Seguir regras e significado: o argumento cético-semântico revisitado

No presente artigo proponho-me a reconstruir, o mais claramente possível o “paradoxo cético” a partir do modo como apresentado por Saul Kripke em seu Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language (1982). Seu argumento sustenta que não há fatos ou razões que justifiquem nosso emprego de termos como dotados de significados. Para tanto, interponho as distinções que julgo pertinentes à adequada compreensão do tema, formulando os requisitos necessários à sua adequada resposta, a saber, o ontológico, o normativo e o da identificação extensional no tempo. Ao final, contrasto o ceticismo ora objeto de análise com sua versão epistemológica clássica. AbstractIn the present paper I propose to rebuild as clearly as possible the “skeptical paradox” from the way presented by Saul Kripke in his Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language (1982). His argument maintains that there are no facts or reasons justifying our use of terms as having meaning. Therefore, I interpose the distinctions that I consider relevant to the proper understanding of the subject and I formulate the requirements necessary for its proper response, namely the ontological, the normative and the extensional identification in time. Finally, I contrast semantic skepticism with its classical epistemological version.

Kripkenstein and Mathematics as the Language of Nature

This paper addresses the skeptical paradox highlighted in Saul Kripke’s work Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language. The skeptical paradox stands in the way of many attempts to fix meaning in the rule-following of a language. This paper closely assesses the ‘straight solutions’ to this problem with regards to another type of language; mathematics. A conclusion is made that if we cannot sufficiently locate where the meaning lies in a mathematical operation; if we cannot describe how it is that we follow a rule in mathematics, we ought to tread lightly in characterising it as the language of nature.

The Threat of Privacy in Wittgenstein’s Investigations: Kripke vs. Cavell

Most readers of the Investigations take skepticism as a target of Wittgenstein’s remarks, something to be refuted by means of a clear grasp of our criteria. Stanley Cavell was the first to challenge that consensual view by reminding us that our criteria are constantly open to skeptical repudiation, hence that privacy is a standing human possibility. In an apparently similar vein, Saul Kripke has argued that a skeptical paradox concerning rules and meaning is the central problem of the Investigations – and one that receives a skeptical solution. Following the orthodoxy, however, Kripke does not take privacy as a real threat but instead reads Wittgenstein as offering an argument against its very possibility. This paper offers a critical assessment of Kripke’s and Cavell’s readings, and concludes by delineating an understanding of our linguistic practices that acknowledges the seriousness of skepticism while avoiding the kind of evasion shared by Kripke and the orthodoxy, enabling us to see agreement and meaning as continual tasks whose failure is imbued with high existential costs.

Newman’s Skeptical Paradox

John Henry Newman starts the second half of the Grammar of Assent by laying out a “paradox,” and he announces that the purpose of the following chapters of the book is to resolve it. Surprisingly, recent scholarship has tended not to question the nature of this paradox. In this paper, I argue that we should understand Newman’s paradox to be a kind of skeptical paradox that arises when we accept “Lockean rationalism.” I then show how Newman deals with the paradox. One of the upshots of this reading is that “naturalism” plays a smaller role in Newman’s anti-skepticism than previous commentators have suggested. Another is that we should understand Newman to be a kind of infallibilist.

Kripkenstein and Mathematics as the Language of Nature

This paper addresses the skeptical paradox highlighted in Saul Kripke’s work Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language. The skeptical paradox stands in the way of many attempts to fix meaning in the rule-following of a language. This paper closely assesses the ‘straight solutions’ to this problem with regards to another type of language; mathematics. A conclusion is made that if we cannot sufficiently locate where the meaning lies in a mathematical operation; if we cannot describe how it is that we follow a rule in mathematics, we ought to tread lightly in characterising it as the language of nature.

The advantages of neomoorean antiskeptical strategy

This paper aims to argue in support of the neo-Moorean attempt(s) to solve a skeptical paradox. It defends the thesis that neo-Mooreans retain advantages and avoid disadvantages of rival anti-skeptical strategies - namely epistemic contextualism. The puzzle that a radical skeptic poses is exemplified by Nozick?s famous Brain in a Vat thought experiment, which enables construing valid arguments consisting of jointly inconsistent but independently plausible premises. The first and the second part of the paper are devoted to Nozick?s conditional analysis of knowledge and De Rose?s epistemic contextualism, both based on the sensitivity principle. Referring to De Roses? contextualist theory, we demonstrate that the failure of Nozick?s conditional analysis of knowledge to provide a satisfactory answer to a skeptical paradox does not concern the sensitivity principle but rather closure denial and embracing the so-called ?abominable conjunction?. In the third part, we point out the weaknesses of the presumably most successful, contextualist response to the paradox. We explain that even though DeRose?s anti-skeptical strategy is built upon Nozick?s theory, he successfully surmounts its difficulties. Yet it seems that as a contextualist, he necessarily makes some concessions to a radical skeptic. Eventually, the article introduces Black?s neo-Moorean anti-skeptical theory based on the sensitivity principle as a strategy that makes neither concessions, nor counterintuitive proposals.

Kripkenstein on Belief

I offer a skeptical reading of Saul Kripke’s “A Puzzle about Belief.” I maintain that Kripke formulates a skeptical paradox about belief that is analogous to the skeptical paradox about meaning and rule-following that, according to Kripke, Wittgenstein formulates in his Philosophical Investigations.

Lewis’s contextual solution to the Lottery paradox and the Gettier problem

The main topic of this paper is conversational contextualism, one of the most dominant versions of epistemic contextualism, endorsed by David Lewis. Proponents of conversational contextualism, including Lewis, argue that the key advantage of this view lies in its unique way of analyzing and solving the most prominent epistemological problems. Among those problems are the skeptical paradox, the Gettier problem and the Lottery paradox. The first part of the paper is concerned with the general features of conversational contextualism. In the second part of the paper the author highlights the main hypotheses of conversational contextualism, proposed by Lewis, as an attempt to solve the Gettier problem and the Lottery paradox. The last part of the paper analyzes the pros and cons of the Lewisian solutions to the aforementioned problems. The key part in that analysis is the Cohen?s criticism of those solutions.

Skepticism and Epistemic Closure: Two Bayesian Accounts

This paper considers two novel Bayesian responses to a well-known skeptical paradox. The paradox consists of three intuitions: first, given appropriate sense experience, we have justification for accepting the relevant proposition about the external world; second, we have justification for expanding the body of accepted propositions through known entailment; third, we do not have justification for accepting that we are not disembodied souls in an immaterial world deceived by an evil demon. The first response we consider rejects the third intuition and proposes an explanation of why we have a faulty intuition. The second response, which we favor, accommodates all three intuitions; it reconciles the first and the third intuition by the dual component model of justification, and defends the second intuition by distinguishing two principles of epistemic closure.

Radical Skepticism and Underdetermination

This chapter reveals a more nuanced way to conceive of the radical skeptical paradox—one that makes no essential appeal to a closure-style principle for knowledge. It discusses the skeptical challenge presented by, on the one hand, underdeterminationRK/rational ground-based radical skepticism and, on the other hand, closureRK-based radical skepticism. Then, in light of these general reflections about these two forms of radical skeptical challenge, the chapter sets out what, both minimally and ideally, we would want from an intellectually satisfying response to the problem of radical skepticism, where this is a response to this problem that deals with both kinds of skeptical challenge.