How To Refute Skepticism

Since modern Descartes and Hume,skepticism has become to be something very difficult to refute,and this is inseparable from the intuitive and powerful skepticism's arguments they have proposed.Descartes's dream argument and demon argument,Hume's empiricism of limiting knowledges about facts to the sensory experience and criticism to induction,prompts us to question the truth of propositions that are generally accepted in everyday life.In order to defend knowledge,many philosophers have tried to refute skepticism and propose several influential schemes to refuteskepticism.Among them,Moore's rebuttal of skepticism is the most important and most influential rebuttal of skepticism in the first half of the 20th century.Moore holds a common sense view of the world and uses this common sense to refute skepticism.This thesis mainly examines Moore's rebuttal of skepticism,and tries to point out the shortcomings of this scheme,and make up for this deficiency.The following are the main contents of each chapter.The first chapter "Introduction" mainly introduces why skepticism is important and why skepticism seems difficult to refute.It is inseparable that skepticism is hard to refute and intuitive and powerful skepticism's arguments,and the most powerful skepticism's arguments are based on the affirmation of the possibility of skeptical assumptions.At the same time,it also defines the skeptical argument that this article examines and refutes,and represents the so-called "skeptical position" in this article.At the end of the first chapter,I introduce the research status of the topic and the research purpose of this paper.The second chapter mainly introduces Moore's rebuttal of skepticism,and this introduction is inseparable from my interpretation of Moore's strategy.This article attempts to show that Moore's usage of "the propositions of knowing" is the most critical aspects of Moore's strategy of rebuttal of skepticism,and this usage is very different from skeptics'usage of it,and Moore's usage of "the propositions of knowing" is a way of "begging the question".On this basis,this article will sort out Moore's famous proof of the existence of the outside world,that is,the proof of the existence of both hands,and this proof is inseparable from the above-mentioned Moore's usage of "the propositions of knowing".Later I introduce the famous so-called"argument from ignorance" of skepticism and show how Moore might refute this argument in order to further understand Moore's thoughts.To further demonstrate the correctness of this chapter's interpretation of Moore's trategy,the final review of this chapter refuted the different interpretations of Moore' strategy by Lycan et al.The main purpose of the third chapter is to make up for the deficiency in Moore's strategy.By examining Wright and Pryor's influential diagnosis of Moore's proof in recent years,I will extract a point from Pryor's point of view that will help me with the argument below,correspondingly make the necessary understanding of the word"evidence".This understanding of "evidence" will play an important role in making up for the deficiency in Moore's strategy.It's wrong to think that it is evidence about the conclusion only if that the evidence entails the conclusion.This article will then point out some of the shortcomings in the Moore's scheme.I think the key shortcoming to the Moore's scheme is that he does not give a convincing reason why we should choose his common sense position instead of the skeptical position.In order to make up for this deficiency,the first is to distinguish between logical possibility and realistic possibility,and to recognize that the possibility of skepticism refers to the realistic possibility.On this basis,because skeptical possibilities lack of any evidence to support,it is certain that asserting these possibilities is wrong,but Moore's position of holding propositions that "I know that O" has a lot of evidence to support it,so Moore's position is a more justified and more worthwhile position than skeptical position.The innovations of this paper are mainly as follows:1,a clear and concise interpretation of Moore's anti-skeptical strategy,and a rebuttal to the different interpretations of Moore's anti-skeptical strategy by Lycan et al;2,a proof about what can become evidences of which propositions,a certain understanding of the nature of the evidence;3,clarifying the meaning of skeptical possibility,indicating that it refers to the realistic possibility;4,making up for some deficiencies of Moore's strategy and giving a good reason for choosing his position instead of skeptical position.