Krödel, Thomas
Senior Fellow: October 2022–February 2023
Research Project: Meta-Philosophical Scepticism
Meta-philosophical scepticism is scepticism about the domain of philosophy. According to meta-philosophical scepticism, we cannot have any philosophical knowledge. This form of scepticism has two main sources. The first is doubts about the possibility that cognitive mechanisms underlie philosophical knowledge. Unlike in the case of sense-perception, say, it seems odd that there could be cognitive mechanisms that put us in touch with the abstract and general truths that philosophers claim to know. The second source is disagreement. For virtually all philosophical positions, there seem to be equally competent people who endorse them. Since these people cannot all be right, it seems that each might well be the one who errs, but this possibility undermines their claims to philosophical knowledge. This project will investigate how recent advances in the study of philosophical methodology can be harnessed in order to refute meta-philosophical scepticism.
Thomas Krödel is a professor of philosophy of science at Universität Hamburg.