skepticism

A long time ago, Descartes wondered if he could really be sure that he was sitting in front of a warm fire on a cold night, or whether an evil demon had deceived him, and that it merely appeared that way. He concluded, for a moment, that he could know nothing at all about the world around him. Eventually, though, he thought he could: this step has been criticized ever since, because it reeks of circularity.

Ever since, people have been having fits about this skeptical argument. The real problem has been that everybody knows that it has to be wrong, and nobody can figure out why that's the case. But these days, I want to say that the argument is sound. It's just that the conclusion is different than has been thought. What it reveals is a fact about ourselves - not that we can't know anything, or that we can't have reason to believe anything - but that any knowledge or reason is always subject to revision.

I mean to contrast this with most people who have thought that we need to overcome the skepticism by finding something immune to skeptical doubt - that is, something final, something immune to revision. Moore thought that he knew he had a hand in front of face - and I agree, he did know, or at leas had good reason to believe, was justified in believing. But he might not have had a hand in front of his face; he might have been wrong.

It is however important to realize that the "uncertainty" or "lack of knowledge" embodied in being subject to revision is a little different from straightforward uncertainty, pragmatic uncertainty, ordinary uncertainty. Given that it is a generic feature of all our knowledge, I can't be more or less certain of any particular piece of knowledge, in this sense. It doesn't figure into our decisions in the way that ordinary uncertainty does. But it does play a role in our lives; someone who is aware of this sort of uncertainty will live a different life than they would otherwise.

(I want to say that a very similar sort of thing is true of our ethical views, but the argument for this proceeds differently, I suspect.)

There's an upshot to all this, but I'm still working on it. The short answer comes from Father Flynn: doubt can be a bond as powerful as certainty.