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On Refusing to Play the Sceptic's Game*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 June 2010

Kai Nielsen
Kai Nielsen
Affiliation:
University of Calgary
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Extract

Paradigm-Case arguments were set out to meet epistemological scepticism and to refute in a short decisive way, without even the need to examine them in detail, paradoxical metaphysical claims. Stroud, J. J. Thomson and Rorty think they utterly fail to do so.1 I shall argue that supplemented by a perfectly innocuous verificationist argument, a distinct argument of Moore's, given a limited sphere of application and taken as also involving the argument from a non-vacuous contrast, the argument from the paradigm-case presents a decisive argument against such forms of scepticism. If it is not sound, transcendental arguments will also be undermined but if it is sound, they are unnecessary.

Type
Articles
Information
Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review / Revue canadienne de philosophie , Volume 11 , Issue 3 , September 1972 , pp. 348 - 359
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 1972

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References

1 Rorty, Richard, “Verificationism and Transcendental Arguments,” Nous, Vol. V, (February, 1971)Google Scholar, Stroud, Barry, “Transcendental Arguments,” The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. LXV, (1968)Google Scholar and Thomson, Judith Jarvis, “Private Languages,” American Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. I, (January, 1964)Google Scholar. Stroud's essay has been reprinted in T. Penelhum and J.J. Macintosh (eds.), The First Critique: Reflections on Kant's Critique of Pure Reason and Thomson's essay has been reprinted in Stuart Hampshire (ed.), Philosophy of Mind. Page references given in the text to Stroud and Thomson will be to these two books.

2 It could be replied, concerning my limitation of the paradigm-case argument to purely descriptive terms, that there are no such terms. They are all in part theory-laden and/or normative as well. And since this is so, there is the ever present danger that there will be a conflict between what, given the paradigm exemplar, would be said to be an X and what, given the criteria for X and a descriptive definition, would be said to be an X. Where there is actually such a conflict, paradigm-case arguments, as Passmore has argued, are without force. But the point is—the criticism would continue—this is always or nearly always the case. I have examined such arguments at some length in my Reason and Practice, pp. 457–461. Not all terms, I argue, are so theory-laden ornormative and, where they are not, there is not this conflict between criteria and paradigm exemplars and paradigm-case arguments are appropriate for such terms.

3 See for example the essays by Malcolm, Lazerowitz and Ambrose in P.A. Schilpp (ed.), The Philosophy of G.E. Moore, and the essay by Ambrose reprinted in Richard Rorty (ed.), The Linguistic Turn.

4 Antony Flew, “Again the Paradigm,” in Paul K. Feyerabend and Grover Maxwell (eds.), Mind, Matter and Method: Essays in Philosophy and Science in Honor of Herbert Feigl.

5 These points are well argued by Kasachkoff, Tziporah in her “Ontological Implications of the Paradigm-Case Argument,” Philosophical Studies, (Maynooth, Ireland), Vol. XVIII (1968)Google Scholar.

6 Rorty, Richard, “Verificationism and Transcendental Arguments,” Nous, Vol. V, (February, 1971), p. 14Google Scholar.

7 Ibid., p. 9.

8 In his “How To Make Our Ideas Clear,” reprinted in Charles S. Peirce, Values in a Universe of Chance: Selected Writings of Charles S. Peirce, Philip P. Wiener, (ed.), p. 124.

9 I have developed these points and considered counter-arguments in Chapters 32 and 33 of my Reason and Practice. Also see R.W. Ashby both in his “Verifiability Principle,” The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Paul Edwards (ed.), Vol. 8 and in his “Logical Positivism,” in D.J. O'Connor (ed.), A Critical History of Western Philosophy, and Wesley C. Salmon, “Verifiability and Logic,” in Paul K. Feyerabend and Graver Maxwell (eds.), Mind, Matter and Method: Essays in Philosophy and Science in Honor of Herbert Feigl.