Anti-skepticism under a linguistic guiseGrindrod, J. (2022) Anti-skepticism under a linguistic guise. Topoi. ISSN 1572-8749 (In Press)
It is advisable to refer to the publisher's version if you intend to cite from this work. See Guidance on citing. Abstract/SummaryIn this paper I consider the plausibility of developing anti-skepticism by framing the question in linguistic terms: instead of asking whether we know, we ask what falls within the extension of the word “know”. I first trace two previous attempts to develop anti-skepticism in this way, from Austin (particularly as presented by Kaplan) and from epistemic contextualism, and I present reasons to think that both approaches are unsuccessful. I then focus on a more recently popular attempt to develop anti-skepticism from the “function-first” approach associated with Craig, which I also show to be problematic. I then argue that the apparent prima facie plausibility of fighting skepticism on linguistic grounds is due to a methodological spill-over from linguistics. Once we recognize this, it becomes clear that debate around skepticism should not be conducted in linguistic terms.
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