Beyond skepticism & certainty

The aim of the dissertation is to argue that the best prospects for a satisfactory response to radical philosophical skepticism lie with the kind of semantic approach found in the work of Donald Davidson. I argue that the main force of skeptical arguments concerns justification, not knowledge, and that none of the extant internalist or externalist forms of anti-skepticism are compelling. Internalist solutions run up against the fact that they cannot provide grounds for believing that skeptical scenarios are false, while externalist theories of knowledge fail to address the underlying concerns about the lack of justification for disbelieving skeptical scenarios. As an alternative, I argue that Davidson's views on radical interpretation and content externalism provide a reason for believing the denials of skeptical hypotheses that is neither based on subjective experience, nor the de facto reliability of our beliefs.;Chapter 1 claims that the continued relevance of skepticism lies not only in its paradoxical nature, but also the fact that some of the most popular---and divisive---epistemological externalist views are motivated by their potential to provide a novel response to skepticism. Chapter 2 proposes an account according to which knowledge not only requires grounds objectively adequate to establish the truth of what is believed, but also some actual or potential appreciation of why or how those grounds are adequate. Chapter 3 examines the two main families of skeptical arguments, Pyrrhonian and Cartesian, and finds their most radical formulations to be in terms of justification or evidential underdetermination, not knowledge. Chapter 4 discusses the anti-skeptical appeal of three major externalist theories of knowledge over internalist responses. I argue that while they may show externalist anti-skeptical knowledge is possible, they have no traction with the more radical formulations of skepticism based on justification. In Chapter 5 I argue that Davidson's views on the conceptual relations between belief, truth and meaning can provide a response that addresses the fundamentally internalist nature of the skeptical challenge, and defend it against objections.