Abstract

CINTORA, Armando  and  ORNELAS, Jorge. Trading one Kind of Dogmatism for Another: Comments on Williams' Criticism of Agrippan Scepticism. Tópicos (México) [online]. 2013, n.44, pp.09-34. ISSN 0188-6649.

M. Williams' analysis (1999, 2001 and 2004b) of the Prior Grounding Conception (PGC) of epistemic justification -a conception allegedly behind the Agrippan trilemma- is reviewed and it is contrasted with the Default Challenge Conception of justification (DChC) -the alternative conception of epistemic justification championed by Williams. It is argued that the epistemic default entitlements of the DChC are a euphemism for epistemically arbitrary stipulations, it is also argued that while the PGC might lead to sceptical paradoxes, the DChC leads to a paradoxical pancrititism, and that which of these two paradoxes to prefer will be a matter of taste or temperament. Finally it is argued that the DChC is neither an adequate description of our philosophical, nor, it seems, of our ordinary epistemic practice. It is then concluded that the PGC is the superior conception, even if it might lead to a Pyrrhonian attitude towards the absolute presuppositions of science. We conclude by openly arguing in favour a type of non-epistemic dogmatism with Pyrrhonian implications (some of these dogmas could be, for example, criteria of proper evidence, criteria of rational belief, criteria of rational action, criteria for desirable goals, etc.). These consequences, however, don't have to be inimical to scientific research.

Keywords : Epistemic Justification; Agrippan Trilemma; Epistemic Dogmatism; Non-Epistemic Dogmatism; Scepticism.

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