Dinges, Alexander

Senior Fellow: April–August 2022

Research Project: Cartesian Scepticism and Loose Talk

Following Descartes’s method of doubt, Cartesian sceptics claim that hardly any of our convictions amount to knowledge because we are hardly ever in a position to rule out every possible source of error. According to Cartesian scepticism, we do not even know that we have hands because we are unable to rule out, for example, evil demons that make us think we have hands when in fact we do not. At least since G.E. Moore, Cartesian sceptics have faced a formidable challenge. If knowledge is as demanding as they assume, how it is that we ascribe knowledge all the time in everyday discourse? And how can we, for instance, criticise conspiracy theorists when they deny what we regard as scientific knowledge? In this project, the aim is to explore the most promising response strategy available to Cartesian sceptics, according to which knowledge ascriptions are instances of loose talk. It is strictly false to say “It is 3 pm” when it is actually 3:01 pm. The utterance may still be fine if we are speaking loosely, ignoring the often irrelevant difference between 3 pm and 3:01 pm. Based on recent developments in the theory of loose talk, the project will argue that knowledge ascriptions and denials work just like this and will thereby explain our ordinary practice of ascribing and denying knowledge from a sceptical perspective.

Alexander Dinges is a lecturer of philosophy at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Germany.