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Meta-philosophical skepticism goes that we should suspend our beliefs about philosophical claims. Previously, many argued that prevalent disagreements among peer philosophers motivate the skepticism. One immediate anti-skeptical response is that meta-philosophical skepticism is epistemically self-defeating. In brief, meta-philosophical skepticism calls for the suspension of beliefs about premises deployed in arguments for the very position. This makes the skeptical position ultimately call for belief suspension of itself. Many regard the self-defeat worry as a challenge that meta-philosophical skeptics can hardly meet. In this paper, on behalf of the skeptics, I’ll argue that it is possible for meta-philosophical skepticism to sidestep the self-defeat worry with the notion of practical justification. I first contrast traditional evidentialist’s view about the ethics of belief which states that beliefs can only be justified epistemically with a pragmatist’s view that holds beliefs can also be justified practically. To pragmatists, as long as holding a belief facilitates some practical interest like maintaining a flourishing ordinary life, a belief can be pragmatically justified even if evidence an agent possesses is neutral or silent regarding the justification of the very belief. I contend that the justification of premises deployed in meta-philosophical skeptical arguments can also be explained with pragmatist’s view. That is, these premises might be epistemically defeated according to meta-philosophical skeptical arguments. However, skeptics are, in a pragmatic sense, still rational to deploy premises since they exhibit some practical values. While self-defeat can be a serious issue in the epistemic domain, it is not so detrimental in the practical domain since many principles can be implicitly self-defeated but still pragmatically justified.
Este obra está bajo una licencia de Creative Commons Reconocimiento-NoComercial-CompartirIgual 4.0 Internacional.
