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Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'The Nature and Communication of Substance' and 'Walking the Tightrope of Reason'

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2 ideas

13. Knowledge Criteria / D. Scepticism / 2. Types of Scepticism
Scepticism is cartesian (sceptical scenarios), or Humean (future), or Pyrrhonian (suspend belief) [Fogelin]
     Full Idea: The three forms of scepticism are cartesian, Humean and Pyrrhonian. The first challenges belief by inventing sceptical scenarios; the second doubts the future; the third aims to suspend belief.
     From: Robert Fogelin (Walking the Tightrope of Reason [2003], Ch.4)
     A reaction: A standard distinction is made between methodological and global scepticism. The former seems to be Cartesian, and the latter Pyrrhonian. The interest here is see Hume placed in a distinctive category, because of his views on induction.
13. Knowledge Criteria / D. Scepticism / 6. Scepticism Critique
Scepticism deals in remote possibilities that are ineliminable and set the standard very high [Fogelin]
     Full Idea: Sceptical scenarios deal in wildly remote defeating possibilities, so that the level of scrutiny becomes unrestrictedly high, and they also usually deal with defeators that are in principle ineliminable.
     From: Robert Fogelin (Walking the Tightrope of Reason [2003], Ch.4)
     A reaction: The question of how high we 'set the bar' seems to me central to epistemology. There is clearly an element of social negotiation involved, centring on what is appropriate. If, though, scepticism is 'ineliminable', we must face up to that.