Keith DeRose

Moore and Wittgenstein on Certainty

Ludwig Wittgensteins On Certainty was finished just before his death in 1951 and is a running commentary on three of G.E. Moores greatest epistemological papers. In the early 1930s, Moore had written a lengthy commentary on Wittgenstein, anticipating some of the issues Wittgenstein would discuss in On Certainty. The philosophical relationship between these two great philosophers and their overlapping, but nevertheless differing, views is the subject of this book. Both defended the existence of certainty and thus opposed any form of scepticism. However, their defences and conceptions of certainty differed widely, as did their understanding of the nature of scepticism and how best to combat it. Strolls book contains a careful and critical analysis of their differing approaches to a set of fundamental epistemological problems.

Conditional Assertions and "Biscuit" Conditionals

1. “Biscuit” Conditionals~1! There are biscuits on the sideboard if you want some~2! If you’re interested, there’s a good documentary on PBS tonightand~3! Oswald shot Kennedy, if that’s what you’re asking me,as they’d typically be used, are examples of what are often called “biscuit” con-ditionals, after J.L. Austin’s example ~~1!, above; see Austin, 1970, p. 212!.Amark of such a conditional is that, after it has been uttered, it can only be a certainkind of joke to ask what is the case if the antecedent is false—“And where are thebiscuits if I don’t want any?”, “And what’s on PBS if I’m not interested?”, “Andwho shot Kennedy if that’s not what I’m asking?”. With normal indicative con-ditionals like,~4! There are biscuits on the sideboard if Bill hasn’t moved them~5! If the TV Guide is accurate, there’s a good documentary on PBS tonightand~6! Oswald shot Kennedy, if there hasn’t been an enormous conspiracy,

Gradable adjectives: A defence of pluralism

This paper attacks the Implicit Reference Class Theory of gradable adjectives and proposes instead a ‘pluralist’ approach to the semantics of those terms, according to which they can be governed by a variety of different types of standards, one, but only one, of which is the group-indexed standards utilized by the Implicit Reference Class Theory.

Direct Warrant Realism

Direct Realism often emerges as a solution to a certain type of problem. Hume and, especially, Berkeley, wielding some of the most powerful arguments of 18 Century philosophy, forcefully attacked the notion that there could be good inferences from the occurrence of one’s sensations to the existence of external, mind-independent bodies (material objects). Given the success of these attacks, and also given the assumption, made by Berkeley and arguably by Hume as well, that our knowledge of and rational belief in the existence of material objects would depend upon there being such good inferences, a problem arises: We cannot know of or rationally believe in the existence of material objects. Reid’s Direct Realism then emerges as the solution to this problem. Reid admits the success of Berkeley’s and Hume’s attacks against the possibility of successfully grounding our material world beliefs on inferences from our sensations, but claims that our belief in the existence of material objects can be perfectly rationally acceptable, and can amount to knowledge, despite the lack of such inferences. Though he did not use the terminology, it seems to be Reid’s position – and it’s this position that I will be referring to as his “Direct Realism” here – that certain perceptual beliefs whose content is such that they imply the existence of material objects are properly basic: they are rationally held, and if true can amount to knowledge, without having to be based on any other beliefs, including, most notably, beliefs about one’s own sensory experiences.