Philosophy Dictionary of ArgumentsHome | |||
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Skepticism: is an expression for the more or less well-formulated view that perceptual subjects cannot in principle have any security with regard to their knowledge about the external world. The doubts about the reliability of the sensory organs can be extended to doubts about the existence of an external world, if the possibility of a fundamental deception, for example by a permanent dream, is accepted. See also verification, evidence, perception, certainty, Moore's hands, solipsism._____________Annotation: The above characterizations of concepts are neither definitions nor exhausting presentations of problems related to them. Instead, they are intended to give a short introduction to the contributions below. – Lexicon of Arguments. | |||
Author | Concept | Summary/Quotes | Sources |
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David Chalmers on Skepticism - Dictionary of Arguments
I 74 Skepticism/Chalmers: if it is only about our actual world, and we know that, e.g. biological phenomena are determined by microphysical facts, there is no room for skepticism. The biological are logically supervenient on the physical facts. >Supervenience, >Actual world, >Possible worlds. It is a different matter if we accept a second possible world, which is not different from ours in terms of perceptible facts, but differs with respect to the microstructure. Cf. >Twin Earth. It is a different matter again if we assume phenomena which are not logically supervening on physical structures. Our example of this is our conscious experience (consciousness). >Experience, >Consciousness/Chalmers. I 76 Skepticism/Consciousness/Chalmers: for our purposes - namely to explore the consciousness (conscious experience) - we simply assume that the external world exists and put skepticism to the back. All our evidence supervenes logically on the micro-physical facts._____________Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate the page number. The corresponding books are indicated on the right hand side. ((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution. Translations: Dictionary of Arguments The note [Concept/Author], [Author1]Vs[Author2] or [Author]Vs[term] resp. "problem:"/"solution:", "old:"/"new:" and "thesis:" is an addition from the Dictionary of Arguments. If a German edition is specified, the page numbers refer to this edition. |
Cha I D. Chalmers The Conscious Mind Oxford New York 1996 Cha II D. Chalmers Constructing the World Oxford 2014 |