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On the Assertion of Philosophical Doubt*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 March 1971

Evan Simpson
Evan Simpson
Affiliation:
McMaster University
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Extract

Despite impressive evidence to the contrary, there remains nagging doubt that between language and the world there is sufficient cleavage for philosophical doubt to slip in. The apparent incommensurability of reality and knowledge of it has, indeed, a certain quasi-logical foundation which it is interesting to explore.

Type
Articles
Information
Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review / Revue canadienne de philosophie , Volume 10 , Issue 1 , March 1971 , pp. 82 - 91
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 1971

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References

1 S may be formally represented: (x) (Fx ⊃ ♢ (FxGx)) → ♢ (x) (Fx ⊃ FxGx). For a similar point see Purtill, R. L., “Moore's Modal Argument,” American Philosophical Quarterly, III (1966), p. 236.Google Scholar

2 Austin, Thus J. L., “The human intellect and senses are … inherently fallible …, but not … inveterately so,” and again, “‘You cannot fool all of the people all of the time’ is analytic,” Philosophical Papers (Oxford, 1961), pp. 66 and 81n.Google Scholar

3 Formally: (x)(Fx ⊃ ♢ (FxGx)) → ˜ ♢ (x) (Fx ⊃ FxGx), ‘F’ being restricted in the way indicated in the text following.

4 Rigorous statement of these restrictions would finally dispose of such objections to the view summarized in D as are put, for example, by Roderick Chisholm in the third section of “Philosophers and Ordinary Language,” The Philosophical Review, 60 (1951), 317–328.

5 It is interesting that Aristotle, On the Heavens, II, 2, criticizes the Pythagorean use of the principle, not on the grounds that it is objectionable, but on the grounds that it is inapplicable to the music of the spheres in virtue of known physical laws.

6 Contrast Oliver A. Johnson, “Begging the Question,” Dialogue 6 (1967), 135-50. Johnson’s claim that epistemological theories must be based on logically self-evident principles need be entertained only if a diversity in kinds of linguistically based necessity goes unrecognized.

7 This and any sentence derived from D may be formally represented by expressing all modal operators in terms of'♢ and ‘˜’ and inscribing an ‘a’ in the diamonds. The impossibility that everything is red may then be written: ˜ (x) Rx. Mr. David Hitchcock has pointed out that this may plausibly be paraphrased as: ˜ ♢ (P.(x)Rx), where ‘P’ stands for pragmatic conditions governing the use of ‘R’. If there were no such conditions, a statement of the form “˜ …” would be equivalent to the corresponding statement of the form “˜ ♢…” as sceptical views commonly presuppose.