Written in 1983, I left this paper stayed in a drawer,thinking the Gettier paradoxes uninteresting; but finally published it in 2009, in the face of yet another wave of Gettierology.

If this paper interests you, you might also want to look at "Epistemology: Who Needs Its?" (2015).

Here I bewail the slapdash and confusing way in which philosophers bandy about the word ‘incoherent’ (and ‘incoherence’ and ‘incoherently’).  To some it appears to mean: inconsistent; to others: pragmatically self-defeating; and to yet others: nonsensical, i.e. meaningless.  And often one is left guessing.

Soon after Russell’s ever popular Problems of Philosophy of 1912, Russell landed on the idea that the techniques of Principia Mathematica, where Russell and Whitehead “logically constructed” numbers out of sets, might be applied to the problem of our knowledge of the external world, where “commonsense” objects like tables and trees might be logically constructed out of sense-data. Russell then approaches the problem of our knowledge of the external world from an epistemologically driven account of sense-data and a metaphysical construction of commonsense objects from sense-data. Russell famously attempted this construction in his 1914 Our Knowledge of the External World and two journal articles from the same period, “On the Relationship of Sense-Data to Physics” and “The Ultimate Constituents of Matter.” This essay expounds and critically examines Russell’s attempt. Though the attempt arguably fails, it had a profound influence on later developments, especially Carnap’s Aufbau.

Keywords

Bertrand Russell, External World Skepticism, Foundationalism, Sense-Data, Logical Construction, Testimony, Other Minds

Casi nadie pone en duda que en Los ensayos, y especialmente en alguno de ellos, como la “Apología de Ramón Sibiuda” (II, 12),  es posible encontrar múltiples trazas de una actitud que podemos denominar escéptica. Sin embargo, desde un primer momento se han sucedido las discusiones sobre el tipo de escepticismo que caracterizaría la obra de Montaigne, así como el papel que jugaría en éste la fe. Sea como fuere, puede decirse que, con pocas excepciones, la mayor parte de los estudios actuales encuentran en Los ensayos una manifestación clara de fideísmo escéptico o de escepticismo fideista. Sin embargo, nuestro texto, sin rebasar su intención introductoria, cuestionará este presupuesto compartido y, en su lugar, propondrá una lectura escéptica del supuesto escepticismo de Michel de Montaigne.

Introduction to a section comprising seventeen articles on skepticism in the modern world. Attention is given to historical and cultural background that shaped, and was shaped by, skepticism, including globalization, the Reformation, and the rise of modern science.

This is a new edition of "An Essay on the Nature and Immutability of Truth", by Scottish philosopher James Beattie (1735-1803). It is the most infamous attack on the philosophy of David Hume that appeared during Hume's life. This new edition is taken from the first edition of 1770, and collated with the 1771 second edition and the 1776 edition, which was most likely the final one that Beattie revised. This new edition contains an editor's introduction and annotations throughout.

Is Buddhism's attitude towards accepted forms of knowledge sceptical? Are Pyrrhonian scepticism and classical Buddhist scholasticism related in their respective applications and expressions of doubt? In what way and to what degree is Critical Buddhism an offshoot of modern scepticism? Questions such as these as well as related issues are explored in the present collection, which brings together examinations of systematic doubt in the traditions of Buddhism from a variety of perspectives. What results from the perceptive observations and profound analytical insights of the seven essays is a rich and multi-faceted picture of two families of philosophical systems-scepticism and Buddhism-that seem both akin and at odds, both related and distant at the same time.

Newman’s anti-skeptical philosophy in the Grammar of Assent implicitly relies on the normativity of human nature and its epistemic faculties. This fundamental trust in the reliability of the teleology of human nature finds further confirmation in Neman’s understanding of the certitude of human conscience. Without this reliability and certitude, we would not even have any faculties to be skeptical with: “If I do not use myself, I have no other self to use.”

Enlightenment philosopher, René Descartes, set out to establish what could be known with certainty, untainted by a deceiving demon. With his method of doubt, he rejected all previous beliefs, allowing only those that survived rigorous scrutiny. In this essay, Leslie Allan examines whether Descartes's program of skeptical enquiry was successful in laying a firm foundation for our manifold beliefs. He subjects Descartes's conclusions to Descartes's own uncompromising methodology to determine whether Descartes escaped from a self-imposed radical skepticism.

It is by now well known that ancient Pyrrhonism was intended to be a way of life rather than a doctrine. Various objections to Pyrrhonism as a way of life have been raised—that it is psychologically impossible and that it makes life grind to a halt. While there are answers to those objections, I’ll argue that there are aspects of Pyrrhonism that make it nonetheless an unappealing way of life and unsuitable in modern circumstances. One crucial change from ancient times is that the Greek skeptics found themselves puzzled by disagreement, while modern philosophers have been worried by doubt. This helps to explain why skepticism is now seen as a challenge to be overcome rather than as a possible way of life. I argue, however, that a deeper understanding of the nature of doubt and its relation to knowledge will allow us to move past the current stalemate between skeptical and anti-skeptical arguments, recover a more accurate history of epistemology, and identify the best sort of epistemic lives available to us. In particular, I argue that a life lived in accordance with a Neo-Academic form of skepticism is more attractive than one guided by dogmatism.

Considering three philosophers – Ghazali , Hume, and Kant – we perceive that they were at grips with skepticism and each had a different attitude towards it. While Hume remains in a skeptical sphere, Ghazali and Kant offer solutions for skepticism, although their solutions differ largely. Criticizing Aristotle’s view on essential necessity, Ghazali expands Avicenna’s emphasis on experimentation and, in effect, negates the necessary relation between cause and effect. Ghazali preceded Hume in this regard for some 6 centuries and put forward Hume’s main idea. In order to overcome skepticism, Kant appealed to rationality and it’s a  priori backgrounds, while Ghazali put forward God’s will and put the emphasis on the inner direct experience. It will be argued that God’s deeds, rationality and faith should be compatible in principle.

This is an open textbook (CC-BY) that my colleagues and I wrote for an introduction to philosophy course at Lansing Community College (beginning Fall 2019).  If you would like an editable version of the textbook, please email me.

Pressbooks version here: https://pressbooks.online.ucf.edu/introductiontophilosophy/

El escepticismo filosófico es uno de los fenómenos más controvertidos que pueden encontrarse en la historia del pensamiento occidental. Su aparición tras la muerte de Alejandro Magno, su auge durante el helenismo y su posterior desaparición son todavía elementos misteriosos que continúan resultando difíciles de explicar. Aclarar algunas de las circunstancias que contribuyeron a formar esta peculiar corriente es el objetivo central de Claves para entender el escepticismo antiguo.

Este libro está dividido en siete capítulos, cada uno de ellos relativo a una de las cuestiones características de la filosofía escéptica griega. Siete claves que permiten comprender mejor cómo pudo formarse un pensamiento contrario a todo dogma, cómo pudo transmitirse a lo largo del tiempo, y cómo influyó en la conformación del pensamiento de sus contemporáneos y sus sucesores. A lo largo de estas páginas el lector puede encontrar siete elementos con los que conocer y comprender mejor qué es exactamente ser escéptico.

A Meta-Philosophy exploration of immanent and non-immanent  features of  first-order philosophy in terms of the values of non- values or negative values of Radical Scepticism, Nihilism and Minarchy, executed to show how philosophizing is done.

It misleadingly seems as if there is no progress in philosophy as, like in visual art, literature and music, each original thinker re-invents the entire discipline, its aims, purposes, values, methods,
etc
The nature of philosophical tools, methods, techniques and skills will be investigated and applied in terms of radical scepticism.

This approach, set of values and attitude restrict the nature and the style of the meta-philosophizing. It will for example prevent the traditional development of a general, all-encompassing and all-inclusive metaphysical system. It also demands the focus on context-specific investigation of questions and the dealing of a particular problem in a certain context.

These limits require the re-interpretation of any philosophical tool
being employed as well as the underlying assumptions and any pre-suppositions.

As far as possible philosophizing as an aspect of the processes of theorizing will be adhered to and realized. In chapter THREE I illustrate many-leveled and multi-dimensional thinking, that are to me as a visual artist as well, of extreme importance. These are the types of things employed by radical skepticism and that should be the form of philosophizing instead of and replacing traditional one-leveled and one-dimensional thinking, argumentation and reasoning

Skeptisisme merupakan sikap berfilsafat yang meragukan tercapainya kepastian dalam kebenaran, sehingga menganggap tidak ada yang dapat mencapai kepastian yang objektif. Konsekuensinya semua kepastian dalam kebenaran tersebut bersifat relatif. Di lain pihak, skeptisisme yang meragukan secara positif setiap klaim atau bukti, mengondisikan sikap kritis yang berkembang dan tidak langsung percaya pada apa saja. Sikap itulah yang menjadi ciri khas dalam rana filsafat, senantiasa mempertanyakan sesuatu tentang segala sesuatu.

The tools employed might appear appropriate, the reasoning sound and argumentation valid, but the subject-matter, well one wonders what that has to do with philosophy, if anything at all? 

Viewing some of the topics one really wonders of the notion of philosophy is not stretched too far?

So much that is passed off as philosophy itself or some kind of so-called interdisciplinary issues really appear as irrelevant.

Topics from the grievance studies especially fall under this. It seems as if individuals have personal issues, obsessions and psychological, social and cultural problems that they attempt to interpret, perceive and treat as if they are philosophical and/or philosophically related.

I wish to suggest that those issues are treated as disciplines or subjects in their own right, for example racism, feminism and gender studies, but not as ifthey have anything to do with philosophy or should be treated in a philosophical manner. As if they inform us about profound philosophical issues or concerns. Perhaps aspects of them can be dealt with as psychological, anthropological, sociological, biological, political, etc, but dealing with them as if they provide us with some kind of profound philosophical ideas and insights might be stretching the notion of philosophy a bit too far.

I’ve wondered about the seeming dichotomy of materialism/physicalism and panpsychism and  if they are really the only possible consciousness explanatory positions?How about biologism? That is as if all living biological matter or organisms are conscious, as well as that consciousness (the many types of it) can be explained best by the nature of those phenomena. A biologically restricted form or modification of pan-psychism?

The goal of this article is twofold. First, it revises the historiographic partition proposed by John Deely in Four Ages of Understanding (2001) by arguing that the moment marking the beginning of philosophical Modernity has been vividly recorded in Descartes’ Meditations on First Philosophy with the experiment with the wax. Second, an upshot of this historical study is that it helps make sense of Deely’s somewhat iconoclastic use of the words “subject” and “subjectivity” to designate mind-independent worldly things. The hope is that successfully accomplishing these twin tasks will give semiotic inquiry a better appreciation of its own history, as well as resources genial to furthering its ongoing development.

L’homme d’esprit est une figure dont les traits apparaissent au seuil du Grand Siècle. Ses préoccupations morales envisagent l’être social, en dénonçant l’idéal contemplatif représenté par le sage isolé et par la vie de cloître. L’émergence d’une nouvelle culture de soi se fait à travers des échafaudages métaphysiques, des repositionnements religieux, des stratégies littéraires et des techniques du pouvoir qui s’entrecroisent de manière exemplaire dans le traité de la Sagesse de Pierre Charron. Le concept de prudence s’impose comme le fil directeur de cette étude, du fait du scepticisme de Charron, lequel remet en question le savoir théorique tout en se nourrissant des différentes traditions de pensée pratique. Sa sagesse retrouve les traits de la phronesis aristotélicienne dans une tentative de compréhension des conflits qui bouleversaient les esprits à la fin de la Renaissance. (L’Auteur)

TESTIMONIA

Comment une « méditation sur la faiblesse de l’intellect humain », assortie d’une « critique de la pulsion vaniteuse qui anime les positions dogmatiques », peut-elle aboutir à la proposition d’une nouvelle forme de maîtrise de soi et de rationalité éthique ? C’est ce que ce livre entreprend de détailler, plaçant son lecteur toujours à la pointe des problèmes philosophiques dont l’œuvre de Charron est soit l’héritière soit la source. Nul doute que cette étude aiguë, première monographie charronienne à paraître depuis une quinzaine d’années, ne soit appelée à donner l’exemple, à relancer la discussion et à attirer sur la Sagesse l’attention de nouveaux chercheurs. (Denis Kambouchner)

What, if anything, is the correlation between the specialized or technical ideas of the philosopher and the rest of his existence? His everyday life outside his philosophical role.
In the specialized reality and reality constitution, when employing the discourse and discipline of philosophy, the philosopher subscribe to many things in an explicit manner and he employs a number of implicit things and assumptions that are not stated explicitly.
These things concern the different branches, areas and domains of the philosophical discourse, for example metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, ontology, cognition, consciousness, mind, perception, thinking, etc.
Is there a relation between these technical 'beliefs' of the philosopher and other, not philosophical areas of his existence? Does and can all of his non-philosophical existence reflect his philosophical beliefs, statements and expressions? Is it possible that the everyday existence or life world of the philosopher can resemble, confirm and express his philosophical ideas? If this is not the case, what are the factors that are involved in such discrepancies?

Do they imply a lack of integrity, of wholeness of integration on behalf of the philosopher? What are the causes of such an illogical or surprising lack of compatibility or similarity between these sets of two or more facts? What are the things that we can look for in such a lack of compatibility – things such as the following? -
inconsistency, difference, disparity, variance, variation, deviation, divergence,

disagreement, dissimilarity, dissimilitude, mismatch, lack of similarity, contrariety, contradictoriness, disaccord, discordance, incongruity,

lack of congruence, incompatibility, irreconcilability, conflict, opposition?

I illustrate the above by means of four examples.
1 Let us assume that the embodied human person consists of both voluntary and involuntary processes and activities. Do the philosophy of an individual reflect or express these activities or is it completely or partially unrelated to them? Do the voluntary processes and activities or the voluntary aspects of perception, cognition, brain processes and other activities resemble or express the philosophy of a thinker? 2 Some thinkers are seriously concerned about the importance of discourse and dialogue and the equality of all those involved. We find their concern about the ideal discourse and dialogue described in their written work and talks, but to what an extend do their own discursive and dialogical actions and behaviour reflect the ideal situation they preach?
3 Ethics and morality can be find in and are emphasized in all sorts of disciplines, of course they are major subjects in providing ways to live off for philosophers and we even find institutions devoted to their teaching and investigation. Do the lives, the lived morality and ethics of those individuals who preach the ideals of ethics or ethical ideals reflect the ideals they preach and that provides them with ways to earn a living? Or, is it the case that morality and ethics are merely faked by those individuals living off their preaching of ethics? And, that they merely employ the values, norms, customs and attitudes of a culture, sub-culture, community, group or another social grouping? In other words are the preachers of ethics really more ethical than the rest of the community and society?
4 When the philosopher expresses his ideas by means of all sorts of philosophical tools he is aware of the fact that he employs them, or at least aware of some of them being intentionally employed by him while he is unaware of others that he employs. Do the tools the philosopher employs to theorize (identify problems, the nature of the questions he asks, the nature of his ways of questioning, the assumptions he makes, the forming and testing of hypotheses, the making of generalizations, etc) or philosophize (perceive things, think, think about things, reason, argumentation etc) resemble what he beliefs, asserts and says about thinking, perception, cognition, understanding, subjects, objects, relationships between subjects and objects and other features and processes of epistemology?
In short – does the lived philosophy, ontology, epistemology, ethics etc of the philosopher resemble, represent, confirm, substantiate, back, endorse, support, authenticate and corroborate the ideas, assertions and speculations that are expressed by the statements his philosophy or philosophizing consist of? Does he walk the walk of his talk? Are they similar and identical, the same things and merely expressions of the same things in different mediums?

Crispin Wright is widely known for having introduced epistemic entitlement as a response to certain sceptical challenges. Entitlement is a species of non-evidential warrant applicable to acceptance of anti-sceptical hypotheses and other ‘cornerstones’ for enquiry. The aim of this paper is to investigate a fundamental issue concerning entitlement: it appears to be quite generous, as it appears to apply indiscriminately to anti-scepticial hypotheses as well as a range of radically different—indeed, even incompatible—propositions. I argue that the generosity of entitlement is reflective of an underlying commitment to a form of epistemic relativism. This is a significant commitment that has not received due attention in the debate thus far. In addition I present an axiology that fits naturally within the framework of entitlement theory. This axiology helps the entitlement theorists address the pressing issue of how, given the absence of evidence, there can be anything epistemically good about acceptance of anti-sceptical hypotheses and other cornerstones for enquiry. Likewise, crucially, entitlement theorists need the proposed axiology—or something very much like it—in order for their envisioned response to scepticism to have a proper value-theoretic foundation. Lastly, I argue that the issues of generosity and epistemic relativism are rather deeply rooted: they surface at the level of value. I explain why.

Paper regarding the idea of "religious tolerance" as propaganda designed to just let religion continue to do harm to society and destroy lives. See my paper 'Religion Is Not Benign' in order to better understand this paper:
http://www.academia.edu/11700742/Religion_Is_Not_Benign

The satirical writings of Lucian of Samosata had a tremendous influence on the literature of the Eastern European Haskalah, shaping its criticism of the burgeoning Hasidic movement in the nineteenth century as if there were no gap between it and the Roman Empire of the second century. Lucian’s criticism of false prophets, self-proclaimed philosophers, and common fools and frauds, like his satirical dialogues with the world of the dead, provided the perfect model for those Maskilim who opposed the revelations of the Hasidic movement in both theological and social realms. One particularly salient testimony to the classical satirist’s influence is the astounding translation of his story “Alexander the False Prophet” by the Maskilic writer Meir Letteris, the first translation of Lucian’s work into Hebrew. The translation, printed in full below, was based on the German edition of Christoph Martin Wieland and published in the journal Ha-Tsefirah, which Letteris edited in 1823. As with every translation, it is a new product, shaped in and by its own context. This essay discusses the tendencies and apparent goals of the translator, the additions and omissions he made to the text, and the influence of Lucian’s satirical style on the Haskalah.

Cette recherche se donne pour but de rendre compte des liens établis par le philosophe américain Stanley Cavell entre le scepticisme et l'art cinématographique. L'existence du cinéma et sa spécificité parmi les autre arts (à savoir son rapport mécanique ou automatique au monde qu'il nous présente) marque quelque chose de nouveau dans notre rapport au monde et permet de comprendre mieux la reformulation du problème sceptique que Cavell opère, notamment à travers la notion d'« ordinaire ».
Nous explorons ici les rapports entre cinéma et scepticisme chez Cavell de trois manières. D'abord, le médium cinéma, en tant que tel, produit un rapport inédit au réel qui nous assure de son existence tout en nous montrant que nous sommes irrémédiablement séparés de lui. Ensuite, les genres cinématographiques expriment dans leur contenu même les manifestations ordinaires du scepticisme dans nos vies, que ces manifestations débouchent sur une réconciliation avec le monde et autrui ou qu'elles expriment une impossibilité définitive d'entrer en contact avec eux. Enfin le scepticisme se manifeste dans les vies mêmes des spectateurs de cinéma en tant que, reconnu par eux sur l'écran, il est envisagé et accepté comme une condition de nos existences ordinaires, et participe de ce qui constitue le cinéma comme art commun, populaire, démocratique.

The quest to provide a fundamental understanding and explanation of reality is an ambitious one. Perhaps it is too ambitious. The possible restrictions for such an enterprise to be successful must be inquired in order to determine the issue. Section 1 explores one’s understanding in reaching (scientific) conclusions: to what extent does a successful account testify to understanding? Section 2 focuses on the other side of such an account: does it provide an explanation in a more fundamental sense than pointing out causes of phenomena, or is it restricted to such a task? A critical stance vis-à-vis the (scientific) enterprise of unearthing reality’s structure remains necessary in order not to confuse a consistent and productive theory with one that demonstrates an understanding and explanation in the sense of this article.

Darwinism has become an encompassing theory, leaving the confines of science and accounting for all aspects of life. Such an outlook entails important consequences for the evaluation of life. In particular, organisms are considered mere means for species’ preservation and development, while reason is no special faculty, but rather an outgrowth of functions that are rudimentarily present in animals. Darwinism cannot, for that reason, be said to be ‘true’, but if Darwinism is the correct view, the implications for man are grave, no purpose or meaning of life being discernible. Darwinists are accordingly faced with the question why they continue their inquiries.

When Kant read the first review of his Critique Of Pure Reason’s A edition by Garve & Feder he obviously found it outrageous. Not only did it overlook the fundamental revolution in philosophical thinking, it even classed his system with the idealistic approach of George Berkeley which Kant thought of as one of those that he just would have been refuted with his Critique. That’s how the review became an important starting point for Kant’s Prolegomena as well as for the changes that make up the B edition of the Critique. However, since parallels to Berkeley in fact don’t seem to be so erroneous and since the Prolegomena’s and B edition’s remarks regarding the bishop are far from simply clarifying the differences between Kant’s transcendental idealism and Berkeley’s immaterialism the question about their theoretical relation remains unanswered.
In my master thesis I’m reconstructing Kant’s arguments throughout the passages in A and B edition of the Critique Of Pure Reason and in the Prolegomena where he outlines and defends transcendental idealism against other forms of idealism. In every step I try to stay highly sensible for Kant’s intentions and beliefs regarding the problems he just addresses and wants to solve. Nevertheless I will conclude by claiming that, despite some indisputable formal differences, the philosophical systems of Kant and Berkeley indeed notably share important contentual fundamentals.

This article is focused on answering the question to what extent one can be a sceptic. Sextus Empiricus’s Outlines of Scepticism serves as a guide. In section 1, it is investigated whether three logical laws have a certain foundation or are subject to doubt. In section 2, Sextus’s way to deal with these laws is examined; the question arises how dogmatic his approach is. After that, a possible ‘reply’ by Sextus to the criticism receives attention. Section 3 is concentrated on a possible alternative to Sextus’s approach. Besides logical laws, some important methods are concerned.