The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

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The Failure of Philosophical
Knowledge
Why Philosophers are not Entitled to
their Beliefs

János Tőzsér
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 ­Contents

Acknowledgements vi

Introduction 1

Part 1

1 Philosophy as an Epistemic Enterprise 11

2 Philosophy as a Failed Epistemic Enterprise 43

Part 2

3 Therapy for Philosophers 81

4 Philosophy With (Intended-To-Be) Compelling Justification 99
5 Philosophy Without Compelling Justification 119
6 Meta-skepticism 159

Part 3

7 Breakdown 209

Bibliography 219
Index 227
 A
­ cknowledgements

Over the past few years, I have had conversations and discussions with many
philosophers on the main topics of this book, both in person and in writing. For
all the above, I’d like to express my thanks to Tibor Bárány, Tim Crane, Tamás
Demeter, Márton Dornbach, Gábor Forrai, Ákos Gyarmathy, Gábor Hofer-
Szabó, Ágnes Katona, Daniel Kodaj, Andrea Komlósi, David Mark Kovacs,
Péter Lautner, Bence Nanay, László Nemes, Tamás Paár, Michele Palmira, Jenő
Pöntör, Daniel Schmal, Tibor Sutyák, Peter van Inwagen, Péter Varga, and Zsófia
Zvolenszky.
My special thanks go to László Bernáth, Boldizsár Eszes, Kati Farkas, Judit
Gébert, George Kampis, László Kocsis, Miklós Márton, and the anonymous
referees of Bloomsbury Publishers for their thorough and detailed comments on
earlier versions of the manuscript of my essay, in which they pointed out several
errors, inaccuracies, and other mistakes.
Finally, I’d like to express my gratitude to Zsuzsanna Balogh and especially
to Boldizsár Eszes for their invaluable help with preparing the English text, and
to the editors at Bloomsbury, Liza Thompson, Colleen Coalter, and Suzie Nash,
and to my copyeditor, Dawn Cunneen, for lots of patience and help.
The research leading to this essay was supported by NKFI/OTKA (Hungarian
Scientific Research Fund of the National Research Development and Innovation
Office) grant No. K123839, K132911 and MTA Lendület “Moral and Science.”
 Introduction

All areas of philosophy are characterized by dissent. Philosophers disagree

among themselves in innumerable ways, and this pervasive and permanent
dissensus is a sign of their inability to solve philosophical problems and present
well-established philosophical truths. Every philosopher who has not buried his
head in the sand knows or at least suspects this.
The saddest aspect of this failure is that philosophers have been unable
to solve philosophical problems which deeply affect all of us existentially—
problems whose stakes were the highest out of all theoretical problems. What
I have in mind are questions like “Is there a God?”; “What is the relationship
between mind and body?”; “Do we have free will and moral responsibility?”
Philosophers have also been unable to solve those big philosophical problems
whose existential weight cannot be compared to the above three, but whose
theoretical significance is unquestionable. These include, for example, questions
such as “What is the distinguishing mark of mental phenomena?”; “Do we
have direct access to a mind-independent reality in veridical perception?”;
“Do physical objects have spatiotemporal parts?” And philosophers have
not managed to solve those philosophical problems that have no particular
existential weight or even theoretical significance, either. Some examples are
questions (concocted in philosophical laboratories, so to speak) such as “What
kind of entities are holes?”; “Are disjunctive properties genuine properties?”;
“Can one unintentionally produce abstract artifacts?”
I’m not claiming that the community of philosophers has no philosophical
knowledge at all. All I’m saying is this: if we collected all consensually (or at least
near-consensually) accepted philosophical truths, the result would be painfully
modest—especially in light of the big questions that have been left unanswered.
For what would this collection include? On the one hand, it would have
trifles like “Nobody can know false propositions”; “Our dream experiences fail
to provide adequate justification of our beliefs about the external world.” On the
2 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

other hand, it would include some “If …, then …” type statements such as “If
the intentional properties of our mental states supervene on the phenomenal
properties of those states, then intentional contents cannot be Russellian
propositions”; “If proper names are rigid designators, then there is a posteriori
necessity.” Moreover, it would include some assertions about the virtues and
difficulties of various philosophical theories, such as “Presentism has the virtue
of being consistent with the phenomenology of time, but has a hard time finding
adequate truth-makers for true propositions about the past”; “Class nominalism
has the virtue of not being committed to the existence of multilocal entities,
but has a hard time reducing necessarily coextensive properties.” Apart from
these, the collection would include some conceptual distinctions like “De dicto
modalities must be distinguished from de re ones,” or “Determinism must be
distinguished from fatalism.” Finally, it might include negative substantive
truths such as “The Leibnizian thesis that ‘All true propositions are analytic’
is false”; “The thesis that ‘all mental states are behavioral dispositions’ is false.”
And that’s all—I believe I have just listed all kinds of consensually accepted
philosophical truths.
Now, if you reflect on the facts that: (1) during the 2,500-year-old history
of philosophy, philosophers most certainly did not want to come up with
merely these kinds of truths, as they had “a somewhat” more ambitious dream,
namely to come up with substantive and positive truths, and that (2) pervasive
and permanent dissensus about philosophical problems is a clear sign of the
philosophers’ failed attempts in this regard, and their failure to fulfil their
commitments no matter how hard they try—then you will be hard pressed
to conclude that philosophy is a failed epistemic enterprise. If that is the case,
then we, philosophers, are members of a failed epistemic enterprise, and our
philosophical beliefs are beliefs held by the participants of a failed epistemic
enterprise.
This is not a heartwarming thought, so much so that in my opinion, we are
epistemically and morally obliged to face philosophy’s epistemic failure, to react
to the fact that the community of philosophers (to which we belong) does not
know substantive and positive philosophical truths, and to try to account for
the epistemic status of our own substantive and positive philosophical beliefs in
light of the foregoing. Thus, we have to ask ourselves “What should we do with
our substantive and positive philosophical beliefs in the face of the epistemic
failure of philosophy?”
It is wrong for us to act as if everything were in perfect order. It is wrong for
us to deny philosophy’s epistemic failure (for example, by saying that “Doing
 Introduction 3

philosophy has nothing on earth to do with seeking truths—philosophers

misinterpret their own intentions when they think they are making attempts
to solve philosophical problems”). And it is wrong for us to play down
philosophy’s epistemic failure (for example, by saying that “There is nothing bad
in philosophy’s not having the final answers—our life would be bleak indeed if
we could announce winners in philosophy and thereby make all philosophers
regurgitate these winners’ theses all the time”). These, I believe, are unworthy
and unscrupulous reactions.

***

Apart from unworthy and unscrupulous reactions, in light of philosophy’s

epistemic failure, there are four ways for philosophers to react to the epistemic
failure of philosophy and think about the epistemic status of their substantive
philosophical beliefs.
Some philosophers think that they have succeeded in supporting their
substantive philosophical beliefs with compelling arguments and urge others to
formulate such knock-down arguments. They think that the only way for us to
rationally stick to our substantive philosophical beliefs in light of the pervasive
and permanent dissensus in philosophy is to be able to compellingly justify
them. For if we have compelling arguments for p, then it is irrelevant that others
think that p is false.
I cannot identify with this proposal. For one thing, I cannot entertain
the idea of being so lucky that I am the one (and not anyone else) who has
managed to formulate knock-down philosophical arguments for my substantive
philosophical beliefs. For another thing, the philosophers who are absolutely
convinced that they have knock-down arguments thereby vindicate an
epistemically privileged position to themselves, but they cannot appropriately
(non-circularly) justify this privilege or superiority in any way. On top of that,
they must consider their interlocutors to be their epistemic inferiors, as they are
unable to see the compelling nature of their arguments. Now, I feel that this is
not the right attitude—to me, it is not an example to be followed.
Other philosophers think that the pervasive and permanent dissensus in
philosophy is a clear proof of the inadequacy and unsuitability of philosophy’s
truth-seeking and justificatory tools for establishing substantive philosophical
truths, so our philosophical beliefs are inappropriately justified. But if they are
inappropriately justified, then we cannot rationally stick to them and have to
suspend all of them, however difficult and painful this may be.
4 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

I cannot identify with this reaction, either. I have several reasons, but for
now I will mention just the three most evident ones. First, I don’t think that
anyone could argue for this skeptical (or rather, meta-skeptical) view in a non-
self-defeating way. Second, I think that the only way for me to actually suspend
all of my substantive and positive philosophical beliefs is to sink into intellectual
apathy, and I would not like that to happen. Third, concerning our moral beliefs,
I feel that I would be wrong to try to suspend them because if I did so, then I
would have to toss a coin (or choose something similar) to decide what to do in
difficult situations.
Yet other philosophers think that we can rationally stick to our beliefs even if
we are unable to justify them compellingly. We do the right thing if we develop
a philosophical theory that is in harmony or equilibrium with our fundamental
pre-philosophical convictions and defend it from possible objections by showing
that none of those are compelling. Once we have successfully accomplished these
two tasks, we can rationally believe in our substantive philosophical theses—
independently of whether others hold them to be false.
I can’t identify with this approach, either. It says that my fundamental pre-
philosophical convictions are epistemically unjustified, so they are not based on
anything that would indicate what the truth is. Thus, this approach boils down
to the following: “I can rationally believe that p is true because (1) I can show
that no compelling argument can be made against p and (2) p is in harmony or
equilibrium with my fundamental pre-philosophical convictions that I cannot
suspend without damaging my personal integrity and my cognitive household.”
Now, I think that this kind of justification for p doesn’t entitle me to seriously
and sincerely believe that p is true—to believe that p really describes things as
they are. It merely entitles me to say “It seems to me that p is true in the light of
my pre-philosophical convictions”—and this is clearly not enough for my taking
epistemic responsibility for the truth of p.
Finally, some philosophers think that all philosophical problems are
meaningless, and so are all of our philosophical beliefs, consequently we cannot
rationally stick to any of them. The only meaningful task of doing philosophy
is to debunk the appearance-creating mechanism responsible for the genesis of
philosophical problems and to work out an effective therapy which cures all
persons infected with philosophy of unnecessarily troubling themselves with
trying to solve philosophical problems.
I can’t identify with this standpoint, either. For one thing, I think that all
arguments are bad (and may be self-defeating) whose intended conclusion is
that some appearance-creating mechanism is responsible for the existence of
 Introduction 5

each philosophical problem—that the surface grammar and the pictoriality of

language systematically mislead me. For another thing, I think that all therapeutic
exercises are ineffective insofar as they are aimed at curing me of my engagement
with philosophical questions so they stop troubling me unnecessarily.
So where does all this lead? As far as I can see, these four reactions (or
metaphilosophical visions outlined in a nutshell) exhaust the scope of possible
responses, and yet I cannot commit myself to any of them with a clear intellectual
and moral conscience. Unfortunately, this means that I cannot reassuringly
account for the epistemic status of my philosophical beliefs. I can’t stick to them
in cognitive peace, with epistemic responsibility and without self-deception, and
I can’t abandon them in cognitive peace, either, with epistemic responsibility
and without self-deception.
You may say these four reactions don’t exhaust the scope of possible
responses. You may think that the community of philosophers will acquire new
and reliable truth-seeking method(s) (whatever they are, e.g., experimental
philosophy, conceptual engineering, etc.) with which it can find—or has
already found some hitherto unrecognized—compellingly justified substantive
philosophical theses.
You’re right—I could hope for that. In what follows, I will discuss how much
this hope is reasonable (not much, I guess); still, reasonable or not, it isn’t
helpful at all when I want to account for the epistemic status of my substantive
philosophical beliefs. For the truth-seeking method(s) (however good they be)
that community of philosophers will acquire in the future can neither justify nor
refute my present substantive philosophical beliefs.
You may also say that I am the only one to blame for my “writhing” and
“impotence,” as I want to account for the epistemic status of my philosophical
beliefs. Of course, if I were able to do philosophy in the spirit of “I don’t believe
that p (I don’t hold p to be true), I only accept p as a working hypothesis”—that
is to say, if my commitment to p were of no significance and consequence to
me—, then everything would be in perfect order. In this case, I’d really be able
to do philosophy without any cognitive uncertainties, because I could remain
personally uncommitted while arguing for or against any philosophical theory.
I’m ambivalent about this strategy. On the one hand, I’m a little bit envious
of those philosophers who don’t have any definite philosophical beliefs (or
have no philosophical beliefs at all), and so, after all, it makes no difference
to them which philosophical theory they develop. Thus, they are able to serve
philosophy’s “great” and “noble” goal of populating the logical space more and
more densely with well-constructed and consistent philosophical theories with
6 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

a clear conscience. On the other hand, this is not an option for me, because
I do have some substantive philosophical beliefs, and they are not arbitrary.
For example, I don’t merely accept the philosophical thesis that we are morally
responsible for certain acts of ours, and the falsity of physicalism is not a mere
working hypothesis to me, because I believe that we can be held to be morally
accountable for certain acts of ours and I also believe that not everything is
ultimately physical—and these beliefs are significant to me, as I have a personal
stake in them.
To make a long story short, I do have some substantive philosophical beliefs,
so I cannot ignore these while doing philosophy. At the same time, it seems to
me that there is no such metaphilosophical vision that I could commit myself to
in order to reassuringly account for my substantive philosophical beliefs with a
clear conscience. Since, in my opinion, most philosophers resemble me in that
they, too, have some substantive philosophical beliefs, and since—I suppose—
my misgivings about the above four metaphilosophical visions are not entirely
groundless and idiosyncratic, it may seem to others as well that we come up
against an aporia in trying to account for the epistemic status of our substantive
philosophical beliefs. In short, we find ourselves in a situation with seemingly
no way out.

***

I will try to raise the issue differently, with the emphasis laid elsewhere. I assume
that you already have some substantive philosophical beliefs—that you hold
certain substantive philosophical theses to be true. I also assume that you have
philosophical justification for your beliefs—you can underpin their truth with
philosophical arguments. And I also assume that you are able to respond to
objections to your philosophical beliefs—you can put your finger on some or
other weak spots in them. In short, I assume that you have done your best to be
able to assert your philosophical views in a form which is as strong and immune
to objections as possible.
Nevertheless, even if all the above is correct, you may be faced with three
quite nagging questions:

(1) Can you seriously and sincerely believe in the truth of your philosophical
theses, and take epistemic responsibility for the truth of your philosophical
beliefs in light of the fact that there probably are some philosophers whom
you consider your epistemic peers and who, holding opposing philosophical
 Introduction 7

views, do not share your philosophical beliefs? This question is nagging

because the fact that your epistemic peers do not share your philosophical
beliefs may seem to you to be just as strong evidence for thinking that your
philosophical beliefs can easily be false after all as the evidence based on
which you have committed yourself to their truth.
(2) Can you seriously and sincerely believe in the truth of your philosophical
theses, and take epistemic responsibility for the truth of your philosophical
beliefs in light of the fact that you have good reason to think that they are
shaped and determined by factors (upbringing, socialization, personality
traits, epistemic character, etc.) which are not under your control and have
nothing to do with their truth or falsity? This question is nagging because
if your philosophical beliefs are really determined by such factors (for
example, you believe that p is true because you wish that p be true, or you
believe that p is true because you were socialized to hold p true), then it may
seem to you that your philosophical beliefs are biased.
(3) Can you seriously and sincerely believe in the truth of your philosophical
theses, and take epistemic responsibility for the truth of your philosophical
beliefs in light of the fact that philosophy as an epistemic enterprise has
failed—philosophers have been unable to solve philosophical problems and
come up with compellingly justified substantive philosophical theses? This
question is nagging because it may seem to you that the best explanation of
philosophy’s epistemic failure is that its truth-seeking and justificatory tools
are inadequate and unsuitable for establishing substantive philosophical
truths—and if this is the case, then your substantive philosophical beliefs
are inappropriately justified, and consequently you cannot trust in their
truth anymore.

What is common to these questions or challenges is that none of them concerns

the content of your philosophical beliefs—they do not bring out the special
internal difficulties of your philosophical views. Neither do they concern
whether you were maximally circumspect when making sure that you have
true rather than false beliefs. Each of these challenges arises “beyond” the point
where you have already carefully underpinned your philosophical views with
arguments.
And yet, you cannot wave them aside. You would not be right to say: “As I’ve
done my best to underpin my philosophical beliefs with the strongest arguments
possible, I don’t have to address these challenges—I can safely dismiss them.”
In short, you have an epistemic and at once moral duty to face these further
8 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

(meta-level) challenges, too, regardless of what philosophical beliefs you have and
how good your arguments underpinning these are.
Of course, these questions or challenges can be given stock answers aimed
at reassuring you. For example, you may reply to question (1) that “It is indeed
reasonable that I give more weight to my own view concerning philosophical
issues, because the evidence based on which I committed myself to the truth of
p has more weight than the fact that others think p to be false.” A possible reply
to question (2) could be that “Doxastic determinism is false, I freely decide to
believe in the truth of such and such philosophical theses; moreover, even if
doxastic determinism were true, it would still not follow that my philosophical
beliefs cannot track the truth.” You may address question (3) by saying either
that “Philosophy’s epistemic failure is not a challenge for me, because I have
compelling arguments for my philosophical beliefs,” or that “I don’t need any
compelling arguments to be able, in good conscience, to stick to my philosophical
views that elaborate my fundamental pre-philosophical convictions, as I can
show that no objection of compelling force could be made against them.”
In this book, I deal with the third of these challenges—I only discuss the
first and the second where they have special importance for one or another
reason. The reason I focus on the third one is that in my opinion, out of the
three, this challenge is the greatest that we as philosophers must face. I also focus
on it because facing this challenge offers me the most convenient conceptual
framework to show that, however we want to, we cannot reassuringly account
for the epistemic status of our substantive philosophical beliefs—we cannot take
epistemic responsibility for their truth.
To sum up, I don’t argue for meta-skepticism, according to which we
must suspend our substantive philosophical beliefs. If I were to name the
view I side with, I would call it “meta-meta-skepticism” for lack of a better
name, immediately adding that instead of attempting to develop a stable
metaphilosophical conception, I offer a dialectical path, which—inevitably, I
think—leads to intellectual breakdown.
Part One
10
 ­1

Philosophy as an Epistemic Enterprise

Philosophy is a heterogeneous formation, which involves quite a wide variety of

activities. That is why I’m not even trying to define it. But despite its heterogeneity,
there is a (more or less uniform) philosophical tradition, whereby the main
purpose of doing philosophy is to assert substantive truths about the nature
of reality, knowledge, the right action, and to justify the asserted propositions
with a claim to truth compellingly. In other words, to provide correct answers
to a variety of metaphysical, epistemological, and ethical questions—to solve
philosophical problems. I will refer to this tradition as the epistemic or truth-
seeking tradition of philosophy.
The philosophers of this tradition do not set themselves the less modest
goal of exploring logically possible (i.e., consistent) stances on philosophical
problems. They do not consider making types of propositions such as “If mental
content is broadly individualized, you must deny a priori self-knowledge” or “If
meanings are in the head, you must deny that meaning determines reference.”
The epistemic tradition of philosophy is not content with such non-substantive
truths. It does not seek to show which propositions can be true at the same time,
but to show which propositions are true simpliciter. Seen from the epistemic
tradition of philosophy, this more modest goal is at most preparatory work,
since the main purpose of philosophy is to establish the truth—to choose the
true set of propositions from the various consistent sets of propositions.
I don’t claim that all great dead philosophers belonged to the epistemic
tradition of philosophy. But I do claim that most great dead philosophers were
followers of this tradition. They pursued philosophy in the spirit of this tradition
and interpreted their own activities in the same spirit. Anyone who denies that
most of the great dead philosophers intended to assert compellingly justified
substantive truths doesn’t have acquaintance of the history of philosophy. Nor
do I claim that the trust in the success of philosophy as an epistemic enterprise
today is as unbroken as, say, at the dawn of the modern era. But I do claim
12 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

that this tradition is alive today. Anyone who considers this tradition to be a
thing of the past doesn’t have acquaintance of contemporary philosophy. And
anyone who simply denies the existence of this philosophical tradition doesn’t
have acquaintance of philosophy itself, or (worse but more likely) misinterprets
the intention of most philosophers, either deliberately or due to some prejudice.
Of course, one could argue whether or not a philosopher is a follower of the
epistemic tradition. Obviously, there are clear and less evident cases. Parmenides,
Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Descartes, Malebranche, Spinoza,
Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, Marx, and
Husserl certainly pursued philosophy in the spirit of this tradition; Jacques
Derrida, Pierre Hadot, and Richard Rorty certainly didn’t, and although I would
classify Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, and Heidegger, for example, as followers of the
epistemic tradition, the jury is still out on them. In short, all I am saying is that
there was and still exists a truth-seeking philosophical tradition, not as a small
minority, but—at least until the twentieth century—as a prevailing trend, and
it is not on display in the wax museum of the history of ideas but is a living
tradition.
In this chapter I characterize the epistemic tradition of philosophy by outlining
its defining features. I just want to say some platitudes or commonplaces about
it. Of course, this is not an easy task. The epistemic tradition itself is also a
heterogeneous and very old (2,500 years) formation, so my characterization
will inevitably be simplistic and sketchy, and will surely contain minor or major
distortions and anachronistic wording. In brief, everything is much more
complex, complicated, and colorful than I will describe it—my characterization
would require deeper analysis and further refinement at every point.
If the main aim of doing philosophy is the assertion of substantive truths
(compellingly justified true propositions)—as the members of epistemic
tradition of philosophy claim it to be—, then the only epistemic value of
philosophy in its own right is knowledge. So, in characterizing this tradition, I
need to clarify two key concepts. On the one hand, the concept of truth or true
propositions, since the followers of this tradition want to assert truths. On the
other hand, the notion of philosophical justification, because the members in
this tradition try to justify (moreover, compellingly justify) their philosophical
beliefs. Make no mistakes: by doing so I don’t commit myself to the JTB theory
of knowledge in general. All I claim is this: no matter what we think about the
general definition of the concept of knowledge, the epistemic tradition takes
philosophical knowledge to be compellingly justified true belief.
 Philosophy as an Epistemic Enterprise 13

1 Truth

Many truisms have been mentioned about the concept of truth (see Lynch 2009:
7–13; Wright 1998: 60). Now, I will only pick out the three most innocent of them
to characterize those truths that philosophers intend to assert. In what follows,
I will use the term “proposition” to refer to truth-bearers—in my intention, in a
neutral sense, without any metaphysical commitment. Here they are:

(1) A proposition is true if and only if things are as it says they are.
(2) Two contradictory propositions cannot both be true.
(3) Truth does not admit of degrees.

Truism (1) tells us just that: the truth of a proposition depends on how things are
(whatever they may be and however they may be), and not on how we would like
them to be. It says what Aristotle did: “[T]o say of what is that it is, and of what
is not that it is not, is true” (Metaphysics 1011b25).
In my opinion, (1) is indeed an innocent truism, without any substantive
commitment to the nature of truth. By asserting (1) I do not commit myself
to the correspondence theory of truth, according to which a proposition p has
the property of being true if and only if p is in the appropriate correspondence
relation to the world that exists independently of p. (1) says nothing about
correspondence relations or the mind-, language-, or proposition-independent
world—it says nothing about what kind of special relationship there is between
the truth-bearer and the world described and represented by it, or about what
kind of entities (facts, events, objects, properties, etc.) the world must contain
in order for the truth-bearers to be in the appropriate correspondence relation
to the world.
What truism (1) says is this: when we claim about a proposition that it is true
(e.g., it is a true proposition that “All ravens are black”), what we claim is that
things are in a certain way—things are (the world is) in a way that all ravens
are black. We can have a more formal expression of this by using the so-called
(T)-schema:

(T) The proposition that p is true if and only if p.

Whatever meaningful sentence we replace “p” with, we will get a true

biconditional, and every appropriately replaced instance of (T) is necessarily
true and can be known a priori. Thus (T), says the same as (1), which
everyone accepts, independently of the ways in which they attempt to define
14 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

truth more accurately or informatively. Debates about theories of truth

among correspondists, coherentists, pragmaticists, verificationists, pluralists,
primitivists, and deflationists are almost exclusively about the epistemic status of
(T)-biconditionals. In other words, they are about whether the (T)-biconditional
is sufficient in itself to clarify the concept of truth, or if it is not, how it should be
amended in a way that complies with the next schema, i.e., what we should put
in the place of “F” in the formula (T+) below.

­(T+) The proposition that p is true if and only if p is F.

(T+) actually says more than (1) and there is no agreement among theorists of
truth about what “F” should be replaced with in it. I, however, don’t have to deal
with this problem, as my asserting (1) commits me only to (T), but not to (T+).
Truism (2) is the principle of non-contradiction, according to which either
p is true or not-p is true, but they cannot both be true. No one thinks that
the propositions “There are immortal souls” and “There are no immortal
souls” are both true. No one thinks that the propositions “Every event has a
cause” and “Not every event has a cause” are both true. No one thinks that the
propositions “All of our ideas are innate” and “Not all of our ideas are innate”
are both true.
There are kinds of logic that reject the principle of non-contradiction (see e.g.,
Priest, Beall, and Armour-Garb 2004). This is undoubtedly an interesting thing,
but I do not have to deal with it now. For philosophers of the epistemic tradition
certainly do not want to commit themselves to inconsistent propositions,
whatever they think about paraconsistent logic. I suppose, even paraconsistent
logicians wouldn’t be happy to see that their paraconsistent logical theory is
paraconsistent itself.
Truism (3) says that if a proposition is true, then it is not a little bit, somewhat,
or very but completely true. (If you think this claim is false because there are
“half-truths,” complex propositions that can be part true and part false, e.g.,
“Napoleon was born in Corsica and died in Paris,” consider a simple subject-
predicate proposition.) As opposed to the justification of our beliefs which can
have degrees, truth or falsehood cannot. As Frege puts it: “Truth cannot tolerate
a more or less” (1918/1956: 291). Just think about it. If there was a truth which
was only partially true, then that would mean that it would be partially false. Or,
if there was a falsehood which was only partially false, then that would mean
it is partially true. To be honest, I don’t think anyone could take the dispute of
Theists and Atheists seriously if they concluded that the proposition “There is
 Philosophy as an Epistemic Enterprise 15

a God” is very true, but a little bit false, and the proposition “There is no God”
is very false but is a little bit true.
Some philosophers dispute (3). In their view, truths have degrees indeed
(see e.g., Sainsbury 2009: 56–63). But I don’t have to deal with this possibility
now, because the members of the epistemic tradition certainly do not want to
assert half or so-so true, but only completely true propositions.
In the light of these three (I think genuinely innocent) truisms, I claim the
following platitude or commonplace. The followers of the epistemic tradition
want to assert truths, not falsehoods. They want to assert propositions that
describe things as they really are; in doing so, they do not want to describe things
as they rather are, but completely as they are; and they try to be consistent when
developing their philosophical theories, that is, they are careful not to endorse
contradictory propositions as both true. For example, when Berkeley argues that
there is no mind-independent existence, he tries to assert something true and
not false. When he says esse est percipi, he asserts that things are the way the
proposition “esse est percipi” describes them. He does not claim that idealism is
rather the truth than materialism, or that materialism is less true than idealism,
but that idealism is completely true and materialism is completely false. And he
does everything so that his view can be consistent—for example, he denies that
it is meaningful to distinguish primary and secondary qualities.
But there is something else here that is perhaps worth clarifying—beyond the
truisms about the concept of truth. Some may think that I can only claim that
the epistemic tradition of philosophy is aimed at asserting substantive truths if
I also commit myself to metaphysical realism—the thesis that reality (at least its
non-mental and non-linguistic part) is mind- and language-independent, which
means that the entities whose existence we posit are what they are, independently
of any kind of representation, i.e., the way we get to know them does not affect
their nature in any way. And some may also think, in connection with this,
that I can say that the epistemic tradition of philosophy is aimed at asserting
substantive truths only if I hold the task of philosophy (or at least metaphysics)
to consist in revealing reality’s fundamental structure. That is, if it should carve,
using Plato’s phrase, “nature at its joints” (Phaedrus 265e), to find “perfectly
natural properties” (Lewis 1986: 61), since “only an elite minority are carved
at the joints, so that their boundaries are established by objective sameness and
difference in nature” (Lewis 1984: 227).
All this is false. It is false because from the fact that someone rejects
metaphysical realism and advocates anti-realism (also known as deflational
16 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

metametaphysics) it follows that they are still doing metaphysics. As Theodore

Sider puts it: “There is no ametaphysical Archimedean point from which to
advance deflationary metametaphysics, since any such metametaphysics is
committed to at least this much substantive metaphysics: reality lacks a certain
sort of structure” (2011: vii). If anti-realists commit themselves to the image of
reality as an “amorphous lump” (Dummett 1981: 577), in which, to use Putnam’s
metaphor, we need to use a “cookie-cutter” (1987: 35) to experience the world
in order, then they hold a substantive metaphysical view. And since they do, the
question of truth or falsehood obviously arises about their thesis. Let’s take this
well-known passage:

­ ow as we thus make constellations by picking out and putting together certain

N
stars rather than others, so we make stars by drawing certain boundaries
rather than others. Nothing dictates whether the sky shall be market off into
constellations or other objects. We have to make what we find, be it the Great
Dipper, Sirius, food, fuel or a stereo system.
(Goodman 1984: 158)

It is evident that Goodman wants to assert a substantive philosophical truth with

the above, namely that in contrast to metaphysical realism, things are in a certain
way only for us, and they are not in any way in themselves. If someone thinks
that Goodman’s statement doesn’t have a claim to truth and so cannot be true or
false, then I wonder what they mean by “true” and “false.”

2 Justification

The members of the epistemic tradition of philosophy do not merely wish to

declare their philosophical theses, nor do they only hope that they are the lucky
ones whose theses are true, but also try to justify the truth of their theses in a
compelling manner.
Candidates for compelling philosophical justifications almost always take
the form of some philosophical argument—the majority of the followers of this
tradition want to make compelling argument(s) in support of their theses. That
is to say:

[A]rguments […] are the best when they are knockdown, the arguments force
you to a conclusion, if you believe the premises you have or must believe
the conclusion, some arguments don’t carry much punch, and so forth.
 Philosophy as an Epistemic Enterprise 17

A philosophical argument is an attempt to get someone to believe something,

whether he wants to believe it or not. A successful philosophical argument, a
strong argument, forces someone to a belief.
(Nozick 1981: 4, italics in original [What Nozick claims here is
some other philosophers’ view, not his own; he himself doesn’t believe
in the possibility of knock-down philosophical arguments.])

Some philosophers (typically phenomenologists), however, do not attempt to

use arguments in support of the truth of their philosophical theses—they want
to point to certain truths directly. They suggest a procedure in which certain
truths are “revealed” or “uncovered” to us—these truths “step out from hiding
into the open.”

2.1 Compelling justification—knock-down philosophical

arguments
A compelling argument can only be one that has (or can be transformed
into) a deductive form. The conclusion of a deductive argument necessarily
(apodictically) follows from the premise(s). It is such an argument that if
its conclusions follow from its premises and if its premises are true, then it
is impossible for its conclusion to be false. (For a stripped down, deductive-
formal formulation of famous philosophical arguments, see Bruce and
Barbone 2011.)
The usual definition of a compelling argument is as follows:

Argument A (deductive form) is compelling if and only if (1) a person who

sufficiently understands A’s premises and the epistemic reasons for them can
only irrationally deny the truth of the premises, and (2) a person who recognizes
that A’s conclusion follows by the laws of logic from A’s premises can only
irrationally deny A’s conclusion.

Because the term “irrational” has many uses, it is worthwhile to make it clear in
which sense it is used in the above definition. It doesn’t say that one cannot deny in
a coherent way all the premises and the conclusion—in a coherentist sense, even
mad theories can be rational. It doesn’t deny either that the denial of the premises
and the conclusion can be rather useful—in a pragmatic sense, even madness can
be rational if it plays out well. Rather, it says that one cannot have the epistemic
right to deny the premises and conclusion of a knock-down argument because
one cannot have good epistemic reasons to regard them as uncertain or false.
18 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

In philosophy, there are three kinds of arguments intended-to-be compelling.

I briefly introduce them below.

2.1.1 Infallible arguments

According to a great number of philosophers belonging to the epistemic
tradition, a logically valid deductive argument is a compelling one if and only
if its premises are infallibly justified, and consequently the justification of the
premises guarantees their truth and, indirectly, the truth of the argument’s
conclusion.
It is easy to see why these philosophers try to find arguments with infallibly
justified premises. The reason is that if their arguments are good, then their
conclusions cannot under any circumstances be false—they are necessarily true.
Thus, these philosophers will not have to worry about someone refuting their
arguments in the future.
Candidates for compelling infallible arguments must contain premises that
are justified directly, that is, non-inferentially—otherwise there will be either
infinite regress or circular reasoning. As far as I can see, three different types of
propositions have been proposed as non-inferred and infallibly justifiable.
The first type includes propositions beginning with the words “It seems to
me …” For example, “It seems to me that there is a red spot with a visual depth
before me.” This proposition is infallibly justified because I experience it so, and
the way I experience something (how it seems to me) cannot be mistaken. So,
the first type of infallibly justified propositions is made up of certain subjective
truths justified by our phenomenological-introspective insights.
The second kind involves necessary conceptual truths. According to some
philosophers, for example, it is a necessary conceptual truth that “God is an
infinitely perfect being”; “Where there is a mistake, there must also be truth”;
“If F is not an essential property of x, then x can exist without F.” In their view,
these propositions are infallibly justified because if we understand the concepts
contained in these propositions, we will see with a single intuitive “glimpse” that
these propositions are necessarily true.
The third kind includes such propositions as “Every event has a cause”;
“There are entities that are self-caused”; “There are indivisible entities (atoms)”;
“Physical space is Euclidean”; “Physical objects have essential properties”; “There
are things that exist in themselves and there are things that need something else
to exist”; “What has happened cannot be undone or changed.” These propositions
are not mere conceptual truths. Each one “goes beyond” our concepts and is
about reality itself. Many in the epistemic tradition think that there may be some
 Philosophy as an Epistemic Enterprise 19

infallibly justified propositions about reality itself—we are able to “glimpse” into
the necessary structure of reality.
I’m not sure if the reason for introducing this third category is clear to
everyone, but I have to introduce it to avoid painting a misleading picture of
the epistemic tradition by merely saying that in this tradition the set of infallibly
justified propositions includes only credible phenomenological-introspective
accounts and analytical truths in the Humean sense. It seems to me that
philosophers before Hume did not make a sharp distinction between necessary
conceptual truths (i.e., analytical truths) and necessary truths that go beyond our
concepts (i.e., non-analytical necessities)—in my division the second and third
kinds of infallibly justified propositions, which correspond to a priori analytic
and a priori synthetic true propositions in Kant’s division. It was Hume who
narrowed down the range of necessary truths to analytic truths, and now, I will
introduce this third category to indicate that the philosophers of the epistemic
tradition have also considered many propositions as infallibly justified necessary
truths that are neither describe some phenomenological fact nor are merely true
by virtue of the meaning of the terms they contain.
This is what I refer to with the metaphor of “intuitive glimpse into the
necessary structure of reality.” Because of the possibility of this “glimpse,” many
have long believed that, for example, not only the analytical proposition that
“Every effect has a cause” but also the non-analytical proposition that “Every
event has a cause” is infallibly justified.
Let me show two well-known candidates for compelling arguments that
contain infallibly justified premises. One is the Cartesian argument for the
real distinction between body and soul. Here is a possible reconstruction of it,
brought to a deductive form:

(1) I can conceive clearly and distinctly that I can exist only with the property of
thinking and without the property of extension, and I can conceive clearly
and distinctly that my body can exist only with the property of extension
and without the property of thinking.
(2) If I can conceive clearly and distinctly that thing x can exist only with
property F and without property G (where F is not identical with G), and I
can conceive clearly and distinctly that thing y can exist only with property
G and without property F (where G is not identical with F), then x can exist
without y and y can exist without x.
(3) If x can exist without property G, then G is not an essential property of x and
if y can exist without property F, then F is not an essential property of y.
20 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

Therefore:

(C1) It is not my essential property that I have a body.

Furthermore:

(4) If it is not my essential property that I have a body, then I really differ from
my body.

Therefore [from (C1) and (4)]:

(C2) I really differ from my body.

Why do some people think that the premises are infallibly justified? Concerning
(1), they think so because propositions beginning with “I conceive clearly and
distinctly that …” function like those that begin with “It seems to me …” and as
such are justified by the fact that the truth in question “shines” with a specific
phenomenology. (3) and (4) express necessary conceptual relations the truth of
which is directly seen. I’m uncertain about (2). You may think of (2) that its truth
is directly apparent from the concept of property and the meaning of modal
terms. In this case, (2), like (3) and (4), is a necessary conceptual truth. But
you may also think that (2), as opposed to (3) and (4), is not a mere conceptual
truth but rather the result of an intuitive “glimpse” into the necessary structure
of reality.
Let me present another well-known contemporary philosophical argument
which, if compelling, has premises and conclusions that are infallibly justified.
Here is a received reconstruction of David Chalmers’ conceivability argument:

(1) Zombies (creatures that are identical with us in physical, functional, and
intentional properties, but lacking phenomenal ones) are consistently
conceivable.
(2) Everything that is consistently conceivable is metaphysically possible.

Therefore:

(C1) Zombies are metaphysically possible.

Furthermore:

(3) If zombies are metaphysically possible, then physicalism is false.

Therefore [from (C1) and (3)]:

(C2) Physicalism is false.

 Philosophy as an Epistemic Enterprise 21

Why do some people think that the premises are infallibly justified? The
case of premise (1) and (3) is relatively clear. In the case of (1), we intuitively
see that the concept of “a being with such and such physical, functional,
and intentional properties” does not include the concept of phenomenal
property. Premise (3) is a conceptual truth derived from the definition of
physicalism and that of zombies. Here is the conceptual relation: according
to physicalism, physical properties necessarily determine mental properties.
If, however, zombies are metaphysically possible, then it is not true that all
mental properties necessarily supervene on physical properties, therefore
the latter ones do not determine the former ones—for zombies are beings
that have exactly the same physical properties as us, yet do not possess
phenomenal properties. There is disagreement about the status of premise
(2). I tend to think that those who hold (2) true, consider (2) to be a
necessary conceptual truth—even if some “training” or “support” is needed to
recognize this conceptual truth, such as the introduction of two-dimensional
semantics which “performs” the necessary conceptual clarifications (see
Chalmers 2002, 2004).
Many philosophers of the epistemic tradition deny that infallible philosophical
arguments are possible or, if they don’t deny that, then they think that there can
be compelling philosophical arguments other than infallible ones. They think
that the fact that a philosophical argument contains a fallibly justified premise
does not entail that it cannot be compelling. Thus, these philosophers allow in
their arguments intended-to-be compelling some premises that are not infallibly
justified—which in principle may turn out to be false. At the same time, they
think that the truth of these premises can only be irrationally denied by anyone
who sufficiently understands them and the epistemic reasons behind them.
There are two kinds of philosophical arguments intended-to-be compelling
with fallibly justified premises. One category includes so-called modest
transcendental arguments. The other includes arguments that contain an
empirically justified premise.

2.1.2 Modest transcendental arguments

Modest transcendental arguments must be distinguished from strong
transcendental arguments. The latter are intended-to-be infallible arguments—
their structure looks like this:

(1) p.
(2) If p, then q. (Since q is a condition of possibility of p.)
22 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

Therefore:

(C) q.

For example:

(1) I think.
(2) If I think, (then) I exist.

Therefore:

(C) I exist.

Contrary to strong transcendental arguments, modest transcendental arguments

are fallible. They contain a proposition p (premise p) that can be false. At the
same time—and this is crucial!—even if p is false, we cannot rationally reject
p. That is, we cannot have appropriate epistemic reasons to reject p even if we
are not able to infallibly justify that p is true, or even if p is de facto false. The
structure of modest transcendental arguments looks like this:

(1) p. (Meaning that even if we cannot infallibly justify that p, we cannot

rationally reject p.)
(2) If p, then q.

Therefore:

(C) q . (Meaning that even if we cannot infallibly justify that q, we cannot

rationally reject q.)

What is interesting to us now is premise (1) of this argument, which the proponent
of the argument always supports in this way: we could only rationally reject p if p
were true, and so we cannot rationally reject p under any circumstances. At first
glance, this type of justification may seem strange—let me explain. Let’s look at
the following modest transcendental argument, which I borrow from Robert
Lockie (2018), who takes it from Epicurus:

(1) We have epistemic duties. (Meaning that even if we cannot infallibly justify
that we have epistemic duties, we cannot rationally deny the existence of our
epistemic duties.)
(2) If we have epistemic duties, then determinism is false.
 Philosophy as an Epistemic Enterprise 23

Therefore:

(C) Determinism is false. (Meaning that even if we cannot infallibly justify that
determinism is false, we cannot rationally reject that determinism is false.)

Here’s the thing. Our epistemic duties (in the deontic sense) are about what
to believe in certain situations. For example, if, after a thorough investigation,
a detective sees that all evidence is in favor of X’s guilt, then he has a duty to
believe that X must be prosecuted. This would be so even if X happened to be
the victim of a global and inscrutable conspiracy, whose members deliberately
arranged the circumstances so that all available evidence pointed to X’s guilt, for
the detective—due to his epistemic limitations—cannot rationally think that X
is a victim of a global and inscrutable conspiracy.
The situation is similar with the premise (1) of the above argument. According
to this, we cannot get into an epistemic situation in which we must rationally
conclude that we have to abandon our belief in our epistemic duties. The reason
why we cannot is that even if all the evidence pointed to the non-existence of
our epistemic duties, it still would not be rational to reject our belief in them. It
would not be rational because, if we did not have any epistemic duties, then in
light of the evidence, we would not have to endorse or reject any of our beliefs.
Now, if we recognize all this, then we must also recognize that, even if we do not
have any epistemic duties, it is not rational to reject our belief in them.
Turning to premise (2) and (C): if we also have good reasons to believe that we
can have epistemic duties only if determinism is false (otherwise, our epistemic
duties may require us to do things that we cannot do due to deterministic laws
of nature), then we also have good reasons to believe the conclusion of the
argument, which says that we cannot rationally reject that determinism is false.
And if we cannot rationally reject the proposition that determinism is false, then
we must hold it true that determinism is false.
Of course, this last step is debatable. The fact that we cannot rationally reject
p does not logically entail that p. However, if we think we cannot rationally reject
p, then it seems that we also must think that p.
Whatever the truth about this may be, one thing is certain: if modest
transcendental arguments work, they compel us in a peculiar way. They compel
us to consider p rationally irrefutable, and then show us that recognizing the
rational irrefutability of p entails that we must hold p true, and thus we must
indirectly hold the conclusion of the argument true, even though we have
24 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

no proof (infallible justification) of p’s truth and so we cannot consider the

conclusion of the argument to be infallibly justified.
Let me give another example borrowed from Guy Kahane (2017):

(1) There are differences in values between actions and beliefs. (Meaning
that even if we cannot infallibly justify that there are differences in value
between them, we cannot rationally deny the existence of differences in
value between them.)
(2) If there are differences in values between actions and beliefs, then there are
values.

Therefore:

(C) There are values. (Meaning that even if we cannot infallibly justify that there
are values, we cannot rationally reject the existence of values.)

Premise (1) can be false: in principle, it is possible that nihilism is true and
everything is equally worthless. In this case, however, it would make no
difference what we do or believe, because one act or belief is no better than
another. Thus, it would also make no difference whether we believe (in this
case, correctly) that there are no values or we believe in something else.
Thus, if nihilism were true, we could not rationally think that—from any
point of view, even an epistemic one—it is good to believe in nihilism. But
if, even from an epistemic point of view, it was not good for us to believe
in nihilism (even if nihilism were true), then we would have no rational
basis to believe in nihilism. This is because, from an epistemic point of view,
it can only be good to believe in anything or reject any belief if nihilism is
false and maintaining certain beliefs is epistemically better than maintaining
other beliefs. Now, if we realize all of this, then we cannot rationally reject
that nihilism is false and there are differences in value among actions, beliefs,
and things.
Turning to premise (2) and (C): if there are differences in value, then there
must be values. The modest transcendental argument above, at least according
to its proponents, shows that we cannot rationally reject the existence of values.
And if we cannot rationally reject that there are values, then we must commit
ourselves to the existence of values.
To sum up, according to the proponents of modest transcendental arguments,
there are fallible arguments which are nonetheless compelling and so their
conclusions should be held true by all rational agents.
 Philosophy as an Epistemic Enterprise 25

2.1.3 Compelling philosophical arguments with empirically

justified premises
How can any philosophical argument intended-to-be compelling contain
an empirically justified premise at all? Here is the thing. According to some
philosophers, the natural sciences deliver some compellingly justified theses
whose truth is rationally unquestionable for those who sufficiently understand
these theses and the evidence adduced for them—even if they are not infallibly
justified. Peter van Inwagen, for example, puts it this way: “[A]nyone who does
not agree that continents are in motion either does not fully appreciate the
data and argument a geologist could put forward in support of the thesis that
continents are in motion, or else is intellectually perverse” (2009: 21). Now, if,
like van Inwagen, a philosopher thinks that certain scientific theses are indeed
compellingly justified (i.e., their truth can be denied only irrationally [or by
perversion]), and she includes them as the premises of philosophical arguments,
then she may hope that she will soon end up having many compelling
philosophical arguments.
Nathan Ballantyne argues just this way (see 2014). He tries to show that if
one thinks that there are compelling (knock-down) arguments in the natural
sciences, then one must think that there are such arguments in philosophy as
well. Here’s one of his examples:

(1) It is an established (compellingly justified) astronomical thesis that the

Earth is in motion.
(2) The proposition “The Earth is in motion” entails the proposition “There is
motion.”

Therefore:

(C) (Contrary to Zeno’s teaching) There is motion.

Another example, in the spirit of Ballantyne, could be as follows:

(1) It is an established (compellingly justified) geological thesis that there are

continents.
(2) The proposition that “There are continents” entails the proposition that
“Existence monism is false.”

T
­ herefore:

(C) (Contrary to Spinoza’s teaching) Existence monism is false.

26 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

According to Ballantyne, these arguments must be considered as compelling

philosophical arguments by anyone who thinks that the scientific arguments in
favor of the propositions “The Earth is in motion” and “There are continents” are
compelling. This is because if certain scientific theses are compellingly justified,
then their compellingly justified status is transferred to the corresponding
philosophical theses. In other words, if p is a compellingly justified scientific
thesis, and p implies q (where q is a philosophical thesis), then q will also be a
compellingly justified thesis, i.e., a compellingly justified philosophical thesis.
Simply put, q as a philosophical thesis inherits the compellingly justified status
of p as a scientific thesis.
I’m quite sure that most figures in the epistemic tradition would not endorse
the above two arguments as compelling. Let’s take the scientific theses “The
Earth is in motion” and “There are continents.” To be able to consider them as
compellingly justified, one must hold that the thesis “Perception is reliable” is
compellingly justified, too—for the justification of the theses “The Earth is in
motion” and “There are continents” certainly requires perceptual experiences.
But, the thesis that “Perception is reliable” can only be justified with philosophical
arguments.
Now, based on the above, one could argue in the following two ways for
the claim that compelling philosophical arguments cannot contain empirical
premises. One option is to say that the justification of the scientific hypotheses
“The Earth is in motion” and “There are continents” presupposes the justification
of the philosophical thesis “Perception is reliable”—one could compellingly
justify the former only if the latter is already compellingly justified. This
would mean that scientific theses cannot be compellingly justified without
philosophical grounding, consequently the philosophical theses corresponding
to them cannot inherit their allegedly “compellingly justified” feature. The other
option (and this point is perhaps even more important) is to say that there can
be no empirical premises in compelling philosophical arguments because the
standards which determine what counts as a compelling argument in the natural
sciences are different from the standards which determine what counts as a
compelling argument in philosophy. Even if p counts as compellingly justified in
the natural sciences, and even if p implies q, this kind of justification of q does
not meet the standards of philosophical justification, for these are significantly
stricter than the standards of scientific justification.
At the same time, we must also see that in the eyes of some philosophers of the
epistemic tradition, the above two arguments are compelling. Here is the most
important consideration in favor of it. We must start by assuming that science
 Philosophy as an Epistemic Enterprise 27

is the only truly successful epistemic enterprise of mankind. Now, if we assume

that (i) the best scientific theories are the best theories simpliciter, (ii) scientific
theories are literally about reality, and (iii) after careful consideration of all
evidence available to us, it is irrational to deny the truth of the propositions “The
Earth is in motion” and “There are continents,” then the above two arguments are
compelling indeed. Philosophical knowledge is far behind the natural sciences
in terms of reliability, so it is downright displeasing for philosophers to appeal to
higher standards of justification.
There is disagreement among philosophers concerning the validity of
philosophical arguments containing empirically justified premises, and this
disagreement brings out well an important and “chronic” fault line in the
epistemic tradition. The question is: “What should the relationship be between
the epistemic tradition of philosophy and the natural sciences?” The fronts
are clear.
One may think this:

The natural sciences are the sole custodians of the knowledge of reality.
Consequently, we must give up (whether we like it or not) theses based on purely
philosophical speculations that run counter to the theses of the natural sciences.
Furthermore, since certain scientific theses can only be irrationally denied,
those philosophical arguments whose premises include these scientific theses
can also be compelling.

But one might also think this:

Philosophy has stricter standards of justification than the natural sciences.

There may be compelling scientific arguments for the claim that contemporary
astronomy and contemporary geology are the best scientific theories, but there
can be no compelling scientific arguments for the claim that astronomy and
geology are the best theories simpliciter. This is because the latter question
is par excellence a philosophical and not a scientific one. So, there can be no
scientifically justified premises in compelling philosophical arguments.

All in all, the crucial question is this: “Is it true that scientific theories are the
best theories simpliciter of reality?” A philosopher’s answer to this question
determines on which side of the fault line she stands. If she answers yes to it, then
she thinks she can include scientific theses among the premises of compelling
philosophical arguments. If he answers no to it, then she thinks she cannot
include such theses.
28 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

2.1.4 Two more brief clarifying remarks

The first one: all philosophical arguments intended-to-be compelling are
a priori. This assertion is relatively easy to misunderstand—I will try to make
it clear.
By a priori justification we mean justification that does not rely on experience.
But this does not mean that there is no need for experience in any sense to justify
a proposition a priori. In order to understand proposition p that you want to
justify, that is, to master the concepts included in p, you need experience. The
justification of the proposition “Everything that is red is colored” is a priori, but
understanding the concepts “red” and “colored” is impossible without perceptual
experience. This means that the justification of proposition p is a priori because
if you understand p, then you need no further experience in order to see the
truth of p.
Let’s move on. The assertion that all philosophical arguments intended-to-
be compelling are a priori does not mean that all their premises are a priori
justified. If this assertion were true, then those that contain empirically justified
premises would be excluded ab ovo from among them. Rather, it means that
once you have already regarded their premises as justified, you no longer need
experience to see the truth of their conclusions. In other words, the a priori
justification of philosophical arguments amounts to the following: by already
regarding propositions p1, p2, p3 as justified, you combine p1, p2, and p3 into a
logically valid deductive argument. That is, once you have the (not necessarily
a priori) justified premises at your disposal, you don’t have to move out of your
armchair; and the a priori work phase of making philosophical arguments is
what you do in the armchair.
Some think that there are two philosophical arguments intended-to-
be compelling which do not rely on experience at all. One is the ontological
argument for the existence of God. According to this, the concept of God (as an
infinitely perfect being) cannot be consistently conceived without considering
God as existing, therefore there is a God. The other is that the concept of God
(as an infinitely perfect being) cannot be conceived consistently, and therefore
there is not God. Apart from these two, all philosophical arguments intended-
to-be compelling require experience for their justification to a greater or lesser
extent—but they are a priori arguments all the same.
The second clarifying remark: all philosophical arguments intended-to-be
compelling are justified in an internalist way. I will explain this briefly as well.
According to justification internalism, our beliefs can be justified only by
factors to which we have access in our first-person perspective, “from within.”
 Philosophy as an Epistemic Enterprise 29

One of the most convincing arguments in favor of internalism starts from the
deontological concept of justification. It says that if our belief in the truth of
proposition p is justified, then we must be able to say why we believe in the truth
of p. If we cannot say why, then our belief is not rational, and so we cannot take
responsibility for it. Now, we can only take responsibility for those beliefs whose
justifying factors are accessible in our first-person perspective. In other words,
we can only assert p responsibly if we are not only justified in believing that p
is true, but we are also justified in believing that we are justified in believing
that p is true.
Justification externalism claims that our belief p is justified if p is in a proper
relationship with the truth at issue; if our belief p is caused, in an appropriate
way, by a fact or state of affairs that makes p true; if our belief p is produced
by a reliable (truth-conducive) belief-producing process. So, according to
externalism, the justified status of our beliefs is partly dependent on factors that
may be inaccessible to our subjective perspective and, in this sense, external
to it. That is, our access to all justifying factors from a (“internal”) first-person
perspective is not a necessary condition of the justified status of our beliefs.
Why is it that internalist justification is the only game in town when it comes
to philosophical arguments intended-to-be compelling? The reason is that
we believe p to be justified because of our philosophical arguments, and so we
obviously have access from a first-person perspective to the factors that justify
p—the premises of our own arguments and our own inference. And this is true
even if we happen to argue for justification or knowledge externalism. Even if
the externalist grants that sound arguments track the truth quite reliably, she
holds that we do not have access to why they have this feature. However, it is
not good enough from the perspective of the epistemic tradition. To possess
well-established philosophical truths, philosophers have to see why their
arguments are reliable because without that, it would be inexplicable to others
and themselves why anyone should rely on them (considerations about utility
and similar factors don’t count in this case). So, philosophers of the epistemic
tradition need to have the ambition to justify their theses in an internalist way. As
Alvin Goldman puts it: “I think my analysis shows that the question of whether
someone knows a certain proposition is, in part, a causal question, although,
of course, the question of what the correct analysis is of ‘S knows that p’ is not a
causal question” (1967: 372, italics mine).
To put if differently, in order for S to be able to have good reason for believing
that her justification for p is compelling, it is not enough that the cognitive process
leading to p is reliable—it is also needed that S be able to transparently justify why
30 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

the cognitive process leading to her belief p is reliable. This is because if S doesn’t
see from a first-person viewpoint why her philosophical arguments are reliable,
then S cannot be certain to the required extent that they reliably lead to truth—
and insofar as S cannot be certain to the required extent that her philosophical
arguments reliably lead to truth, S does not have any good epistemic reason to
think that she has compelling arguments for the truth of p.
Let me give an example. Let’s suppose that God, as an infinitely perfect being,
exists, and S believes in God’s existence, although not based on philosophical
considerations. Let’s also suppose that just as S’s belief in God’s existence
gradually deepens, so will certain philosophical arguments for the truth of p
exert an ever-increasing influence on her, to the point that it definitely begins
to seem to S that these arguments show the truth of p. (Let p be the proposition
that only the present exists; and let the chief argument for p’s truth be that while
presentism is able to plausibly explain the main features of the experience of
time, and thus, indirectly, phenomenal consciousness itself, the rival theories
are unable to accomplish the same.) Now, if it is S’s belief in God’s existence
and, eventually, (let’s suppose) God himself that causes S to begin massively
believing in the truth of p and the soundness of the chief argument for p, then
the cognitive process leading to S’s belief p is a reliable one. Moreover, it is the
most reliable cognitive process of all, because God is all-knowing and (let’s
suppose) doesn’t deceive His disciples. Thus, if the cognitive process leading to
S’s belief p is a reliable one (that is, the arguments based on which S believes that
p track the truth, thanks to God), then (in the externalist sense of knowledge)
S knows that p.
According to the followers of the epistemic tradition, S’s knowledge is not the
kind of philosophical knowledge that they intend to achieve. The reason for it
is not that the proposition S knows (in the externalist sense) isn’t a substantive
philosophical thesis. Rather, it is that S’s justification for the truth of p does not
have compelling force. This is because all elements of a compelling justification
must be transparent—but this condition is not met in the case at issue. Although,
from a first-person perspective, S has access to her argument for presentism and
against the rival theories, she does not have access to the critically important
(and in a certain sense, the most important) factor which is responsible for
the reliability (truth-tracking feature) of her argument—it falls outside of S’s
subjective viewpoint.
In other words, if God exists and if S’s belief p is caused by S’s belief in God’s
existence, and if God doesn’t deceive S and if …, then S’s belief p is the result of
a reliable cognitive process indeed. However, the statements following this “if ”
 Philosophy as an Epistemic Enterprise 31

are all unjustified—S merely resigns herself to them. Of course, S may attempt
to justify the propositions coming after each and every “if,” and insofar as she
succeeds in “cleaning” the justification for the truth of p of all non-transparent
elements, then her justification for the truth of p becomes an internalist one.
And, in this case, her argument may even have compelling force.
In brief, the epistemic tradition of philosophy seeks to answer the question:
“The truth of which propositions should we believe in?” It seems obvious that
if we want to answer this question, we need to have access to the reasons for
deciding what to believe—and externalism does not provide this access. Based
on justification externalism, we can only say that once we already believe in the
truth of p, and we have no perfectly transparent internalist justification of p, this
does not in itself entail that p is not justified. However, if we have an ultimately
externalist justification for p, we cannot know on the basis of it whether we
should believe in the truth of p or not.

2.2 Compelling justification—without philosophical arguments

Most philosophers in the epistemic tradition seek to justify their theses with
compelling philosophical arguments. However, there is another type of procedure
designed to “force truth into the open,” namely the phenomenological method.
In the eyes of certain philosophers, the phenomenological method is
doomed to failure. David Bell, for example, says that “There is something
dismal and dogmatic about a philosophy whose utility, cogency and plausibility
depend essentially, not on objective arguments, rational analysis, or the
critical consideration of evidence available to all, but rather on the individual
philosopher’s having undergone some esoteric experience” (1991: 162). In this
section, I attempt to show how phenomenologists try to arrive at truths with the
use of the phenomenological method, and how they try to provide compelling
justifications for their theses.
To do this, I need to answer three questions. Firstly, what is the goal of
phenomenology and what does the phenomenological method look like?
Secondly, why do phenomenologists think that by using the phenomenological
method they can arrive at compellingly justified philosophical truths? Thirdly,
why do phenomenologists think that compelling phenomenological justification
is not an argumentative activity that eliminates all inference? I try to base my
answers to these questions on some of Husserl’s well-known passages—as far as
I can tell, he was the one who dealt with these questions with the most emphasis
and methodological awareness in the phenomenological movement.
32 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

Ad one: The goal of phenomenology is to systematically analyze conscious

experiences from the first-person perspective—to explore and plausibly and
exhaustively describe how things seem to the subject, from the subject’s point
of view.
Phenomenology has strict methodological rules. One is that we have to
take extra care not to let common sense and scientific convictions affect our
investigation. They have to be bracketed, so to speak, during the course of
our phenomenological investigations. This is the only way for us to focus on
the intrinsic characteristics of the subject’s conscious experiences—those
characteristics which the subject’s conscious experience has from his own
perspective. This methodological principle is called the “phenomenological
reduction.” As Husserl puts it:

[According to phenomenological reduction]: every transcendent (that which

is not given to me immanently) is to be assigned the index of zero, that is,
its existence, its validity is not to be assumed as such, except as at most the
phenomenon of a claim to validity. I am to treat all sciences only as phenomena,
hence not as systems of valid truths, not as premises, not even as hypotheses for
me to reach truth with. This applies to the whole of psychology and the whole
of the natural sciences.
(1907/1990: 4, italics in original)

The other rule is that phenomenology should not describe particular experiences
from a subjective point of view, but the nature of types of experience. This is
what distinguishes phenomenology from pure introspection. For example,
in describing visual experience, phenomenologists are not supposed to say
that “This red mailbox appears to me in such and such a way and that yellow
tram appears so and so,” but they are to reveal the essential phenomenological
characteristics of visual experience itself. They should undertake to describe
those phenomenological characteristics that are common to all visual experience
and which distinguish visual experience from all other types of experience.
In a word, they are supposed to reveal the inherent and distinctive features of
visual experience. This methodological principle is called “eidetic reduction.” In
Husserl’s words:

Phenomenological psychology in this manner undoubtedly must be established

as an “eidetic phenomenology”; it is then exclusively directed toward the invariant
essential forms. For instance, the phenomenology of perception of bodies will
not be (simply) a report on the factually occurring perceptions or those to
be expected; rather it will be the presentation of invariant structural systems
 Philosophy as an Epistemic Enterprise 33

without which perception of a body and a synthetically concordant multiplicity

of perceptions of one and the same body as such would be unthinkable.
(1927/1971: 81)

Let me quote Husserl again to recapitulate these two methodological principles

of phenomenology:

If the phenomenological reduction contrived a means of access to the

phenomenon of real and also potential inner experience, the method founded
in it of “eidetic reduction” provides the means of access to the invariant essential
structures of the total sphere of pure psychical process.
(1927/1971: 81)

Ad two: According to Husserl, the right application of the phenomenological

method provides infallible (apodictic) justification. As he puts it:

At every point this analysis is an analysis of essences and investigation of the

general states of affairs which are to be built up in immediate intuition. Thus,
the whole investigation is an a priori one, though, of course, it is not a priori
in the sense of mathematical deductions. What distinguishes it from the
“objectivizing” a priori sciences is its methods and its goal. Phenomenology
proceeds by “seeing”, clarifying, and determining meaning, and by distinguishing
meanings […] It does not theorize or carry out mathematical operations; that is
to say, it carries through no explanations in the sense of deductive theory.
(1907/1990: 46, italics in original)

Or:

It is the spirit of [phenomenology] to count nothing as really scientific which

cannot be fully justified by the evidence. In other words, [phenomenology]
demands proof by reference to the things and facts themselves, as these are given
in actual experience and intuition. Thus guided, we, the beginning philosophers,
make it a rule to judge only by the evidence. Also, the evidence itself must
be subject to critical verification, and that on the basis, of course, of further
available evidence.
(1929/1998: 6, italics in original)

And here’s perhaps the most elucidating passage:

Thus as little interpretation as possible, but as pure an intuition as possible […]

In fact, we will hark back to the speech of the mystics when they describe the
intellectual seeing which is supposed not to be a discursive knowledge. And
34 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

the whole trick consists in this — to give free rein to the seeing eye and to
bracket the references which go beyond the “seeing” and are entangled with
seeing, along with the entities which are supposedly given and thought along
with the “seeing”, and, finally, to bracket what is read into them through the
accompanying reflections. The crucial question is: Is the supposed object given
in the proper sense? Is it, in the strictest sense, “seen” and grasped, or does the
intention go beyond that?
(1907/1990: 50–1)

I will not leave Husserl alone with what he has just said—I will try to say more
clearly what he claims. Phenomenology undertakes to describe conscious
experiences from the first-person perspective. Now, the description and
systematic categorization of conscious experience is, according to Husserl,
apodictic (and thus compellingly justified) because the characteristics of our
conscious experience are given to us directly, intuitively (anschaulich). And there
can be no meaningful doubt about the proper phenomenological description of
conscious experience because, in this case, the distinction between appearance
and reality is meaningless. Doubts such as the following are meaningless: “For
me, this and that conscious experience appears in this and that way, but is it not
possible that it actually appears differently?” Or, “For me this and that conscious
experience appears as F, but is it not possible that it actually appears not as-F
but as-G?”
Ad three: Why does Husserl think he can manage without arguments? It is quite
common for philosophical arguments to contain premises whose justification is
based on some phenomenological insight. For example, arguments in favor of
the sense-datum theory often have the premise that the objects of our perceptual
experiences are given to us in a different way than, say, the objects of our thought
acts or beliefs. However, Husserl does not treat these types of phenomenological
insights as the premises of some arguments—in his view, we cannot leave the
sphere or space of our conscious experience achieved through reductions. We
have to stay within it. Thus, we do not rely on inferences to provide us with
insights about more and more truths, but, as the passages quoted above say, we
obtain these insights in such a way that each of them is accompanied by intuitive
(anschaulich) evidence. Conversely, according to Husserl, a philosopher begins
to argue and infer when he has already fallen out of the space of conscious
experience. That is, for lack of a better method.
Husserl gives the example of Descartes. He sees it this way: Descartes reached
a truly apodictic (phenomenological) evidence with the “ego cogito.” And thus,
 Philosophy as an Epistemic Enterprise 35

says Husserl, for the first time in the history of philosophy, “[He] uncovered for
us […] through the apodictic I am a new kind and an endless sphere of being”
(1929/1998: 11). But at the same time, he made a fatal mistake: “[He used]
the ego cogito merely as an apodictic proposition and as an absolute primitive
premise” (1929/1998: 11). He began to reason, argue, infer, speculate—instead
of remaining in the space of conscious experience he had “opened” with the “ego
cogito.” Had he stayed in it, he would have been able to build all his philosophical
insights on such an intuitive-apodictic evidence as the initial “ego cogito.” Here
is his critique:

To make all this intelligible it is first necessary to do what was neglected by

Descartes, namely, to describe the endless field of the ego’s transcendental
experience itself. His own experience, as it well known, and especially when
he judged it to be apodictic, plays a role in the philosophy of Descartes. But
he neglected to describe the ego in the full concretion of its transcendental
being and life, nor did he regard it as an unlimited workproject to be pursued
systematically.
(1929/1998: 12)

Thus, Descartes has fallen out of the endless field of the ego’s transcendental self-
experience. But what do those who do not fall out do?

To be a meditating philosopher who, through the meditations, has himself

become a transcendental ego, and who constantly reflects about himself, means
to enter upon of […] [the] endless transcendental experience. It means to refuse
to be satisfied with a vague ego cogito and instead pursue the steady flux of the
cogito toward being and life. It means to see all that which is to be seen, to explain
it and penetrate it, to encompass it descriptively by concepts and judgements.
But these latter must only be terms which have been derived without alteration
from their perceptual source.
(1929/1998: 13–14, italics in original)

O
­ r:

[Contrary to Descartes] we remain true to radicalism in our self-examination

and with it to the principle of pure intuition. We must regard nothing as veridical
except the pure immediacy and givenness in the field of the ego cogito which the
epoche has opened up to us. In other words, we must not make assertions about
that which we do not ourselves see.
(1929/1998: 9, italics in original)
36 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

Let me summarize. Phenomenology (at least the Husserl-initiated version) intends

to assert exhaustive philosophical truths about the nature and phenomenological
characteristics of conscious experience. It intends to justify these true propositions
infallibly—it tries to trace them all back to an “intuitive fulfillment” (anschauliche
Erfüllung). Since its justification is always based on intuitive fulfillment,
phenomenological justification is inherently internalist. The phenomenologist
does not seek to come up with deductive arguments, nor does she intend her
phenomenological insights to be taken as premises of philosophical arguments.
She tries to stay in the field of experience gained through the two reductions
all along, and sees its systematic exploration as the job of his philosophy. Thus,
phenomenology is that part of the epistemic tradition of philosophy which
breaks with this tradition in that it abandons philosophical arguments, but does
so in order to achieve the ultimate goal of this tradition of making philosophy a
successful epistemic enterprise, in Husserl’s words, “rigorous science.”

3 Finishing touches

The epistemic tradition of philosophy cannot be characterized in a completely

impartial manner. Obviously, my characterization also has some debatable
elements—its focal points can be especially controversial. For example, you can
easily think that I have unnecessarily discussed the phenomenological method
in detail, because phenomenologists (even if they deny it) argue just as much as
other philosophers do, except that they “rename” the consequence relation as
intuitive fulfillment.
But there are two more things I need to talk about. One is that you can say
that the epistemic value of philosophy as an epistemic enterprise is not only
knowledge but also understanding. Not only do we want to know how things
are, but we also want to understand them. The other thing is that you can also
say that my characterization owes an explanation of what secures the continuity
of the epistemic tradition. The question arises: what is it that determines the
persistence of this tradition?

3.1 Philosophical understanding and knowledge

Apart from cases of linguistic understanding (viz. when we understand
the meaning of a sentence or set of sentences), and also from the special
hermeneutical conceptions of understanding (viz. Dilthey’s “understanding as
 Philosophy as an Epistemic Enterprise 37

Nacherleben” and the Heideggerian/Gadamerian “understanding as Dasein’s

mode of being”), we can talk about understanding in two different senses.
On the one hand, we can speak of understanding in the sense of “understanding
why”—when we understand certain particular phenomena. I have in mind
things like “S understands why the bridge collapsed” (because it exploded); “S
understands why his neighbor’s arm is plastered” (because he fell off the ladder);
“S understands why his bike doesn’t start” (because there’s no chain on it). Such
cases of understanding are also referred to as “atomistic understanding” (see
Pritchard 2009).
On the other hand, we can talk about understanding in the sense of
“understanding how the pieces fit together.” Unlike the former, the latter is a
conceptual grasp of some complex phenomenon or structure—an insight into
how elements of a set of propositions are interrelated, how they are connected
to each other. As Jonathan Kvanvig puts it: “to have understanding is to grasp
explanatory and conceptual connections between various pieces of information
involved in the subject matter in question” (2018: 699). I have in mind instances
like these: “S understands the foreign policy of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy”
(because she sees what the purpose of each measure was and how they were
interrelated); “S understands movement 4th of Mozart’s Jupiter Symphony”
(because she sees how the abstract musical structure is assembled from the
large-scale imitative play of certain musical motifs); “S understands the great
depression of 1929” (because she sees how different social processes led to the
collapse of the economy). These cases of understanding are also referred to as
“holistic understanding” (see Pritchard 2009).
Now, I see it as follows: if one wishes to, one can characterize the goal of the
epistemic tradition in terms of “understanding,” but in this case, one must make
three basic stipulations.
Firstly, this kind of philosophical understanding should not be limited to the
understanding of non-substantive philosophical truths. It shouldn’t be limited
to grasping true propositions of the type “If this is so and so, then this must be
so and so,” and to seeing the cost-benefit equations of philosophical theories
competing for truth. In other words, philosophical understanding shouldn’t
be limited to seeing what consistent solutions to different philosophical
problems are possible and to overviewing the logical space populated by
various philosophical theories. According to the followers of the epistemic
tradition, these cases of understanding are important but not enough, as the
goal of doing philosophy is to establish the truth of substantive philosophical
propositions.
38 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

Secondly, this kind of philosophical understanding must be factive in all of

its instances. As applied to “atomistic understanding,” this means that “S cannot
understand why p if p is false”—“S can understand why p only if p is true.”
And applied to “holistic understanding,” this means that “S cannot understand
phenomenon X if her beliefs about X are false”—“S can understand X only if
her beliefs about X are true.” That is, this kind of philosophical understanding
requires relevant true (substantive) beliefs. For example: if S believes that objects
o1 and o2 belong to the same type because they instantiate the same immanent
universal, but this belief of S is false (as there are no immanent universals), then
S does not understand why o1 and o2 belong to the same type—S can understand
why o1 and o2 belong to the same type only if her belief that o1 and o2 instantiate
the same immanent universal is true.
Thirdly, this kind of philosophical understanding cannot be independent of
philosophical knowledge (as compellingly justified true substantive belief). As
applied to “atomistic understanding,” this means that “S cannot understand why
p if she does not know why p”—“S understands why p only if she knows why p.”
And applied to “holistic understanding,” this means that “S cannot understand
phenomenon X if she knows neither the central propositions p1, p2, p3 …, pn
about X nor how they relate to each other”—“S understands phenomenon X
only if she knows both that p1, p2, p3 …, pn and how they relate to each other.”
Why cannot the followers of the epistemic tradition be satisfied merely with
the stipulation that all cases of philosophical understanding must be factive?
The reason is that S must be able to compellingly justify in the given case that
her understanding is really factive and is not apparent. As we have seen before,
according to the members of this tradition, it is not enough that S knows that
p, because S must also know that she knows that p. (KK must be met.) Likewise,
for the followers of this tradition it is not enough that S’s understanding of p is
factive, because S also must know that her understanding of p is factive. (KFU
must be met.) Now, since the assertion that a given case of understanding is
really factive needs to be compellingly justified, and since understanding itself
(as a mental event) doesn’t have any justificatory force, this kind of philosophical
understanding depends on the appropriate philosophical knowledge.
Of course, many epistemologists of understanding would take exception to
the second and third stipulations. According to some of them, there may be
cases of understanding that are not factive but are epistemically valuable (e.g.,
Elgin 2007; Zagzebski 2001), or cases of understanding that have epistemic
value independent of knowledge (e.g., Kvanvig 2013; Pritchard 2010). Still, I
don’t have to deal with these scruples here, as my present task is to characterize
 Philosophy as an Epistemic Enterprise 39

the epistemic tradition. And what I want to show is the following: although the
followers of this tradition can acknowledge that understanding has a place in
the story and has epistemic value, according to them, the only epistemic value
of doing of philosophy on its own right is knowledge. And although the goal of
the epistemic tradition can be characterized in terms of “understanding,” one
cannot give a comprehensive definition of it without invoking the concept of
knowledge. Here is a possible definition that could perhaps be accepted by the
members of the epistemic tradition: the goal of philosophy is to achieve a factive
understanding of why things are as they are and not otherwise, and how things
are interrelated—and also to know (and justify compellingly) that this kind of
understanding is factive.

3.2 The continuity of the epistemic tradition of philosophy

I think the continuity of the epistemic tradition is based on the continuity of
the philosophical problems discussed. That is, the followers of this tradition have
been discussing more or less similar philosophical problems. Neither extreme
is right. Nor is the idea of philosophia perennis, which says that the historical
context of philosophical problems is completely irrelevant, and that in abstracto
there is a defined set of philosophical problems carved in stone once and for
all. Nor is the idea that philosophers respond exclusively to the philosophical
challenges of their own times, and consequently philosophical problems cannot
be separated at all from the historical context in which they were articulated.
My proposal is to steer a middle course. The historical context of philosophical
problems is sometimes (quite) relevant and sometimes (quite) not. Sometimes
it can be ignored (without loss), sometimes we have to take it seriously into
consideration. The significance of the historical context of philosophical
problems comes in degrees.
I don’t think it is possible to deny with an impartial mind that, for example,
Anselm of Canterbury (in his Proslogion) or Thomas Aquinas (in his Quinque
viae) attempts to do the same (or at least something very similar) as Richard
Swinburne did centuries later (see Swinburne 1990); namely to present
philosophical arguments for the existence of God as an infinitely perfect,
personal, compassionate, and providential being. The difference in their
historical contexts—that atheism did not exist in Anselm’s and Aquinas’ time,
while it does in Swinburne’s—does not affect their common goal. Neither does the
fact that Anselm and Aquinas intended their arguments to be taken as infallible
justifications, whereas Swinburne only as a probabilistic (abductive) inference.
40 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

I think it is also impossible to deny impartially that Descartes’ demon

hypothesis and Hilary Putnam’s “Brains in a vat” scenario 350 years later are
similar in a relevant way. They both are based on the conceivability of situations
in which the external world does not exist, but these scenarios are subjectively
indistinguishable from the one in which it does exist. Descartes and Putman
both aim to show that these skeptical scenarios do not or cannot occur. The two
scenarios are different in their rhetoric, the arguments are also different, and
the skeptical challenge has a different role to play in Descartes’ than in Putnam’s
work. However, they both attempt to refute skepticism—they share their
intended conclusion that the mind- and experience-independent world exists.
I don’t dispute that the historical context can indeed be important in certain
cases. Let’s take Plato’s theory of forms, which contemporary philosophers take
to be a suggested solution to the problem of universals. Plato says: “[T]here
are certain forms from which these other things, by getting a share of them,
derive their names — as, for instance, they come to be like by getting a share of
likeness, large by getting a share of largeness, and just and beautiful by getting
a share of justice and beauty” (Parmenides 130e–131a). Most contemporary
metaphysicians read this passage to mean that if a number of distinct particulars
share a property, then they get a share in the same form, i.e., they instantiate the
same universal.
Someone could object that the context of Plato’s theory of forms is so
different from the contemporary one that it makes no historical sense to place
it among contemporary metaphysical theories. For example, as opposed to
contemporary Platonist realists, Plato’s commitment to the existence of forms
is conceptually connected to his conviction that the object of knowledge is
unchanging (see Republic 477a–480a) and, also in opposition to contemporary
realists, Plato probably limits his thesis to a certain class of entities by aesthetic-
moral considerations, saying that, for example, there are no forms for mud and
“anything else totally undignified and worthless” (Parmenides 130c–130d).
To this I can only reply that just because the original context of the Theory
of Forms is indeed relevantly different from the context of contemporary
philosophy, Plato is still a realist. Just because his motivations are different, he
still asserts that the type identity of distinct particulars (or at least some of them)
is explained by the numerical identity of the appropriate form. The objection is
simply based on an exaggeration because, on the appropriate level of abstraction,
Plato’s solution is a solution to the problem of universals. In addition, his view is
constantly present in the contest of rival theories.
 Philosophy as an Epistemic Enterprise 41

Another thing about Plato is that it can be seen without any kind of
abstraction that what Kebes was eager to find out about by Socrates’ deathbed
is exactly the same question (see Phaidon 102b–107b) as the one you would be
eager to find out about 2,500 years later if, God forbid, you were standing by
your beloved teacher’s deathbed—namely, whether the soul of this adored being
will go on to live after the death of his body, or everything will become gray
and eventually, darkness will take place. If someone keeps on saying that the
two historical contexts are different, and so Kebes is interested in something
completely different than we would be today, they only confirm that they are
living in a prison of their own hermeneutic prejudice.
I don’t just want to dwell on examples, however. There is a rather negative
consequence of the view which denies that philosophers have been dealing with
more or less the same problems since the dawn of philosophy—even if there have
been new problems born or gone. If there is no continuity in posing philosophical
questions but rather, philosophers in every era look for answers to different
and unrelated philosophical problems that are completely inseparable from the
historical context of their formulation, then what could be the rationale for the
history of philosophy? Generally speaking, we have only one reason to engage
with the writings of classical authors in the hope of gaining true philosophical
benefits instead of pure interest in the history of ideas, namely that we trust that
our great ancestors were largely occupied with questions similar to our own.
Overall, then, I think that the broadly construed condition of identity (or rather
the condition of persistence) of the epistemic tradition is secured by the broadly
construed identity (more precisely, persistence) of philosophical questions and
philosophical problems passed down from generation to generation. I cannot
adduce compelling arguments for this thesis, but I think it is the natural and the
least partial view.
42
 ­2

Philosophy as a Failed Epistemic Enterprise

The epistemic failure of philosophy lies in the fact that the followers of
philosophy’s epistemic tradition have been unable to solve philosophical
problems. They could not present well-founded substantive philosophical
truths. But they set out to do these things. And since they undertook this task,
and since their aspirations were not crowned with success, it is no exaggeration
to say that their attempts have failed.
The obvious and indisputable sign of this failure is the permanent
disagreement that spreads to all areas of philosophy. For if there is no consensus
among philosophers concerning the solutions of philosophical problems, then
no philosophical problems have ever been solved. No sane person would call it
a solution to a philosophical problem if a group of philosophers said that p was
true, another group said that q was true, a third that r was true, and a fourth that
s was true whilst p, q, r, and s are mutually incompatible philosophical theses.
All this may seem evident, but in fact, things are not so simple. Let’s take the
two propositions below:

(1) There is no consensus among philosophers concerning the solutions of

philosophical problems.
(2) No philosophical problems have ever been solved.

Proposition (1) merely says that in connection with every philosophical

problem, there are at least two (but characteristically more) well-worked-out
theories that are incompatible with each other, whose proponents always debate
with each other—none of them has succeeded in coming up with any arguments
that could convince all sides. In a word, concerning any philosophical problem,
there is no consensus among philosophers as to which of the competing
theories is true.
Proposition (2) also needs some clarification; (2) doesn’t say that no
philosophers have ever had any true substantive philosophical beliefs. Since
44 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

we can formulate almost every problem of philosophy as a yes-or-no question,

and since there were philosophers who said “yes” and, also, philosophers who
said “no,” it clearly follows that some philosophers were right. If we take the
philosophical question “Do immortal souls exist?” or “Do abstract entities
exist?” or “Do temporal parts exist?” then either those who thought “Yes, they
do” or those who thought “No, they do not” were right. Rather, (2) says that
no philosophers have ever had compelling justification (knock-down arguments
or intuitive fulfillments in phenomenology) for the truth of their substantive
philosophical beliefs. Hence, no philosophers have ever had substantive
philosophical knowledge—not even those who happen to be “true believers.”
Moreover, (2) does not exclude that some philosophers may know substantive
philosophical theses in the externalist sense of knowledge—it is compatible
with the possibility that a reliable cognitive process leads to S’s belief p; that
the arguments on the basis of which S believes that p track the truth; that S
believes in the truth of p based on things that make p true. However, as we have
already seen, the externalist justification of the truth of p is not compelling.
This is because compelling philosophical justifications would require that we
have access to all their elements from a first-person perspective (each of their
steps must be transparent)—but this condition is not met in the externalist case.
Consequently, the externalist knowledge of p is not a proper case of philosophical
knowledge, and is not the solution to a philosophical problem.
In brief, the solution of a philosophical problem would consist in
some philosopher(s) coming up with a compellingly justified substantive
philosophical theory, and (2) says that, at least so far, philosophers’ efforts have
been unsuccessful in this respect.
As for the relationship between propositions (1) and (2), they are logically
independent of each other. From the fact that there is no consensus among
philosophers concerning the solutions of philosophical problems, it does not
follow that a philosopher (or a group of philosophers) has not yet solved any
philosophical problem. It is possible that a small minority has already solved
this or that philosophical problem, and yet no consensus has been reached.
So, the essential point is the following: pervasive and permanent philosophical
disagreements do not entail that some philosophers do not have a compelling
justification for their views—it is possible that certain “true believer philosophers”
have compelling arguments, but the “false-believers” do not understand them,
and thus are unable to recognize their compelling force.
Despite the fact that (1) doesn’t logically entail (2), (1) is a good reason for
accepting (2). Why is that? It is because if philosophers have not been able to
 Philosophy as a Failed Epistemic Enterprise 45

come up with philosophical arguments in which no points could be disputed

by other philosophers (and they haven’t), then we have every reason to suspect
that they have not produced any compelling philosophical arguments—
similarly, if the community of mathematicians judges a mathematical proof
not to be conclusive, then we have every reason to suspect that it actually isn’t.
In other words, insofar as there were compelling philosophical arguments,
then philosophers would recognize their compelling force—similarly to the
community of mathematicians recognizing the conclusive force of conclusive
mathematical proofs. Or, as Peter van Inwagen puts it: “[i]f any reasonably well-
known philosophical argument for a substantive conclusion had the power to
convert an unbiased ideal audience to its conclusion (given that it was presented
to the audience under ideal conditions), then, to a high probability, assent to the
conclusion of that argument would be more widespread among philosophers
than assent to any substantive philosophical thesis actually is” (2006: 52–3).
Of course, someone might object that the analogy is wrong, because successful
philosophical arguments differ from successful mathematical proofs. Some
philosophers may have come up with knock-down philosophical arguments
whose comprehension and the recognition of their compelling force requires
a kind of intellectual hardware which surpasses most philosophers’ abilities
by orders of magnitude. That is, while some philosophers (thanks to their
extraordinary talents) can recognize that this or that philosophical argument is
compelling, and so they can recognize that there are already solved philosophical
problems, most philosophers are unable to do that (due to their substantially
more modest abilities).
One can say this, indeed. Moreover, this is, by and large, the only thing that
someone could say to give reasons for their reluctance to accept (2) despite their
accepting (1). I admit that I cannot present any knock-down arguments for
this not being the case. In addition to thinking that there are no philosopher-
supermen, and that the above assumption is as implausible as any can be, the
most I can say is this: it seems to me that philosophers in dispute with each
other understand each other’s arguments quite well, they just think that these
arguments are bad; and it also seems to me that they perform confidently and
well in pointing out the weaknesses of various philosophical arguments.
Let me take a different approach. If X and Y disagree with each other
(according to X, p is true, whereas according to Y, not-p is true), then two
things may be behind their disagreement. Either, it is that neither does X
know that p, nor does Y know that not-p. Or, it is that while one of them has
knowledge, the other is mistaken. By the same token, we can explain the fact of
46 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

pervasive and permanent philosophical dissensus in two different ways. Either

there is no consensus among philosophers because philosophical problems are
unsolved—nobody has ever come up with a compelling justification for the truth
of a single substantive philosophical thesis. Or, there is no consensus because,
although certain philosophical problems have been solved (some have managed
to come up with compelling arguments), not everyone recognizes the solved
philosophical problems as solved and the compelling arguments as compelling.
Now, if we don’t think that the majority of philosophers is unable to recognize
compelling arguments, and we don’t think that philosophers possessing knock-
down arguments have intellectual powers that are by far stronger than those
of the proponents of rival theories (and, in my opinion, we wouldn’t think of
either of these), then, in light of (1), we cannot help but accept (2). We must
conclude that the supposition that there are no solved philosophical problems
better explains the fact of pervasive and permanent dissensus than its alternative,
namely that there are some solved problems, but not every philosopher
recognizes them as such.
In this chapter, I attempt to give a big picture of the failure of the epistemic
tradition. Firstly, I illustrate the serious extent of dissensus in philosophy—on
virtually any substantive question. In what follows, I discuss whether there has
been progress in philosophy, and if so, in which sense of the term—what are the
things that we now know but earlier didn’t.
Like in the previous chapter, here too, I would only like to assert some
platitudes. And it is not easy to do that, just like in the previous chapter. While
discussing philosophy’s epistemic failure, it is not easy to avoid exaggerations
and keep the discussion balanced. Nevertheless, I will try my best to achieve that.

1 A catalog of problems

Let me start with metaphysics, one of the most important areas of philosophy.
Firstly, philosophers disagree about what kind of things there are. Some
philosophers hold that immanent universals exist; entities which can be wholly
present at different locations at the same time and more of them can be present
at one time in one location in space. Other philosophers deny this—they do not
agree that multi-local entities exist. Some philosophers think that we need to
introduce abstract entities into our ontology—things that exist outside of space-
time. Others deny this—they do not think we should introduce them. Some
philosophers think we should commit ourselves to the existence of possible
 Philosophy as a Failed Epistemic Enterprise 47

worlds, while others are anti-realist on this issue. And so on and so forth. If
you take the entities posited by philosophers (universals, abstract objects, agents
that are not subject to the laws of physics, possible worlds, Cartesian minds
[which have no physical properties], tropes, gluons, scattered objects, multi-
local particulars, bare dispositions, spatio-temporal parts, arbitrary undetached
parts, mentons, gunks, etc.), there is not one of these the existence of which
is unanimously agreed on by philosophers. And, vice versa, just think of the
kinds of entities which play fundamental roles in our everyday ontology, such
as familiar physical objects (desks, chairs, ashtrays) or mental states (beliefs,
thoughts, desires)—there is no complete consensus about their existence among
philosophers, either. Mereological nihilists deny the existence of the former,
while eliminativists deny the existence of the latter.
Secondly, there is disagreement about what the nature of the things we
consider to exist consists in. Let me just give one example. Some philosophers
think that physical objects are bundles of universals. Others think they are
bundles of tropes, and yet others think that physical objects are not just bundles
of properties but also have an additional and separate metaphysical constituent,
the substrate. Yet again, others think that physical objects are instances of natural
kind universals. There are some who think that the discovery of the nature
of physical objects is not the task of metaphysics but of the natural sciences.
However, as I mentioned above, there are also quite a few philosophers who
deny the existence of familiar physical objects and only commit themselves to
that of elemental particles. They think that desks do not exist, only molecules do
which are arranged desk-wise.
Thirdly, there is disagreement about how the posited kinds of entities (or
ontological categories) are connected to one another. In other words, there is no
agreement even about which other types of entities we must commit ourselves
to in consequence of our ontological commitment to a certain type of entity. For
example, certain nominalists think that nominalism can only be defended against
the counterargument from coextensive properties if one accepts Lewis’ genuine
modal realism; that is, one may only assert that “There are only particulars and
properties do not exist on their own right” if one also asserts that “There are
countless other worlds besides our actual world which are categorically identical
to this one.” Other nominalists do not wish to commit themselves to the plurality
of worlds; they think it is too big a price to pay. They think that endorsing
nominalism is conceptually independent of endorsing genuine modal realism.
Fourthly, there is also disagreement about the nature of ontological debates;
there is no consensus among philosophers in meta-ontology either. Some
48 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

meta-ontologists think that the majority of their ontological debates is verbal—

everything depends on how we interpret the existential quantifier. Antirealists
accept the thesis of quantifier variance and think that the word “exist” has a
number of possible meanings which all play the role of the existential quantifier
through certain inferential role properties. In contrast to this, ontological
realists claim that although there is a number of possible meanings of the word
“exist,” it is always interpreted as the so-called “ontologese” language quantifier
in ontological debates.
Let’s take epistemology. Epistemologists disagree about whether in justifying
our beliefs about the external world, we should have first-person access to the
factors that justify our beliefs or not. Epistemological internalists think that we
should, but externalists think that we should not. There is also disagreement
about whether there are propositions the truth of which is a priori knowable,
and if so, whether this can be explained by reference to a semantic fact or a kind
of rational intuition. There is no consensus among philosophers about what to
do with skeptical arguments concerning the existence of the external world.
Should we deny the KK thesis? Or the deductive closure principle? Should we
redefine the concept of knowledge perhaps? Horribile dictu, shall we concede
that skepticism is the right view and admit that we do not have knowledge of the
external world?
Consider the philosophy of language. Philosophers of language disagree
about whether proper names refer via descriptions or without them, directly.
The first view is held by those who endorse the description theory of proper
names, the second is by those who endorse the direct reference theory. There is
no consensus in the fundamental question of whether external factors constitute
the meaning of our words and sentences. Semantic internalists think they do
not, but semantic externalists think the opposite. Moreover, philosophers of
language do not agree about the connection between thought and language
either. Some think that language is more basic, others think that thought is more
basic, and yet others think that neither have priority.
Let’s take the philosophy of mind. Philosophers of mind do not agree about
whether the existence of conscious experience can be explained within an
exclusively physicalist ontology or not. Physicalists disagree about what
type of relationship there is between mental and physical properties. Is it
identity? Realization? Local supervenience? Global supervenience? Necessary
supervenience? Superdupervenience? Constitution? There is also no consensus
about what kind of relationship there is between the intentional and the
phenomenal properties of conscious experience. Are they independent of each
 Philosophy as a Failed Epistemic Enterprise 49

other? This is what separatists think. Or one is more fundamental and the other
supervenes on it? This is what prioritists think. But which is more fundamental?
According to representationalists, phenomenal properties supervene on
intentional properties. Advocates of the theory of phenomenal intentionality
have the opposite view, i.e., that it is the intentional properties that supervene
on phenomenal ones. Or, perhaps, neither of the above views is correct because
these two properties are inextricably bound up. As Colin McGinn puts it:

[E]xperiences are Janus-faced: they point outward to the external world but they
also present a subjective face to their subject: they are of something other than
the subject and they are like something for the subject. But these two faces do
not wear different expressions: for what the experience is like is a function of
what it is of, and what it is of is a function of what it is like.
(1991: 29–30)

Or take moral philosophy. Moral philosophers disagree about whether we

should define the concept of a morally right action in terms of duties or in
terms of consequences. They also disagree about whether the “could have done
otherwise” condition is necessary for free will and hence for moral responsibility,
or we should assign responsibility even in cases where the person could not
have done otherwise. There is disagreement about the extent to which we are
(if at all) responsible for our emotions, personality, and beliefs. Moreover, moral
philosophers do not even agree about which property renders an act morally
evaluable, i.e., what the difference between morally neutral and non-neutral acts
consists in. They also disagree whether moral reasons override any kind of other
reasons, not to mention the fact that they disagree about what “morality” means
in the first place.
Let’s turn to political philosophy. Political philosophers disagree about why we
have political obligations or to put it differently: where does the sovereign’s power
come from to exercise sanctions on those who fail to fulfil their obligations? Does
it come from divine authority? Or from natural superiority? Or is it derived from
greater knowledge or expertise? Or, if we skip these old explanations: do we
have political obligations because we choose the rules in our “original position”
ourselves and accept them as binding? (This is the principle of consent.) Or is it
because if the state provides education, healthcare, and public utilities, then we
have to reciprocate? (This is the principle of reciprocity.) Political philosophers
fail to agree about the extent of the role the state needs to assume in order to
relieve inequalities. Some think they do not have to assume any such role, while
others think that the role of the state is significant. Those who think it has a
50 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

significant role disagree about what kind of equality we should establish. That of
resources? Opportunities? Capabilities?
Now, let’s look at the philosophy of science. It is worth dividing the
philosophical problems of science into two groups: general and special. As for
the former: there is no consensus among philosophers of science about what
the correct answer to the problem of induction is, nor about what the correct
interpretation of the term “law of nature” is, nor about what the scientific
explanation of a phenomenon looks like at all. Or consider the problem of the
metaphysical status of unobservable entities (quarks, strings, black matter, etc.).
According to realists, observable entities provide sufficient indirect evidence
for the existence of unobservable entities, and consequently, scientific theories
should be seen as describing this “unobservable world.” By contrast, anti-realists
(or instrumentalists) say we have no good reason to commit ourselves to
the existence of unobservable entities, and consequently, scientific theories
are merely useful tools (useful fictions). As for the special problems: there is
no consensus among philosophers of physics about whether a determinist or
indeterminist interpretation of quantum mechanics is the correct one, nor about
whether space-time points exist and whether a wave function collapse exists.
But to mention other areas than the philosophy of physics: there is disagreement
among philosophers of biology as to what the basic unit of natural selection is.
Some say it is the gene, others say it is the cell, yet others say it is the organism,
and, according to others, it is the group.
Or consider the philosophy of art. Philosophers of art disagree about whether
the concept of a work of art can be defined, i.e., if necessary and sufficient
conditions can be given of something being a work of art. They also disagree
about the property which makes something a work of art. Moreover, they hold
different views about the metaphysical status of works of art. Are they universals?
Physical particulars? Mental particulars? Abstract particulars? Events? Or
perhaps do some artworks belong to one category and other artworks to others?
They fail to agree on whether, while interpreting a work of art, we should take
into consideration the author’s intentions and if so, to what extent. Not to
mention some minor issues such as: “Does the consumption of works of art
contribute to the development of our self-knowledge?”; “Is there a difference
between popular and high art?”
And the list is not finished. The most peculiar thing is that there is no
consensus within phenomenology, that is, about establishing phenomenological
facts. The reason why this is so peculiar is that because one has first-person
access to the phenomenal characteristics of conscious experience, you might
 Philosophy as a Failed Epistemic Enterprise 51

think that there can be no differences among different phenomenologists’

reports—but there are. On the one hand, Berkeley describes the phenomenology
of auditory experience as follows:

For instance, when I hear a coach drive along to streets, immediately I perceive
only the sound; but from the experience I have had that such a sound is
connected with a coach, I am said to hear the coach. It is nevertheless evident,
that in truth and strictness, nothing can be heard but sound: and the coach in not
then properly perceived by sense, but only suggested from experience.
(1713/1998: 194, italics in original)

Heidegger, on the other hand, says:

What we “first” hear is never noises or complexes of sounds, but the creaking
wagon, the motor-cycle. We hear the column on the march, the north wind, the
woodpecker tapping, the fire crackling. It requires a very artificial and complicated
frame of mind to “hear” a “pure noise”. The fact that motor-cycles and wagons are
what we proximally hear is the phenomenal evidence that in every case Dasein, as
Being-in-the-world, already dwells alongside what is ready-to-hand within-the-
world; it certainly does not dwell proximally alongside “sensation”; nor would it
first have to give shape to the swirl of sensation to provide the springboard from
which the subject leaps off and finally arrives at a “world”.
(1927/1962: 207, italics in original)

Do I need to comment? I don’t think so. Let’s look at anxiety. Most certainly,
there is something that it is like to be anxious (anxiety has a definite phenomenal
character), which is why you might think there can be no differences among
the phenomenological descriptions of anxiety—but there are. Searle for one
sees it in the following way: “Beliefs, fears, hopes, and desires are Intentional;
but there are forms of nervousness, elation, and undirected anxiety that are not
Intentional” (1983: 1). Tim Crane, however, says:

The cases Searle mentions are not cases where one is anxious for another:
otherwise it would be directed anxiety. So the intentionalist will say that these
are cases where one is anxious for oneself—so in these cases, one’s anxiety is
directed upon oneself. Being anxious in this way is a matter of having a certain
attitude to oneself and one’s position in the world: it is to regard the world, for
example, as a potentially disturbing place for oneself. This is one way in which
anxiety exhibits directedness. And it is an alternative to seeing Searle’s cases as
examples of mental states which are directed on nothing, as Searle does.
(1998: 241–2)
52 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

And here is what Heidegger says about the same subject:

That anxiety reveals the nothing man himself immediately demonstrates when
anxiety has dissolved. In the lucid vision sustained by fresh remembrance we
must say that that in the face of which and for which we were anxious was
“really” — nothing. Indeed: the nothing itself — as such — was there […] The
nothing reveals itself in anxiety — but not as a being. Just as little is it given as an
object. Anxiety is no kind of grasping of the nothing. All the same, the nothing
reveals itself in and through anxiety, although, to repeat, not in such a way that
the nothing becomes manifest in our malaise quite apart from beings as a whole.
Rather we said that in anxiety the nothing is encountered at one with beings as
a whole.
(1929/1993: 101–2)

I think that this obscure passage says that the intentional object of anxiety is the
nothing (or nothingness), if what we mean by intentional object is “something”
which appears or is manifested to us from the first-person perspective.
But even if it says something else (and that is a possibility), it definitely says
something different to Searle and Crane, as, in contrast to them, he connects the
phenomenology of anxiety to the concept of nothingness.
Or, let’s turn to the question of whether cognitive phenomenology exists.
Those who think it does say that “there is something it is like to think a conscious
thought” (Pitt 2004: 2), and this means that “what it is like to think a conscious
thought is distinct from what it is like to be in any other kind of conscious mental
state, that what it is like to think the conscious thought that p is distinct from
what it is like to think any other conscious thought” (Pitt 2004: 2). Those who
think there is no cognitive phenomenology believe that there is nothing it is
like to think a conscious thought. If we experience something during an act of
thinking, then it is not the act (or this act plus the content) itself that has what-it-
is-likeness but the connected emotions and other par excellence phenomenally
conscious states.
Let me spend more time on this phenomenological problem. Even the fact
itself is peculiar that there are differences in views in phenomenology, but this
case—if possible—is even more curious. The question here is not what kind
of phenomenological marks a conscious mental act has, but simply whether a
conscious mental act has any kind of phenomenal character or what-it-is-likeness.
If we agree on anything, this should be it. We might think that the answer to this
question must be either “Yes, trivially there is cognitive phenomenology,” or “No,
trivially, there is no cognitive phenomenology”—yet there is dissensus about it.
 Philosophy as a Failed Epistemic Enterprise 53

Some philosophers try to argue that there is cognitive phenomenology by

pointing out the inherent phenomenal properties of acts of thinking. They
provide a strange sentence that one cannot understand at first reading (or
hearing), and then ask the reader (or listener) to make an effort to understand
it. Once that happens, they say: “WHAT you experienced when you understood
the sentence after making a small effort is the phenomenal character of
thinking the thought at issue.” In brief, they identify the phenomenology
of thinking the thought expressed by the sentence with the experience of
understanding the sentence.
Terence Horgan and John Tienson (2002) present such an argument. Let’s
take the sentence: “Dogs dogs dog dog dogs.” Native English speakers cannot
understand this at first sight. In order to understand it, they have to be asked to
take one token of the word “dog” as a verb. If they do so, they will understand
the sentence, and so will experience the inherent phenomenal character of
thinking the thought expressed by it, according to Horgan and Tienson. Their
argument is this: since one reads the same sentence several times in a row, only
the inherent phenomenal features of an act of understanding a thought can
distinguish between the cases of non-understanding and understanding—thus,
cognitive phenomenology exists.
However, a possible objection can go along these lines: the rhythm or the
prosody of the sentence could contribute to the experience of understanding
the above sentence. So, it is better for the advocates of cognitive phenomenology
to bring up rabbit/duck type grammatical ambiguities. For example, they
could say “Hunting lions can be dangerous.” It could either mean “If you hunt
lions, they can attack you,” or “If hunting lions attack you, you could be in
trouble.” This rabbit/duck sentence has the same rhythm and prosody when
uttered, yet it will have different phenomenal characters depending on what
one means by it.
I used the above example to demonstrate that even where you would most
expect consensus among philosophers (about whether a mental event has
phenomenology or not), they have failed to produce one. Needless to say, many
philosophers reject Horgan and Tienson’s argument—what is more, they think
that arguments that employ such ostensive definitions are fundamentally flawed
and cannot be taken seriously.
And finally (the icing on the cake), there is a disagreement between
philosophers about the epistemology of disagreement—including disagreements
among philosophers themselves. This question No. n + 1 sounds like this: “Can
I rationally stick to the truth of proposition p if (1) I know that there are people
54 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

who think p is false; if (2) in my view, these people are my epistemic peers; and
if (3) despite the recognized disagreement, it still seems to me that p is true?”
There are two opposing camps on this issue. Proponents of conciliationism
claim that I should suspend my belief in the truth of p, or at least reassess the
epistemic status of my belief in the truth of p (see e.g., Christensen 2007; Elga
2007; Feldman 2006). In a nutshell, the basic consideration is this: the fact that
someone who I recognize as my epistemic peer disagrees with me about the truth
of p has just as much weight as evidence for me to think that I myself am wrong
as the evidence (or set of evidences) on which I originally committed myself to
the truth of p. By contrast, proponents of the steadfast view claim that I should
not suspend my belief in the truth of p—I can still rationally stick to the truth
of p (see e.g., Huemer 2011; Schafer 2015; Wedgwood 2010). In a nutshell, one
of the most obvious consideration for it is the following: the fact that someone
disagrees with me about the truth of p (even if I recognize this person as my
epistemic peer) is not such a great deal as the evidence on which I originally
committed myself to the truth of p—the original evidence (or set of evidences)
has more epistemic weight than what my opponent believes.
This philosophical question No. n + 1 is inherently related to other questions
as well. For example, to the question “Can there be only one rational doxastic
attitude belonging to evidential base E, or can there be more than one such
attitudes?” There is no consensus among philosophers about the answer to
the latter question either. According to uniquists, there can be only one (see
e.g., Greco and Hedden 2016; Matheson 2011; White 2013), whereas according
to permissivists there can be several (see e.g., Ballantyne and Coffman 2011;
Frances 2014; Kelly 2010). It is easy to see that commitment to uniquism goes
hand in hand with conciliationism, whereas commitment to permissivism with
the steadfast view. Here is why: if, as a uniquist, I take it for granted that (1) only
one rational doxastic attitude can belong to a set of evidences E (or to the total
body of evidence), and (2) E is for the truth of p and for the truth of not-p to the
same degree, then I must suspend my belief in the truth of p, because the total
body of evidence is, in the final analysis, not in favor of either option. By contrast,
if, as a permissivist, I take it for granted that more than one rational doxastic
attitudes can belong to a set of evidences E (or the total body of evidence), then
I can rationally stick to the truth of p—even though I must concede that others
can rationally stick to the truth of not-p.
Again, this philosophical question No. n + 1 is inherently related to the question
“When can we say truthfully that two or more people are epistemic peers?” If we
don’t count as an accurate answer that Hansel and Gretel are epistemic peers
if they rely on more or less the same evidential base and have more or less the
 Philosophy as a Failed Epistemic Enterprise 55

same argumentative-cognitive skills and have more or less the same resilience to
biases, then we cannot speak of consensus about this issue either. All the more
so, because according to some philosophers (see e.g., King 2012) in fact we have
almost never any good reasons to judge that our interlocutor in a debate is our
epistemic peer—rather, we have good reason to suppose that he or she is not so
knowledgeable or competent as we ourselves are.

***

Some may now think that I have used a disproportionate number of examples,
and I’m afraid that my catalog has been boring. Nevertheless, I see it as having
a sobering effect when we look at the huge number of philosophical problems
towering before us—unsolved. The reason I have brought up so many examples is
that the abundance of disagreements in philosophy is shocking. This abundance
has a meaning, just like it has a meaning if someone has just one suit or a whole
cupboard full of them.
One last comment. If you have any reservations about the above catalog of
problems, saying that I put it together in an armchair, I suggest that you browse
two studies by David Bourget and David Chalmers, if you have not already done
so (see 2014, 2021). In them, you can read the results of a survey conducted
by the co-authors using empirical methods about what philosophers believe.
According to the thousands of questionnaires filled out and analyzed, “there
is […] no consensus on the answer to most major philosophical questions”
(2014: 31)—philosophers have very different views on various substantive
philosophical questions. In addition, in the two studies you can read a great
overview of which philosophical issues are such that there is more (or less)
disagreement about them, and you can also find out which philosophical views
typically go hand in hand with each other. Finally, you may even be faced with
the fact that “philosophers hold […] false beliefs about their colleagues’ views”
(2014: 29)—they quite often misjudge which the majority belief and which the
minority belief is about each philosophical problem.

2 Progress in philosophy

Speaking about an epistemic enterprise, we can say that it makes progress if the
players of the enterprise did not yet know that p at t1, but already know that p at
t2. Now, if we consider that philosophers belonging to the epistemic tradition
undertook to solve philosophical problems and come up with compelling
56 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

philosophical arguments for their substantive theses, then it is clear that

philosophy has not made any progress for the last 2,500 years. One cannot say that
philosophers did not yet know how to solve such and such philosophical problem
at t1 but they already know that at t2—since they have not solved any substantive
philosophical problems, and have not come up with any compellingly justified
substantive thesis. In short, the community of philosophers has no substantive
philosophical knowledge.
As a starting point, let me recall Eric Dietrich’s thought experiment. The
scenario is the following: Aristotle crops up at a university in the twenty-first
century. He goes to a physics lecture first, where he hears about gravity and
about how people went to the Moon, and how planets orbit on an elliptic course.
He hears about how the same laws of nature govern the “sublunar” and the
“supralunar” world, i.e., throughout the universe. Following this, he goes to a
biology lecture. He hears about the theory of evolution, genetics, and cells. He
hears about inheritance and different biochemical processes, and is shocked by
what he hears. He has to admit that the science of this age has long surpassed the
science of his. He then goes to a metaphysics and ethics course. Dietrich thinks
something like the following happens in there:

Here he hears the professor lecturing about essences, about being qua being,
about the most general structures of our thinking about the world. He knows
exactly what the professor is talking about. Aristotle raises his hand to discuss
some errors the professor seems to have made, and some important distinctions
that he has not drawn. As the discussion proceeds, the metaphysics professor is
a bit taken aback but also delighted at this (older) student’s acumen and insight.
Then Aristotle goes to an ethics class, where he learns of the current importance
of what is apparently called “virtue ethics”. He recognizes it immediately, but
again, the professor seems to have left out some crucial details and failed to see
some deeper aspects of the view. Aristotle raises his hand …
(2011: 334)

How it is possible that as opposed to physics and biology, Aristotle would be

a competent partner in metaphysical and ethical debates? Dietrich thinks it is
because of the following:

Only one thing: Philosophy doesn’t progress. Yes, it morphs and transforms to
stay current. Our metaphysics today is not Aristotle’s metaphysics. Ours is
populated, for example, with possible worlds, whose existence is bolstered by
a robust and large family of logics that Aristotle couldn’t have imagined. Our
 Philosophy as a Failed Epistemic Enterprise 57

metaphysics contains ideas like supervenience, which is used to explain, among

other things, the relationship between mind and brain and the relationship
between consciousness and brain. But more important, our metaphysics is
for us. It is written in our language for us to communicate our twenty-first
century ideas in. But that’s all; that’s the extent of the “progress”. The ideas
and theories are new or couched in modern language, but no real progress is
made, none.
(2011: 335–6, italics in original.)

And even more sharply:

Philosophy does not even stumble forward. Philosophy does not move forward
at all. It is the exactly the same today as it was 3000 years ago; indeed, as it was
from the beginning. What it does do is stay current; philosophers confuse this
with advancing, with making progress. Staying current is not moving forward
any more that staying up on the latest fashions or music is movement toward
greater social justice.
(2011: 332, italics mine)

I think Dietrich’s view is simplifying, distorting, and shows a lack of sensitivity

to finer details. Despite the fact that, like him, I find philosophy to be a failed
epistemic enterprise, I don’t think that philosophy is treading water and that
we know nothing more than our predecessors did. This is just as unbelievable
and unrealistic as thinking that a philosopher at the height of his career knows
nothing more than when he first started out.
Put differently, pace Dietrich, I’m saying that there are philosophical
propositions which we did not yet know at t1, but already know at t2. On the
one hand, we have come to know many non-trivial and non-substantive
philosophical truths, and on the other, we have come to know that certain
substantive philosophical theories or theses are false.

2.1 Successes
First of all, Dietrich ignores that we can identify philosophical problems more
precisely than our predecessors, which means that we see the structure of
philosophical problems more clearly and in a finer-grained way—and we have
worked out numerous new suggested solutions to these problems.
Let’s take the problem of moral responsibility and free will for example. Here
is a possible reconstruction of this problem:
58 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

­P1: All fully developed human beings are morally responsible for their actions in
everyday situations.

P2: People can have excuses. If someone can prove that their action is a result of
(bad) luck or external force, then they cannot be held responsible for their action
at issue.

P3: Events are either determined or indetermined, so all actions are also either
determined or indetermined.

P4: If an action is indetermined, it is a matter of luck.

P5: If an action is determined, then it was brought about by some external force.

These propositions are jointly inconsistent—I will not show this here, as it is
trivial. Furthermore, I think that all of these propositions are “epistemically
attractive”—we would tend to hold each of them to be true, were it not for the
fact that they are inconsistent with one another. Furthermore, concerning this
problem, I think it would be convenient to categorize different philosophical
theories—independent of their finer details—based on which of the above
propositions they reject and for what reason they reject them.
P1 is rejected by two theories: hard determinism and hard incompatibilism.
According to the former view, we are not responsible for our actions because
the world is deterministic, and so all actions are brought about by external
forces (see e.g., Honderich 1988; Wegner 2002). According to the latter, we
are not responsible for anything in the moral sense because if the world is
indeterministic, then everything happens by chance, but if it is deterministic,
then everything is brought about by external forces (see e.g., Pereboom 2014).
P2 is rejected by theories that hold that it does not follow from the fact that
external forces or chance play a decisive role in all actions that agents could be
exempted from responsibility.
One such theory is semi-compatibilism. It says that while it is true that all
our actions are determined because past events and the laws of nature jointly
“make” them happen, it does not mean that the agent always has the same role in
executing actions. There are deterministic processes in which agents participate
in a morally autonomous manner, even if external forces exclude the possibility
that they can act otherwise than they actually do. Thus, semi-compatibilists
think that free will (the ability to act otherwise) is not a precondition of moral
responsibility. It is enough for moral responsibility if the agent has acted the way
he did or refrained from action because of the appropriate (i.e., reason-sensitive)
psychological process (see e.g., Fischer 2007; Fischer and Ravizza 1998; Mele
 Philosophy as a Failed Epistemic Enterprise 59

1995); or if the action in question appropriately reflects the morally relevant

aspects of the agent’s self (see e.g., Frankfurt 1971; Scanlon 1998, 2008; Smith
2005). Instead of the decisions and actions themselves, the former strategy
considers the deliberation leading up to the decision as the main source of
moral responsibility, while the latter considers the morally relevant attitudes,
dispositions, desires, and other mental states as relevant. According to semi-
compatibilists then, agents cannot be exempted from responsibility based
merely on the deterministic/indeterministic nature of the world because they
are definitely responsible for the relevant mental processes and/or states leading
up to them (at least, in most cases).
Like semi-compatibilist, consequentialist theories of responsibility (such
as revisionism, see e.g., Vargas 2013) also denies that deterministic external
forces exempt from responsibility on all occasions. They are convinced that
we should hold people morally responsible for their deeds and traits whenever
moral blame and praise would produce appropriate good consequences such as
positive character-change.
However, p2 is not only denied by semi-compatibilism and consequentialist
approaches but also by event-libertarianism. Event-libertarians—as opposed to
semi-compatibilists but alike to consequentialists—view decisions and actions
as the central objects of moral responsibility. They think that just because
actions are indeterministic and their outcomes are chancy in some sense, agents
remain responsible for their decisions and the consequences thereof—provided
that the chance enters the decision process “in the right place” (see e.g., Balaguer
2004; Franklin 2018; Kane 1996; Mele 2006; Nozick 1981). Kane (1996), for one,
thinks that if the agent would like to carry out two kinds of action in a certain
situation, the action can still remain free if it is up to chance which volition takes
over the other accidentally.
P3 is primarily rejected by non-causal libertarian theories. The advocates
of these theories think that there are actions without any cause whatsoever.
So, we cannot say about any of these actions either that they are the results of
indeterministic or deterministic causal processes. (Which is also why these
authors use the phrase “undetermined” and not “indetermined” free action.)
These actions should be explained by reference to reasons instead of causes—in
other words, it is not reasons which cause or compel the choice of a rational
agent but he chooses in light of reasons, so to speak (see e.g., Ginet 1990; Lowe
2008; Pink 2017). This means that the agent does not cause the decision but
rather brings it forth, and the decisions that cannot be explained causally are the
sources of free will and responsibility as basic actions.
60 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

­ 4 is most vehemently denied by agent-causal libertarianism (see e.g.,

P
Chisholm 1966; Clarke 2003; O’Connor 2000). According to the advocates of
this view, freely formed intentions or freely executed actions have no (or only
partially have) events as their causes but the agent himself, seen as a substance.
As Randolph Clarke (2003) puts it: inasmuch as the agent as a substance is the
direct cause of the intention or action at issue, then this intention or action can
hardly be explained with reference to chance in any sense. And this is true even if
the causal action of the agent as a substance has not been determined previously.
P5 is rejected by traditional compatibilist theories. Traditional compatibilist
philosophers think that, even though free actions are predetermined, their
course is not determined by any external force which would compel it, since
agents could have acted otherwise despite determination (see e.g., Ayer
1954/1972; Huoranszki 2011; Moore 1912). As they say, the key to free will and
moral responsibility is that the following conditional is true: “Agent S could have
acted otherwise, had he decided otherwise.” It is easy to see that this conditional
can be true even if our world happens to be ruled by deterministic laws.
As far as I can see, no important theory is left out of this taxonomy and they
can all be categorized on the basis of which proposition out of the above five
the proponents of a given theory give up and why. Now, since we did not see
the structure of the problems this clearly before, and since we did not know
so many possible suggested solutions, this is undeniably progress—we came to
know something at t2 that we did not know yet at t1.
Secondly, Dietrich fails to consider that while we did not know numerous
“if …, then …” type philosophical propositions at t1, we do know these at t2, and
while we were not aware of the cost-benefit equations of the potential suggested
solutions of philosophical problems at t1, we do know these at t2.
Let’s take the mind-body problem as an illustration of this. Similar to
the problem of free will, this problem is also made up of jointly inconsistent
propositions. Here’s the well-known proposition triad:

P1: Conscious experiences are not physical events.

P2: Conscious experiences can cause physical events.

P3: Every physical event has a sufficient physical cause.

Let me begin with this: while we did not know at t1, we do know at t2 how the
inconsistency between these propositions can be dissolved. For instance, if
we claim that every single human action is (redundantly and systematically)
overdetermined, i.e., every single human action has a sufficient mental cause
 Philosophy as a Failed Epistemic Enterprise 61

and a numerically different sufficient physical cause, then p1, p2, and p3 will not
be inconsistent with each other—we can stick to all of them without getting
into contradictions. Or, if we claim that conscious experiences cause physical
events in a different sense than physical events do, meaning that we deny the
homogeneity of mental and physical causes, then p1, p2, and p3 will not be
inconsistent with each other—we can stick to all of them without running into
contradictions (see e.g., Crane 1995 about these “if …, then …”s).
Furthermore, in the case of the mind-body problem, while we did not know
at t1, we do know at t2 what kind of benefit and cost it has if we deny one of the
three propositions while we stick to the truth of the other two.
I will only mention one possibility for the sake of simplicity. Let’s assume that
out of the three, we accept p2 and p3 and reject p1. Let’s also assume that we reject
p1 in the spirit of the type-identity theory—we claim that types of conscious
experience are identical to types of physical events (see e.g., Armstrong 1968;
Lewis 1966). If this is what we do, then we have the benefit of being able to
explain mental causation—all the way, since our view will definitely not be
threatened by the specter of epiphenomenalism. At the same time, if we do
this, then it will have the cost of having to respond to hardcore anti-physicalist
arguments according to which it is not possible to place conscious experiences
within a purely physicalist ontology; we have to come up with a plausible error
theory that shows that the “gap” between phenomenal and physical phenomena
is purely illusory and we have to say something against the multiple realization
thesis—and none of these is an easy task.
Thirdly, Dietrich also ignores the fact that the different philosophical theories
have undergone internal progress—they were supported by weaker arguments
at t1 and stronger ones at t2. I think it’s hard to deny that if a philosophical
theory put forward by a great dead philosopher has contemporary supporters,
then they certainly advocate the theory at issue much more forcefully than
its original author did. For example, David Armstrong is a better and more
consistent Aristotelian with regard to immanent universals than Aristotle was,
and Peter van Inwagen is a better and more consistent Aristotelian than Aristotle
was regarding primary substances as described in the Categories (see Armstrong
1978, 1997; van Inwagen 1990).
Or, let’s take one of the current rival views of the ontological status of physical
objects, substrate theory, according to which physical objects have a further
constituent that is fundamentally distinct from their properties, the substrate
(which bears the properties). This theory was first put forward by Locke, and
his only argument for it was that without appealing to the concept of substrate,
62 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

it would be impossible to explain the fact that the properties of physical objects
are held together (Locke 1689/1996: 2, 23, 1–2). Now, it is easy to see that the
argument made by later advocates of substrate theory is much stronger (see e.g.,
Allaire 1963/1998). For example, they claim that one should commit oneself
to the existence of substrates in order to be able to explain the particularity of
objects that are type-identical. For if two or more numerically distinct objects
have the exact same intrinsic properties, then they cannot (obviously) be
individuated by making reference to them. Since, however, they have a further
metaphysical constituent (the substrate), they can be individuated by making
reference to it.
All this is undeniable progress. The latter example shows clearly that Locke’s
arguments for the substrate theory are not the best ones (and also that Berkeley’s
arguments are not the best ones against it)—and while we did not know this at
t1, we do at t2.
Fourthly, Dietrich also forgets that many conceptual relations were revealed
among different philosophical problems as time went by, and while we did not
know them at t1, we do at t2 (see Jackson 2017 on this).
Here’s one example. While the inherent relationship between the concepts of
temporality and modality was not known at t1, it became clear at t2. I’m thinking
of the following. When a genuine modal realist says that every possible world
exists in the same way as our actual world, he takes the word “actual” to be an
indexical, as it simply picks out our world, but it does not refer to any entities
of special ontological status. Now, this is inherently related to the case when the
eternalist says that the present, past, and the future exist and the word “present”
is indexical, as it simply picks out the moment when the speaker is speaking, but
does not refer to any entities of special ontological status (see e.g., Lewis 1986).
Or, from the other direction: when the actualist (to be more exact, the modal
ersatz-realist) says that there are no non-actual worlds, only the actual world
exists and so “actual” is not merely indexical, as it refers to the ontologically
special actual world, this is inherently related to the case when the presentist
says that the past and the future do not exist, only the present does, so “present”
is not merely indexical, as it refers to the ontologically special present (see e.g.,
Crisp 2003; Rea 2003).
Fifthly, (and finally), Dietrich also ignores the fact that we can list quite a
few substantive philosophical theories and theses such that there was consensus
about their falsity at one point of time. And this is progress, too—whereas we
did not know at t1 that not-p, we do know at t2 that not-p. As Peter van Inwagen
says: “There are no knock-down arguments or demonstrations or proofs in
 Philosophy as a Failed Epistemic Enterprise 63

philosophy — not at any rate of substantive, positive theses” (2020: 11) and
“If there is any philosophical theses that all or most philosophers affirm, it is
a negative thesis: that formalism is not the right philosophy of mathematics, for
example, or that knowledge is not (simply) justified, true belief ” (van Inwagen
2004: 334–5, italics mine).
But here are some more examples: while we did not know at t1, we do know
at t2 that Augustine’s theory of first language learning is wrong. Or: while we did
not know at t1, we do know at t2 that Descartes’ theory of mind-body interaction
is wrong. Another example: while we did not know at t1, we do know at t2 that
La Mettrie was wrong when he interpreted humans as mechanical clockworks.
And another one: while we did not know at t1, we do know at t2 that Condillac’s
sensualism, according to which apart from sensory perception itself, all our
capabilities develop from sensory perception, is wrong. Or: while we did not know
at t1, we do know at t2 that Leibniz’s thesis that “Every true statement is analytic”
is wrong. Here are two other more recent examples. The first one: while we did
not know at t1, we do know at t2 that logical behaviorism is an untenable view of
the human mind. The second one: while we did not know at t1, we do know at t2
that emotivism is an untenable metaethical theory. Not only does this list contain
some other examples but also, I’m rather sure that the community of philosophers
will establish consensus on the falsity of other philosophical theories in the future.

2.2 How we should not evaluate these successes—and

how we should
The proposition that philosophers have not solved any substantive philosophical
problems doesn’t entail that there is no progress in philosophy. My aim in the
previous section was just to show that—pace Dietrich—philosophy does not
stagnate, since we know a lot of things we didn’t know earlier. Those philosophers
who think otherwise are probably deceived because they are focusing their
attention exclusively on unsolved philosophical problems, and so they lose sight
of the many things that they indeed know. As Rebecca Goldstein puts it:

Philosophical progress is invisible because it is incorporated into our points of

view […] We don’t see it, because we see with it.
(2014: 14)

However, it’s important to handle these enumerated developments in their right

place—we must neither underestimate nor overestimate their significance. On
64 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

the one hand, it would be short-sighted to deny that philosophers have acquired
numerous non-trivial and non-substantive philosophical propositions about
which they had no idea before—put into the terminology of “understanding”
instead of “knowing”, all this means that we understand philosophical problems
and their relations to each other better than before. On the other hand, we
mustn’t overestimate the knowledge of these non-trivial and non-substantive
philosophical propositions, and above all we mustn’t see in these developments
a proof of philosophy’s success as an epistemic enterprise—since the community
of philosophers has not managed to acquire substantive philosophical truths,
even though this clearly is the goal of the members of the epistemic tradition.
Also, it is difficult to dispute the claim that there are philosophical theories and
theses that came to be discredited by the community of philosophers over time.
This, too, is undoubtedly progress: earlier we did not know that they are false,
but now we already know that they are. Nevertheless, I would warn everyone
not to exaggerate the significance of our being able to pick out philosophical
theories and theses that are consensually considered false, and not to see them
as discredited once and for all or hail their recognition as a great philosophical
insight. For this is deceptive, as knowing that something is not in a certain way
does not mean knowing how (in what way) it is—and solving a philosophical
problem clearly means knowing how something is and not how it is not.
It seems to me that many consider the discreditation of philosophical theories
as real progress in philosophy, since, they think, the filtered-out theories are no
longer “living” choices, and this filtering out narrows down the range of possible
philosophical theories, which counts as progress in any problem-solving process.
But those who think so forget that in the course of its history, philosophy
excelled the most in using more and more established “if …, then …”-type non-
substantive philosophical truths to populate the logical space with more and
more consistent theories that are immune to objections, and consequently it did
not actually narrow down the range of rival philosophical theories vying for
truth. In fact, the opposite happened: concerning most problems of philosophy,
there are significantly more “living” philosophical theories in circulation today
than there were before.
Aware of the pervasive and permanent disagreement in philosophy, David
Chalmers wrote that there are “glass-half-full” and “glass-half-empty” views
concerning the question “Is there progress in philosophy?” (2015: 3). I don’t
really feel the aptness of this “glass-half-full” vs. “glass-half-empty” metaphor.
For if we look at the goal of philosophy’s epistemic tradition and think that the
goal of philosophy is to establish substantive and positive philosophical truths,
 Philosophy as a Failed Epistemic Enterprise 65

then that glass is not half full, nor even half empty—there is nothing slopping at its
bottom. Conversely, if we look at a metaphilosophical vision with more modest
ambitions than the goal of the epistemic tradition, and think that philosophy
cannot do more than to increasingly populate the logical space with consistent
philosophical theories that are immune against knock-down objections, then
again, that glass is also not half empty, but it is not even half full—it is almost
brimming over with the philosophical “juice.”

2.3 Delusional optimism

Perhaps the sharpest contrast to the (pessimistic) vision presented above is Daniel
Stoljar’s (optimistic) vision (2017a, 2017b, 2017c). According to him, “there is
progress in philosophy if and only if—that is, not merely if—the questions of
philosophy or suitably related questions have been answered in the past and it is
reasonable to suppose that such questions will be answered in the future” (2017a:
25, italics in original). And he thinks, yes! “some [philosophical] problems have
been solved, and we have a reasonable expectation that more (though not all)
will be solved in the future” (2017a: 7).
Below, I will first briefly explore Stoljar’s optimistic vision, and then explain
why I think it paints a false picture of philosophical progress.
According to Stoljar, the common (and false) premise of all pessimistic views
about the success of philosophy as an epistemic enterprise and philosophical
progress is that the philosophers dealt with the same philosophical problems
for centuries. Plato dealt with the same problem (the “One over Many”) as, for
example, David Armstrong (1997); Aristotle dealt with the same problem (the
nature of substances) as, for example, David Wiggins (2001); Descartes dealt
with the same problem (the mind-body problem) as, for example, Frank Jackson
(1982, 1986).
Now, if we accept this “identity view,” we will inevitably become pessimistic,
according to Stoljar. As he puts it:

The identity view makes pessimism almost inevitable. After all, Jackson’s problem
is an open question; philosophers of mind are currently discussing various
answers to it, and no consensus has been reached. If it is an open question,
however, and if it is identical to Descartes’s problem, then Descartes’s problem
must be open too. But if that is an open question, the history of the mind-body
problem is the history of an open question with no progress being made.
­(2017b)
66 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

By contrast:

[S]uppose now we reject the identity view. Then the issue of progress looks
completely different. For one thing, if Jackson’s problem and Descartes’s problem
are distinct, it doesn’t follow that the latter is open if the former is. Hence the
simple argument for pessimism I just set out goes away. Moreover, if they are
distinct, it is open to us to argue that Descartes’s is a solved problem, even if
Jackson’s is not. And if that is so, we may begin to see discussion of the mind-
body problem over the years as in many ways like discussion in other fields:
earlier problems raised and solved, contemporary problems still wide open.
(Stoljar 2017b)

According to Stoljar, we must distinguish between three kinds of philosophical

questions:

On the one hand, there are questions that — to put it a bit vaguely — introduce
or define or constitute a topic or subject matter — topic questions, as I will call
them for short. On the other hand, there are questions that outline particular
lines of inquiry (whether big or small) within a given topic […]

If we distinguish the topics or subject matter of philosophy from the big

questions that can be asked about those topics, it is certainly hard to deny that
philosophers in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries are in many cases
discussing the same topics or subject matters as those in the seventeenth. Both
Jackson and Descartes, for example, are (in the relevant parts of their works)
concerned with the relation of the mental to the physical; they are not making
a contribution to mathematics, after all, or trying to compose a symphony. But
it doesn’t follow that they are asking the same big questions about that subject
matter. And indeed, if we pay only a small amount of attention to what they say
it becomes quite implausible to suppose that they are.
(2017a: 12–13, italics in original)

According to this, on the one hand, there are “general philosophical topics,”
such as the relationship between “the mental” and “the physical.” On the
other hand, there are the “big philosophical questions”—these are none other
than the way the (great) philosophers formulate these general topics. For
example, in connection with the general topic of the relationship between
“the mental” and “the physical” we can talk about Cartesian, Leibnizian,
Malebranchean, Spinozian, Ryleian, Lewisian, Putnamian, Jacksonian, etc.,
 Philosophy as a Failed Epistemic Enterprise 67

big philosophical questions. And, of course, there are also small philosophical
questions—these are non-substantive (“Is it true that if …, then …?” type)
questions pertaining to general topics. For example, “Is it true that if
intentional properties supervene on phenomenal ones, then zombies cannot
be conceived consistently?” Thus, a general philosophical topic subsumes a
number of Q1, Q2, Q3 big philosophical questions, and a number of q1, q2, q3
small philosophical questions.
In the light of this distinction, Stoljar sees the relationship between pessimism
and optimism as follows:

The dispute between the optimist and the pessimist does not concern topic
questions, for both sides can agree (or so I will assume) that the topics discussed
today are in many cases the topics discussed in the past. Nor does it concern
small questions, for both sides can agree (or so I will also assume) that small
questions can in many cases be conclusively answered, and so progress here is
possible. Rather the issue concerns big questions within philosophical topics.
(2017a: 14)

And here’s how he defines his own position and objective:

From this point of view, the key theses we will be concerned with may be
summarized as follows. Optimism in general is the thesis that there is progress
on all or reasonably many of the big questions of philosophy. Unreasonable
optimism is the thesis that there is progress on all of the big questions of
philosophy. Reasonable optimism is the thesis that there is progress on
reasonably many of the big questions of philosophy. It is reasonable optimism
that I want to defend […]
(2017a: 14–15, italics in original)

Let me present two big philosophical questions or problems that Stoljar says
can be considered solved. The first “big philosophical problem” is the way
Descartes formulates the general topic of the relationship between “the mental”
and “the physical.” According to a pessimist, this “problem is still with us, and
that philosophers are still banging on about it” (2017c: 108). But, Stoljar says:

[T]his pessimistic answer pays no attention to the way Descartes formulated the
problem. If we do pay attention to this, what emerges is that, contrary to what
often seems to be supposed, the Cartesian mind-body problem has been solved.
(2017c: 108)
68 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

­ hy does Stoljar think that the “Cartesian mind-body problem” has been solved?
W
Because the defining feature of this problem is that Descartes explicitly identifies
matter or body with extension. Now, since this identification is a crucial element
of Descartes’ argument for substance dualism, and since this identification is
erroneous, it clearly follows that Descartes’ argument is bad. So, “the Cartesian
mind-body problem is a solved problem” (Stoljar 2017c: 109).
Let’s look at another big philosophical problem: the “Quinean meaning
problem.” Stoljar classifies this problem (just like the previous one) as a
“boundary problem,” saying that most philosophical problems are of this nature.
Boundary problems are made up of three inconsistent propositions: p1 states the
existence of certain unquestionable facts; p2 says that all these facts are of this
and of this nature (either reducible to this and that, or fully explicable in this or
that way); and p3 says that not all of these facts are of this and that nature (either
reducible to this and that, or fully explicable in this and that way). Here’s the
structure of the “Quinean meaning problem”:

(P1) There are facts about meaning.

(P2) If there are facts about meaning, all such facts are necessitated by behavioral
facts.

(P3) If there are facts about meaning, not all such facts are necessitated by behavioral
facts.
(Stoljar 2017a: 55)

Why does Stoljar think this problem to have been solved?

I think it is fair to say, with respect to this problem, that it has been solved by
rejecting (p2), i.e. the boundary thesis. Of course, Quine himself thought that (p2)
was somehow constitutive of meaning, i.e. that if there are facts about meaning
they are determined by behavioural facts. But many philosophers and scientists
are united in opposing him on this issue.

Some reject it because it is empirically implausible. Some because it cannot explain

the sense in which facts about meaning explain behaviour. Still others because
it entails modal claims that are false, e.g. that it is impossible that someone who
duplicates a normal speaker in behavioural dispositions could fail to duplicate
them in what they mean. For our purposes, however, the crucial point is not why
it is rejected but that it was, and moreover, was rejected correctly. That is enough
to show that Quine’s indeterminacy problem is a solved problem; moreover, the
reason it is a solved problem is that its constituent boundary thesis was rejected.
(2017a: 55, italics in original)
 Philosophy as a Failed Epistemic Enterprise 69

In broad outlines, this is what Stoljar’s optimistic vision looks like, according to
which the community of philosophers has already solved many big philosophical
problems. Now I will tell you why I find this vision delusional.
I don’t dispute that philosophical questions can be conceptualized in the
way Stoljar does. It is possible indeed to call what we normally call a big
philosophical problem a “general philosophical topic,” and it is possible indeed
to call the way some philosophers formulate a general philosophical topic
a “big philosophical problem.” And from there, it is really only one step to
declare a solution to a “big philosophical problem” to be that such and such
philosopher’s arguments are (for this and that reason) are bad (or at least not
compelling), and/or such and such philosopher’s philosophical theories or
theses are (for this and that reason) are false. But, and that’s the crucial point,
it is extremely hard to get rid of the impression that all this is nothing more
than mere conceptual relabeling—the result of a highly tendentious conceptual
engineering.
Here’s the thing. Since the general philosophical topics themselves aren’t
solved (and Stoljar acknowledges this), and since even Stoljar cannot doubt
that philosophers (in accordance with their intentions) made attempts to
solve these general topics, I think, it indicates to be strongly out of proportion
to say that we have solved, for example, the big Cartesian or the big Leibnizian
mind-body problem good and proper. It would be more correct to say that
we have learned much from the failure of Descartes and Leibniz. We have
learned, and have already stored it nicely in our minds, that an argument
for substance dualism cannot contain a premise stating the identity of body
and extension; and that the mind is not a monad, for our mental life is quite
certainly not causally closed. These are really important insights—yet, they
are not the solutions to a “big” philosophical problem. Having learned from
the failure of Descartes’ and Leibniz’s arguments, we now have a clearer
understanding of the structure of the mind-body problem—we have a
better understanding of which, seemingly plausible, propositions make
an inconsistent set that results in this problem. In the wake of Descartes’
and Leibniz’s failure, competing mind-body theories (including substance
dualism!) now present themselves to us as being significantly stronger and
more immune to objections than they were in the age of Descartes and
Leibniz.
Let me illustrate the tendentiousness of the way Stoljar speaks about solving
“big” philosophical problems. Let’s suppose that so far medical science has not
been able to cure a single patient, even though it has attempted to do so. At the
70 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

same time, the medical community could show so much success that it could
accurately determine the types of different diseases, clearly distinguish them
from each other, and there would be a series of well-worked-out theories about
the progress of disease types and how they are cured. Moreover, the medical
community would have the knowledge of such true propositions as “Physician
X (carefully considering all the evidence at his disposal) tried hydrotherapy
to cure the patient with tuberculosis, but it did not help him recover”; or that
“Physician Y (carefully considering all available evidence) tried to cure his
patient with kidney failure with coprotherapy, but he could not prevent his
death.” Then someone will suddenly appear and try to convince us that, despite
all appearances, medicine is not really an epistemic failure, nor an unsuccessful
therapeutic undertaking. This is how he would argue:

Medicine has successfully dealt with a number of medical problems. Among

other things, it has solved the problem of the treatment of tuberculosis with
hydrotherapy and the problem of treating kidney failure with coprotherapy.
While we hadn’t known it before, we now know beyond a reasonable doubt that
tuberculosis cannot be treated with hydrotherapy, nor can kidney failure be
treated with coprotherapy.

I think Stoljar acts in a similar spirit as this imaginary person. They both
intend the knowledge that this and this predecessor of ours was mistaken to
masquerade as a great insight. So, in my eyes, Stoljar’s vision is a great deal of
delusion. To use a simile: whoever (like Stoljar) tends to match a philosophical
problem to every single consensually rejected philosophical theory, thesis, or
argument and say (by making reference to the prevailing consensus) “See, we
have solved another philosophical problem” acts like the plumber who deems
it a great success figuring out that the reason why the bathroom is flooded is
not that a fluky maid sneaked in overnight, intentionally ran the bath until it
overflew, and then quietly left—while he doesn’t have even the faintest idea why
the bathroom was actually flooded and how he should remedy the situation.
Let me present my concern about Stoljar’s vision in a slightly different tone
and with a slightly different focus. I think he cannot show that the community of
philosophers possesses substantive and positive philosophical truths—although
this alone would entitle him to speak about the solutions to big philosophical
problems, and this alone could give him a proper reason for optimism.
Let’s revisit Quine’s theory of meaning. It is true indeed that we already
know that we must give up p2 from the corresponding inconsistent triad of
 Philosophy as a Failed Epistemic Enterprise 71

propositions (see Stoljar 2017a: 55). But what exactly have we come to know? We
have come to know a negative substantive truth: not all the facts about meaning
are behavioral facts. We have come to know that one of the many meaning
theories equally vying for truth, namely behaviorism, is false. But, according to
Stoljar, such negative knowledge is not merely negative. As he puts it:

To reject the behavourism behind Quine’s problem about meaning is not simply
to point out that, e.g. this or that behaviourist analysis of meaning is incorrect,
but that the entire project of providing a behaviourist analysis of meaning is
misguided; again, it is to expand the possibilities as to what sort of fact can make
it the case that a word means what it does.
(2017a: 70–1, italics mine)

Or, here is another, more general claim:

[W]hile it is true that rejecting a boundary thesis is negative, there is also

something positive that doing so brings in its train. For to reject or modify a
boundary thesis of the sort we have considered is to reassess or expand the
parameters of the possible as regard a fact, or being a knowable fact, or being
an understandable proposition. But to expand the parameters of the possible in
this sense is to do something positive. To say that inductive inferences need not
be justified in a way is itself either inductive or deductive is to say something
negative; but also opens up further possibilities about how such inferences are to be
justified. Or consider the thesis that the US president need not to be male. That
is a negative thesis, but it brings something positive along with it, since it expands
the accepted possibilities on who can be president.
(2017a: 70, italics mine)

So, Stoljar thinks that if we reject one of the three propositions making up a
boundary problem and thus acquire a negative (“this is not the case”) type
of truth, it also has a positive result. In fact, by knowing that not-p, we can
come to know additional theoretical possibilities (viz. other possible solutions to
philosophical problems) that were previously hidden from us.
Fair enough. Knowledge of which consistent philosophical theories are
possible in connection with various philosophical problems is knowledge indeed.
However, it is certainly not substantive philosophical knowledge, so it is clear
that Stoljar’s optimistic vision is in fact nothing more than what a pessimist can
easily acknowledge. For without further ado, the pessimist can agree that besides
acquiring knowledge of certain negative substantive truths, the community of
philosophers can also acquire knowledge of such non-substantive truths. What
72 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

the pessimist disputes is that we know substantive and positive philosophical

truths, but, apparently, Stoljar cannot assert such truths either. That’s why he
resorts to tendentious conceptual engineering: to advertising a philosophical
problem as solved if we know how things are not (we know that non-p), and
by knowing non-p, we acquire knowledge of further propositions about how
things can be.
To use a slightly transformed and supplemented variant of the above simile,
this is as if one called a successful solution the work of a plumber who knows
that if the drain got clogged then a plumbing snake should be applied, while if
the pipe in the wall is broken then a mason should be called, and he also knows
that the faucet box does not malfunction, but he doesn’t have even the faintest
idea what should be done to restore the water flow.

***

There is only one loose end left—the “identity view.” In order to calmly reject
Stoljar’s entire conceptual ReFrameworking, we don’t need to commit ourselves
to the idea of the “identity view”—the idea of philosophia perennis. We don’t
have to think that Descartes and Leibniz and Jackson were dealing with exactly
the same problem. We might also think (and this was what I argued for in the
third part of the previous chapter) that (for example) the various formulations
of the mind-body problem ensure the temporal continuity or persistence of the
mind-body problem itself. If you wish, the various formulations are the vehicles
of the tradition or “spread” of the mind-body problem.
Let me explain this in a little more detail. As we have seen before with regard
to the structure of the free will and the mind-body problems, these problems
are constituted by inconsistent propositions, and there is no consensus among
philosophers as to which of the propositions at issue should be considered true
and which false—there is no argument for either option that has convinced all
philosophers, or at least most of them.
Now, the fact that no argument exists that has convinced all philosophers as
to which of these mutually inconsistent propositions we should regard as false
is difficult to explain otherwise than by supposing that there is much to be said
for each of these propositions—there are many philosophical considerations in
favor of each, and each is resistant to objections. Let’s revisit the structure of the
mind-body problem in its simplest form. Premise (1) (conscious experiences ≠
physical events) is not easy to give up: the gap-intuition in favor of it is “vigorous”
 Philosophy as a Failed Epistemic Enterprise 73

and “tenacious,” and can even be “pumped” further and further—think, for
example, of the variety of increasingly sophisticated conceivability arguments.
Premise (2) (the thesis of mental causation) is also not easy to give up—few even
try it, since parallelism and epiphenomenalism are both very counter-intuitive
positions. Premise (3) (the thesis of causal closure) is also not easy to give up—
there is good reason to believe that the most successful epistemic enterprise
of mankind is physics, and “[t]he success to date of current physics in finding
sufficient physical causes for physical effects therefore provides inductive
evidence that all physical events, including both unexamined physical events
and examined-but-as-yet-unexplained physical events, have sufficient physical
causes” (Melnyk 2003: 288).
Having said this, I would like to propose that the mind-body problem is made
up of inconsistent propositions, each of which is “epistemically attractive” in its
own right. We would tend to consider each on its own to be true rather than
false; or, to put it more modestly, we would be more inclined to consider each
of them true than false—if, that is, they did not happen to be inconsistent with
one another. Even more modestly, whichever of these three propositions we
deny, we understand exactly why others consider it true—why it is “epistemically
appealing” to others.
Suppose we are physicalists who deny (1). In this case, we can say that of the
three, (1) is the proposition that can be given up at the lowest theoretical cost.
We can also say that the gap is actually an illusion (see e.g., Loar 1990; Papineau
2002). However, we cannot say that (1) is a fatal falsehood without any basis, so
that all anti-physicalists should have long ago realized the illusory nature of this
gap, and since they did not, they are irrational. Whichever proposition we deny
of the three, we must acknowledge that we are aware of the “epistemic appeal” of
the proposition we deny; so much so that we perhaps even acknowledge that we
ourselves are not (completely) immune to its “epistemic appeal,” and reject it in
spite of our (even if faintly) existing “epistemic attraction.”
Now, I agree with Stoljar that the mind-body problem (or the general topic of
the relationship between the “mental” and the “physical”) cannot be understood
exclusively as a combined inconsistency of these three propositions. The number
of propositions may also increase, and their content may also change. And
so, it is true indeed that there are as many mind-body problems as there are
inconsistent sets of propositions corresponding to them—sets are individualized
by their elements. And in that sense, it’s also true that Descartes and Jackson
don’t deal with the same problem.
74 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

But, sticking to the mind-body relationship, it is misleading to conceptualize

inconsistent sets of propositions as problems that are completely independent
of each other, like Stoljar does—and he does so, for otherwise he could not
claim that while Descartes’ mind-body problem is solved, Jackson’s remains
unresolved. I think the following story is more plausible: more and more
formulations of the mind-body problem (more and more inconsistent sets
of propositions) perpetuate a definite and characteristic conceptual tension in
time. This long-standing and well-known tension consists in the fact that, on
the one hand, minds/conscious experiences do not appear to be entities of a
physical nature, but on the other hand, minds/conscious experiences appear
to be physical entities. On the one hand, we do not understand how minds/
conscious experiences could be physical [see arguments in favor of (1)], while
on the other hand, we do not understand how they could not be [see arguments
in favor of (2) and (3)]. No matter what inconsistent set of propositions we
assign to the mind-body problem (or general topic), and no matter how
fine-grained it is, it is certain that THIS tension will dominate it. And THIS
tension spreads further and further in successive formulations of the mind-
body problem—every philosopher who begins to examine the mind-body
relationship faces THIS tension and tries to do something with THIS tension.
This is the sense in which the mind-body problem persists in time.
I propose the following conceptual framework as opposed to Stoljar’s. Every
(or at least most) philosophical problem (regardless of its particular formulation)
is created by a specific (uniquely characterizing) tension—we “come up against”
some inconsistent but “epistemically attractive” propositions. Consequently,
the solution of a philosophical problem would amount to nothing short of
proving, by compelling arguments, which of these tension-inducing, inconsistent
propositions are true and which are false—this is the only way to eliminate the
tension in question. By contrast, the fact that we already know for some time that
Descartes erroneously identified the body with extension merely amounts to the
removal of the term “extension” from the first premise of later conceivability
arguments and its replacement with other terms that refer to our physical (or
perhaps physical plus intentional) properties. By this, however, the tension that
keeps the mind-body problem “alive” has not disappeared (not even subsided),
but rather passed on “intact.” To wrap it up, recognizing Descartes’ error is not
the solution to a problem.
Of course, I still don’t dispute that someone could say (after all, not being
a conceptual contradiction) that “the community of philosophers has solved
Descartes’ mind-body problem good and proper”—I just find it to be a
 Philosophy as a Failed Epistemic Enterprise 75

misleading and tendentious conceptualization. I also don’t dispute that one can
only say that there are some solved philosophical problems if the “identity view”
is false—setting aside the option that one also sees philosophical problems as
solved concerning which there is permanent dissensus. At the same time (and
this is what I am trying to show in this section under the three stars): when we
consider the “identity view” (the idea of philosophia perennis) false, we can still
consistently insist that there are no solved philosophical problems.
To conclude, I don’t share Stoljar’s optimism. He fails to show how
philosophical progress could be anything more than just gaining knowledge of
more and more non-substantive philosophical truths and discrediting certain
substantive philosophical theories. All this, of course, is not nothing, and—pace
Dietrich—it is by no means treading water. At the same time, we must see that
the goals the followers of the epistemic tradition of philosophy set themselves
are significantly more ambitious than the above results, and these philosophers
have failed to achieve these goals. Like it or not: unless we relabel philosophical
questions in the manner of Stoljar, it can hardly be debated that philosophy is
a failed epistemic enterprise—the community of philosophers hasn’t solved
any philosophical problems and doesn’t possess substantive and positive
philosophical truths.

3 Philosophers’ reactions

To sum up what I have said so far, I see things in the following way. The followers
of philosophy’s epistemic tradition have attempted to solve philosophical
problems and promised compellingly justified substantive philosophical truths.
Still, there is disagreement in every area of philosophy among philosophers, and
this pervasive and permanent dissensus is a salient sign that their efforts have
not been successful and their promises were not kept—philosophers are the
actors of an epistemically failed enterprise. Put differently, the community of
philosophers (in which we belong) has no substantive and positive philosophical
knowledge, and philosophy (which we do) has not made the least bit of progress
in the sense that it couldn’t give a satisfactory answer to substantive philosophical
questions at t1, but could do so at t2.
Thus, if a philosopher has substantive and positive philosophical beliefs, then
she has to face the epistemic failure of philosophy and has the epistemic and
moral duty to try to account for their epistemic status. She doesn’t proceed
76 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

correctly if she denies or downplays philosophy’s epistemic failure—she would

severely deceive herself in both cases.
Now, aware of philosophy’s epistemic failure, a philosopher can think in the
following four ways about the epistemic status of her substantive and positive
philosophical beliefs and the closely connected issue of the meaningfulness and
goal of doing philosophy.

(1) In contrast with my predecessors and contemporaries, I have succeeded

in providing compelling justifications for my substantive philosophical
beliefs. I have knock-down arguments for my substantive philosophical
theses. The fact of pervasive and permanent philosophical dissensus and
the fact that the community of philosophers does not have substantive
philosophical knowledge are irrelevant to me. This is because I do
have such knowledge. Of course, I am sorry that other philosophers do
not understand my arguments and are unable to see their compelling
force. Philosophers must not be discouraged by philosophy’s epistemic
failure. They must stick to the original goal of the epistemic tradition,
so they must keep trying to assert compellingly justified substantive
philosophical truths.
(2) I cannot rationally stick to my substantive philosophical beliefs.
Philosophy’s epistemic failure (the pervasive and permanent dissensus)
shows that the truth-seeking and justificatory tools of philosophy are
inadequate and unsuitable, and so, my substantive philosophical beliefs
are inappropriately justified. Consequently, I have to suspend them.
Philosophy’s only meaningful tasks are to formulate increasingly stronger
(preferably knock-down) arguments for meta-skepticism, and to show
that every philosopher has the epistemic duty to suspend their substantive
philosophical beliefs.
(3) I do not believe that it is possible to find compelling justifications in
philosophy. The goals I set for myself must be more modest than that
of trying to formulate knock-down arguments for my philosophical
beliefs. I must undertake to develop a philosophical theory which is in
harmony or equilibrium with my own fundamental pre-philosophical
convictions, and I must defend my theory, elaborated accordingly,
against various objections. If I successfully accomplish these two tasks,
I can rationally stick to my substantive philosophical beliefs, although
I cannot provide compelling justifications for them. It is a mistake to
 Philosophy as a Failed Epistemic Enterprise 77

consider philosophy as a failed enterprise. It is alive and kicking without

compelling arguments.
(4) My philosophical beliefs are meaningless because philosophical problems
are meaningless. Philosophy’s only meaningful tasks are to debunk the
appearance-creating mechanism that is responsible for the genesis of
philosophical problems, and to work out an effective therapy that cures all
persons infected with philosophy of engaging with philosophical problems,
so they cause them no more unnecessary worry.

­ part from the possibility that we will come to acquire some method(s) in the
A
future that reliably supply us with substantive philosophical truths [which is,
by the way, rather closely related to answer (1)], these four reactions nicely
delineate an appropriate logical map. The first question is: Are philosophical
problems meaningful? They are, according to (1), (2), and (3), but they
are not by (4) [I leave out (4) from now on]. The second question is: Can
philosophers rationally stick to their substantive philosophical beliefs? They
can, according to (1) and (3), but they cannot by (2) [I leave out (2) from now
on]. The third question is: Is providing compelling justification the only way
for philosophers to rationally stick to their beliefs? It is, according to (1), but
it is not by to (3).
In the Part II of this book, I will deal with these four reactions (as
metaphilosophical visions), but not in the above order. Firstly, I will examine
the reaction according to which philosophical problems and the philosophers’
philosophical beliefs are meaningless, and philosophy’s only meaningful
goal is therapy. Secondly, I will consider the attitude that allows itself to be
summarized this way: “In contrast to others, I have succeeded in providing
compelling justifications for my philosophical beliefs.” Thirdly, I will analyze the
view according to which philosophers can rationally stick to their substantive
philosophical beliefs even in the absence of compelling arguments. Fourthly,
I will deal with meta-skepticism, which says that in the light of philosophy’s
epistemic failure, the right thing for us to do is to suspend our substantive
philosophical beliefs.
In addressing the question of how we should react to philosophy’s epistemic
failure and what we should do with our substantive philosophical beliefs in the
light of this failure, there will inevitably arise some ethical aspects concerning
our reaction too, such as to what extent we can be sincere about it and to
what extent it is consistent with our insights derived from self-reflection on our
78 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

philosophical activity. That is, while considering possible reactions, the question
emphatically arises: “Can we be sincere about them with a clear intellectual and
moral conscience?” It would be very wrong to react to this failure in a way to
which we cannot commit ourselves, with hand on our heart. Of course, these
“evaluation criteria” can be formulated during the discussion of first-order
philosophical problems too, but they have special significance with regard to the
question at issue.
Part Two
80
 ­3

Therapy for Philosophers

The concept of therapy is in the focus of two (meta)philosophical conceptions.

Eugen Fischer distinguishes and characterizes them as follows:

There are two quite different cases in which a thinker may engage in
philosophical reflection in pursuit of such a therapeutic aim. He may wish, first
and foremost, to solve emotional and behavioural problems that arise in ordinary
life, prior to or independently from philosophical reflection. Let’s say that
philosophical reflection which primarily addresses such problems is constitutive
of philosophical therapy. Second, emotions and behaviours constitutive of
emotional or behavioural problems may arise in the course of and as a result of
philosophical reflection. A philosopher who seeks, first and foremost, to solve
such problems engages in what I would like to call “therapeutic philosophy”.
(Fischer 2011: 53, italics in original)

In other words, “the need for therapy may arise both outside and within
philosophy, and [we] can usefully distinguish between ‘philosophical therapy’
which addresses the extra-philosophical need, and ‘therapeutic philosophy’
which addresses the intra-philosophical need” (Fischer 2011: 50, italics mine).
Philosophical therapy has purely practical goals which fall outside of
philosophy. Philosopher-therapists try to help people achieve and preserve a
happy life and offer remedy to everyday emotional issues and guide those who
wish to follow the path of a virtuous life. At the end of the day, philosopher-
therapists are life coaches with a philosophical education who apply philosophical
methods in their therapy. You could think of methods such as Sextus Empiricus’
proposed suspension of judgment, which yields ataraxia (peace of mind), or the
exercises and meditational techniques suggested by the philosophers of the late
Stoa (Epictetus, Seneca, Marcus Aurelius) that lead to a happy and passionless
life. Or you could think of the method of conceptual-linguistic analysis practiced
often by contemporary philosopher-therapists, which can help dissolve conflicts
82 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

that create emotional confusion, by e.g., pointing out that the parties mean
different things by expressions such as “faithfulness,” “selflessness,” “housework,”
“cheating,” etc.
The advocates of therapeutic philosophy (the late Wittgenstein and his
followers) also try to remedy emotional problems, but only a special kind
thereof—those which arise as a result of dealing with philosophical problems.
What these two concepts share is that neither is aimed at solving philosophical
problems, and that if they succeed, then their success is primarily therapeutic
and not epistemic in kind. But whereas philosophical therapy sits well with the
epistemic or truth-seeking tradition of philosophy, therapeutic philosophy is a
reaction to the epistemic failure of philosophy—according to the late Wittgenstein
and his followers, the members of epistemic tradition unnecessarily worry
while intending to solve philosophical problems, as philosophical problems are
meaningless.
Whether we take philosophical therapy or therapeutic philosophy, the real
place of philosophy is not in academia. Seeing it from the perspective of these
two therapeutic approaches, philosophy that is done within the academic ghetto
has shrunk and become poor (see Hadot 1987/1999: 271). Philosophy affects
everyone and so “philosophy has to be taken out into the world” (Jonge and
Whiteman 2014: 449). Advocates and practitioners of philosophical therapy
think so because by its nature, philosophy is an activity we do in communities,
while advocates and practitioners of therapeutic philosophy think so because
no one is immune to harmful mechanisms generating philosophical problems.
In this chapter I deal with therapeutic philosophy. First, based on ample
textual evidence, I try to exactly reconstruct the later Wittgenstein’s standpoint
on philosophy. In what follows, I attempt to show that Wittgenstein’s therapeutic
philosophy is a bad reaction to the epistemic failure of philosophy.

1 The therapeutic philosophy of the later Wittgenstein

Wittgenstein thinks that philosophy has no positive task, only negative ones:
“All that philosophy can do is to destroy idols. And that means not creating a
new one — say in the ‘absence of an idol’” (BT 413). So, philosophical problems
should be eliminated, instead of being solved: “The problems are […] dissolved
like a lump of sugar in water” (BT 421); “the philosophical problems should
completely disappear” (PI 133, italics in original). He views his own philosophical
work as destruction: “it seems […] to destroy everything interesting, that is, all
 Therapy for Philosophers 83

that is great and important […] [but] what we are destroying is nothing but
houses of cards and we are clearing up the ground of language on which they
stood” (PI 118).
Why is the task of eliminating philosophical problems assigned to philosophy?
Because they are meaningless. Meaningful (genuine) problems clearly should
not be eliminated but solved. One such meaningful (genuine) problem is “Is
Goldbach’s conjecture true?” but “What does butter do when its price goes
up?” (see PI 693) is a meaningless (not genuine) question, hence it should be
eliminated. “What is the best way to relieve poverty?” is a meaningful (genuine)
problem, but the mind-body problem, the problem of universals, other minds,
the metaphysical status of physical objects, etc., i.e., philosophical problems are
meaningless (not genuine).
What makes a question or problem meaningless? That it occurs as a result
of some kind of conceptual confusion. Such is the above “What does butter do
when its price goes up?” or the question “What kind of an object is the right jab
I’m throwing at my opponent?” This is because butter is not a thing that can
act and a right jab is not a physical object that can be moved from one place to
another.
Wittgenstein thinks that philosophical questions are just as meaningless as
the question “What does butter do …?” or “What kind of an object a right jab
is …?” as similarly to these, they arise out of conceptual confusion. The only
difference is that while we immediately see the conceptual/categorical confusion
in “What does butter do …?” and “What kind of an object a right jab is …?”
in the case of philosophical questions, we do not. So, while “What does butter
do …?” or “What kind of an object a right jab is …?” are innocent “grammatical
jokes” (PI 111), philosophical questions are nothing but symptoms of permanent
conceptual confusions we do not detect. This is why Wittgenstein also formulates
his philosophical aim as follows: “My aim is: to teach you to pass from a piece of
disguised nonsense to something that is patent nonsense” (PI 464).
How are supposed to imagine this? Let’s assume that two people are arguing
about what butter does when its price goes up. One of them says: “Butter has
always desired to be more valued and now its dream came true.” The other goes:
“Butter didn’t originally wish to be more valued but pork pâté manipulated it,
so it finally agreed to having its price increased.” In this case your job is not to
compare these theories, not to assess which one is more plausible or has greater
explanatory force, which one is free from the faults of the other, but simply to
show that the above question is a result of conceptual confusion. Wittgenstein
suggests that we should do exactly the same in the case of philosophical problems,
84 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

since every philosophical problem is exactly as meaningless as the one about the
price of butter. The only difference is that in the case of philosophical problems,
it will be harder to do that, as it is harder to catch this kind of conceptual
confusion at work.
When do philosophical problems arise? Wittgenstein thinks it is “when
language is like an engine idling, not when it is doing work” (PI 132); “when
language goes on holiday” (PI 38, italics in original). Or, to use other quotes:
“The results of philosophy are the uncovering of one or another piece of plain
nonsense and bumps that the understanding has got by running its head up
against the limits of language” (PI 119).
Now, if philosophical problems arise from the misunderstanding of our
language, then the misunderstanding of language is a precondition of the existence
of philosophical problems, which means that there are no genuine philosophical
problems. If, having realized the relevant conceptual confusions, we stopped
misunderstanding our language, we would also run out of philosophical
problems in no time.

1.1 Misunderstanding language and the genesis of philosophical

problems
Wittgenstein identifies two specific features of language that are responsible for
creating philosophical problems. One cause of linguistic misunderstandings is
that we are misled by the surface grammar of language: “A main source of our
failure to understand is that we do not command a clear view of the use of our
words. — Our grammar is lacking in this sort of perspicuity” (PI 122, italics
in original). This lack of perspicuity is due to “Misunderstandings concerning
the use of words, caused, among other things, by certain analogies between the
forms of expression in different regions of language” (PI 90); “So long as there is
a verb ‘be’ that seems to function like ‘eat’ and ‘drink’, […] humans will continue
to bump up against the same mysterious difficulties, and stare at something that
no explanation seems able to remove” (BT 424).
Another cause for misunderstandings is that certain pictures are embedded
in language, which affect or determine how we pose our questions. These
questions are meaningless, but they seem to have meaning in the context of
embedded pictures: “A picture held us captive. And we could not get outside
it, for it lay in our language and language seemed to repeat it to us inexorably”
(PI 115, italics in original).
 Therapy for Philosophers 85

Let’s look at an example of overlooking that despite certain surface

grammatical similarities, some expressions function very differently in different
contexts. Wittgenstein’s most frequently used example is the verb “have” (“haben”
in German).
Take “I have an apartment,” or “I have a book.” They both express a relation
between myself and something else (an apartment and a book). Let’s now take
“I have an image” (“I habe eine Vorstellung” in German). The three sentences
share their surface structure. Due to this surface correspondence, we tend to
understand the third sentence, too, as expressing a relation between myself
and a thing (namely, an image). This way, since we committed ourselves to the
existence of the image as a thing, we come to understand “I have an image” as
“I have something, namely an image” instead of simply taking to mean “I am
imagining something.”
Wittgenstein thinks we already have a trouble here. For this image, which
is related to me is clearly not a public object but something that is essentially
private. Let’s look at the following wording:

“[W]hen I imagine something, or even actually see objects, I have got something
which my neighbour has not.” — I understand you. You want to look about you
and say: “At any rate only I have got THIS”.
(PI 398)

Et voilà, this is how Wittgenstein thinks the sense-datum theory is born out
of a misunderstanding of the collocation of “have” and “image.” As a result of
the misunderstanding of these two expressions, you think “You have a new
conception and interpret it as seeing a new object” (PI 401), namely a sense-
datum; and “You interpret a grammatical movement made by yourself as a
quasi-physical phenomenon which you are observing” (PI 401). Finally, this
“grammatical movement” leads you to ask questions such as “Are sense-data the
material of which the universe is made?” (PI 401). This is how a simple and
innocent-looking but in fact harmful linguistic misunderstanding generates a
meaningless metaphysical question.
Another type of linguistic misunderstanding is when we are misled by the
pictoriality of language. Wittgenstein elaborates on this most fully when he
discusses the metaphysical problem of time with special regards to Augustine’s
view. Let me quote a longer passage here:

“Where does the present go when it becomes past, and where is the past?” —
Under what circumstances has this question an allurement for us? For under
86 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

certain circumstances it hasn’t, and we should wave it away as nonsense. It is

clear that this question most easily arises if we are preoccupied with cases in
which there are things flowing by us — as logs of wood float down a river. In
such a case we can say the logs which have passed us are all down towards the
left and the logs which will pass us are all up towards the right. We then use this
situation as a simile for all happening in time and even embody the simile in our
language, as when we say that “the present event passes by” (a log passes by),
“the future event is to come” (a log is to come). We talk about the flow of events;
but also about the flow of time — the river on which the logs travel.

Here is one of most fertile sources of philosophical puzzlement: we talk of the

future event of something coming into my room, and also of the future coming of
this event. We say, “Something will happen”, and also “Something comes towards
me”, we refer to the log as “something”, but also the log’s coming towards me.
(BB 60, italics in original)

The question “Where does the present go when it becomes past, and where is the
past?” is meaningless, but it seems meaningful in the context where we compare
time to a river in which events float like objects do, from left to right—from the
past, through the present and into the future. To put it more accurately: it is only
in this context that it seems to be meaningful. If, however, trying to resist the
pictoriality of this metaphor, we could part with the picture of time as a river,
then we would instantly recognize the meaninglessness of this question. Just as
we can instantly recognize that the questions “Where does the candle’s light go
after you have put it out?” or “Where does light go once you turn off the light?”
(see BB 60) are meaningless.

1.2 The role of grammatical investigations

According to certain interpreters, grammatical investigations serve theoretical
purposes in the later Wittgenstein’s philosophy. They interpret passages such
as “Essence is expressed in grammar” (PI 371, italics in original); “Grammar
tells what kind of object anything is” (PI 373) as saying that grammatical
investigations have positive goals (see e.g., Kenny 1984: 43)—they have to reveal
certain essences.
In fact, this is not about Wesensschau at all—the later Wittgenstein is not
a kind of grammatical Husserl. Grammatical investigations can indeed reveal
certain “essences,” but this means nothing else than realizing how we actually
use certain expressions in ordinary language. The results of grammatical
 Therapy for Philosophers 87

investigation are embodied in uttering trivialities—Wittgenstein calls them

“grammatical propositions” (PI 251). He thinks of sentences such as “Sensations
are private” (PI 248); “One plays patience by oneself ” (PI 248); “[T]he smile of
an unweaned infant is not a pretence” (PI 249); “[A] dog [cannot] simulate pain”
(PI 250); “This body has extension” (PI 252).
The repeated utterance of these trivialities plays the role of reminders of
the actual use of our words. These sentences remind us of the fact that we use
our expressions this way and not otherwise. We need these reminders because
only by having these trivial grammatical sentences in mind can we be clear
about where we diverge from the everyday use of our words when we formulate
philosophical problems.
Wittgenstein refers to this role of grammatical investigations when he says
“What we do is to bring words back from their metaphysical back to their
everyday use” (PI 116, italics in original); this is the point of the passage that
looks enigmatic at first sight, according to which “The work of the philosopher
consists in assembling reminders for a particular purpose” (PI 127); and this
is what he means when he says that philosophical problems are dissolved “by
looking into the workings of our language, and that in such a way as to make us
recognize those workings: in despite of an urge to misunderstand them” (PI 109,
italics in original).
The trivial nature of grammatical sentences makes Wittgenstein say “If one
tried to advance theses in philosophy, it would never be possible to debate
them, because everyone would agree to them” (PI 128, italics in original), and
that “Philosophy only states what everyone admits” (PI 599). This is also the
reason why he writes “Since everything lies open to view there is nothing to
explain” (PI 126), and that “There must not be anything hypothetical in our
considerations. We must do away with all explanation, and description alone
must take its place” (PI 109, italics in original).
What should one do if one wishes to follow Wittgenstein? In the words of
an interesting Harry Potter character, Alastor “Mad-eye” Mordon, what one
needs is “constant vigilance!” Why does one need constant vigilance? Because
our language continuously misleads us and continuously prompts us to ask
meaningless questions due to its surface grammar, misleading pictoriality and
false analogies. Thus, the eliminating of philosophical problems (which is the
only purpose of philosophy) cannot happen overnight but is a long process,
or to quote Wittgenstein: “a slow cure” (Z 382, italics in original). Or, to use a
more vivid metaphor of his: “Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment
of our intelligence by means of our language” (PI 109, italics mine), i.e., it
88 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

is a constant struggle with language; constant resistance to the temptation to

concern ourselves with meaninglessness due to our misunderstanding of
language.
From the fact that philosophy is a struggle, it follows that good and meaningful
philosophy is not embodied in various studies (journals and textbooks)—instead,
its ontological status is activity. What should the followers of Wittgenstein do?
Two things. On the one hand, they (as interpreters of Wittgenstein) need to
show that “Wittgenstein was not taking sides in the muddled controversies […]
and his reflections cannot be fitted into the misconceived pigeon-holes currently
in vogue. The premises upon which these latter-day controversies stand would
all be rejected by him as dogmas, absurdities, and misunderstandings” (Hacker
1993: 546). On the other hand, they (as the lonely and heroic advocates of
therapeutic philosophy) need to show that most of the philosophical studies
published and read, or even quoted sometimes, are the meaningless products of
misunderstanding language.

1.3 The psychological component

So far, I have intentionally ignored the most important aspect of Wittgenstein’s
therapeutic philosophy. I only claimed that he thinks philosophical problems are
meaningless, as they arise from the misunderstanding of language. At the same
time, I passed over in silence the fact that he thinks that philosophical problems
can cause unsettling tension, i.e., real emotional disorders.
Let’s look at Wittgenstein’s following phrasings: “What we call a philosophical
problem is a kind of particular, individual disturbance” (PG 193); “The problems
arising through a misinterpretation of our forms of language have the character
of depth. They are deep disquietudes; their roots are as deep in us the forms of
our language and their significance is as great as the importance of our language”
(PI 111, italics in original).
He also says the following: “The philosopher’s treatment of a question is
like the treatment of an illness” (PI 255); “A philosophical problem has the
form: ‘I don’t know my way about’” (PI 123); “The philosophical problem is an
awareness of disorder in our concepts” (BT 421). And, finally, here are the most
vivid metaphors and similes: philosophical problems are “knots in our thinking”
(BT 422); “bumps” (PI 119); “constant irritations” (BT 409); and they are “like
having a hair on one’s tongue; one feels it, but can’t get hold of, and therefore
can’t get rid of it” (BT 409).
 Therapy for Philosophers 89

Or let’s take the well-known passage:

Naming appears as a queer connexion of a word with an object. — And you really
get such a queer connexion when a philosopher tries to bring out the relation
between name and thing by staring at an object in front of him and repeating a
name or even the word “this” innumerable times.
(PI 38, italics in original)

Richard Rorty is wrong when he attributes irony and sarcasm to Wittgenstein in

this and similar remarks of his and calls the Philosophical Investigations “volumes
of satire” (1979: 369). There is no irony, sarcasm, or satire to be found here.
Instead, Wittgenstein describes the symptoms of a peculiar illness. A person
who keeps repeating the word “this” while staring at an object in order to use
his introspection to discover how the word “this” denotes the object in front of
him is miserable and ill. He is someone who deserves sympathy and treatment
instead of irony and sarcasm.
In light of the above passages, it is understandable what Wittgenstein sees his
own duty in: “As I do philosophy, its entire task is to shape expression in such a
way that certain worries disappear” (BT 421, italics mine); “The real discovery
is the one that makes me capable of stopping doing philosophy when I want to”
(PI 133).
Now, if dealing with philosophical problems leads to psychological/emotional
problems, then philosophy is only legitimate as therapy (see PI 133). And the
goal of this therapeutic philosophy can only be to eliminate those unsettling
tensions (those uncomfortable conscious experiences) that arise from dealing
with philosophical problems. In other words, it should bring us the “peace
of mind” (BT 416) we long to have. Therapeutic philosophy done well brings
“peace, so that [we are] no longer tormented by [philosophical] questions”
(PI 133, italics mine).
It is important to see that Wittgenstein did not just consider his own recovery.
He did not want to be just the home therapist of philosophers, either, as the
emotional disturbances caused by philosophical problems can take a hold of
anyone at any time if they are not on their guard. No one is immune to linguistic
misunderstanding, so it is not just philosophers working professionally on
philosophical problems who are exposed to the mesmerizing power of language
but everyone else is: “Human beings are deeply imbedded in philosophical, i.e.,
grammatical, confusions” (BT 423). Given all this, Wittgenstein thinks that
doing philosophy is not just the business of philosophers. It is much more and
90 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

more important than that. It is an activity that everyone ought to carry out on
account of being exposed to these dangers.
There is something else I need to stress. The problem is not simply that
we are disturbed or lack our peace of mind. If we are deeply unsettled by a
mathematical or physical problem as mathematicians or physicists—that is
completely in order. All we need to do is solve the problem at hand and we will
have achieved, for a while at least, our peace of mind. It is only the disturbance
caused by philosophical problems that is pathological. If these cause us to be
unsettled, then, as we are battling pseudo-problems, we suffer senselessly. So,
we need to achieve our peace of mind differently to how a mathematician or
physicist does. This is the point at which the therapeutic philosophy suggested
by Wittgenstein can come to our aid.

2 The failure of Wittgenstein’s therapeutic philosophy

I don’t want to dispute that there are meaningless philosophical problems and
that their meaninglessness stems from some conceptual confusion. Thus, I
don’t want to dispute that some philosophers are really deceived by the surface
grammar or pictoriality of language, which leads them to put forward meaningless
philosophical theses and makes their philosophical beliefs meaningless. But I
do dispute that all philosophical problems are pseudo-problems arising from
the misunderstanding of language and that all philosophers who put forward
philosophical theses are victims of conceptual confusions. In a word, I don’t think
that Wittgenstein reacts appropriately to the epistemic failure of philosophy,
or that he gives a right answer to the question “What should we do with our
philosophical beliefs in the light of the epistemic failure of philosophy?” I have
three main concerns about Wittgenstein’s therapeutic philosophy.

2.1 Self-defeat
I think that Wittgenstein’s therapeutic philosophy is self-defeating. Here goes
the argument. In order for Wittgenstein to hold that the only task of doing
philosophy is to provide therapy, there has to be some kind of diagnosis first. And
there is one indeed. According to this, philosophical questions and problems are
meaningless. But in order not to simply declare this, Wittgenstein needs to give
clear criteria of meaningfulness and meaninglessness. But these criteria should
also not simply be declared ex cathedra, so he has to say something about the
 Therapy for Philosophers 91

nature of linguistic meaning. And he does: “[T]he meaning of a word is its use in
the language” (PI 43, italics mine). But that is still not enough. Since an expression
can be used wrongly (e.g., somebody may systematically substitute the word
“theology” with the word “teleology,” or the expression “phenomenology” with
the expression “phenomenalism”), Wittgenstein must say (and he says indeed)
that “the meaning of a word = its right use.” Now, the right use of words and
expressions presupposes certain rules: “right use = right rule-following.” The
question arises as to what determines right rule-following. Wittgenstein must
answer something, and he does say it: right use is not determined by some mental
or neural fact but only the standard practice of the language-using community.
Furthermore, following a rule is not a disposition manifested in some behavioral
pattern but simple conformity with existing practice (see PI 198–241; and see
esp. Kripke 1982).
The appeal to the right use of words is a crucial point in Wittgenstein’s
line of thought. The success of the diagnosis depends on it. It is by appealing
to the right use of words that he has to show that assertions that prima facie
seem to be meaningful (e.g., “A physical event is defined by where and when it
happens”; “The distinguishing mark of the ‘mental’ is that the subject of mental
phenomena accesses them differently than other people do”; “Ordinary objects
persist by being wholly present at different times”) are actually meaningless
pseudo-assertions. Wittgenstein cannot think the same of the status of this
theory of meaning (or rather, conception of meaning) as of philosophical
theories in general, viz. that it is meaningless, since one meaningless conception
of meaning will surely not ground the criterion that is desired and fundamentally
important for his diagnosis. Thus, he must view his own conception of meaning
as meaningful. But it is not enough for it to be meaningful, it also must be true,
since a bad and false conception of meaning cannot serve as the grounds for the
desired criterion. If, however, he considers it to be true, then there will certainly
be such a philosophical problem, philosophical conception, philosophical
thesis, and philosophical belief that he considers as meaningful and true—
consequently, he cannot claim that all philosophical problems, theories, theses,
and beliefs are meaningless. But since he claims this, he is caught in the trap of
self-defeat.
I think there are only two ways to avoid the conclusion that Wittgenstein’s
therapeutic philosophy is self-defeating. One is to claim that “All philosophical
theses are meaningless except those that feature in the diagnosis needed for
the therapy.” The other is to claim that “The making of a diagnosis needed
for the therapy is not a philosophical achievement; everything Wittgenstein
92 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

says about the nature of linguistic meaning, i.e., everything that is to ground
the criterion of meaningfulness is not a substantial philosophical thesis, but
something else—something that is a triviality in an absolute sense, which does
not need any justification” (see esp. Horwich 2012: ch. 4).
These, however, seem to be ad hoc maneuvers. Frankly speaking, they
cannot easily be taken seriously. Firstly, why should exactly those substantive
philosophical theses (concerning linguistic meaning) be the only meaningful
ones that Wittgenstein asserts in establishing a diagnosis needed for his therapy?
Secondly, why should it not be a substantive (linguistic) philosophical thesis that
“The concept of right use has a pivotal role in defining or characterizing the
concept of meaning”; or that “The ability of rule-following is nothing but simple
conformity with actual practice”? Moreover, why should it be a triviality to say that
“The concept of use (and not, say, that of truth, inferential role or communicative
intention) is fundamental to defining or characterizing the concept of linguistic
meaning”; or that “Rule-following is determined only by the standard practice of
the language-using community”? All the more so, because both theses are open
to several rock-hard objections.

2.2 Convincing force close to zero

My other main concern with Wittgenstein’s therapeutic philosophy is simply
that the convincing force of his therapeutic exercises is close to zero. Let me start
with the sense-datum theory. The orthodoxy is that the strongest argument for
the sense-datum theory is the “argument from hallucination.” In outline, it goes
as follows:

(1) When S hallucinates a red tomato, then S is aware of something—it is

phenomenologically implausible to describe S’s hallucinatory perceptual
experience as S is not aware of anything.
(2) The entity that S is aware of during the hallucination cannot be identified
with any element in the world that exists independently of S’s current
perceptual experience but is a mind-dependent entity (sense datum).
(3) If S’s hallucinatory perceptual experience is subjectively indistinguishable
from S’s veridical perceptual experience, then S is in the same type of
mental state when S is hallucinating and when S has a veridical perceptual
experience.

Therefore:
 Therapy for Philosophers 93

(C) When S veridically perceives the red tomato, S is (again) directly aware of a
kind of mind-dependent entity (sense datum) and only indirectly perceives
the red tomato that exists independently of S’s current perceptual experience.

Can you see anything in this argument that would allow you to draw the
conclusion that the proponent of the argument from hallucination is a victim of
some conceptual confusion? Premise (1) says on the basis of the phenomenology
of hallucinations that S is aware of something when S hallucinates. Premise (2) is
a simple stipulation—it is a definition of the concept of a sense datum as a mind-
dependent entity. Premise (3), according to which two numerically distinct but
subjectively indistinguishable conscious experiences are the same type of mental
events, is the most obvious suggestion—what else could determine the type of
a conscious experience than factors we can access subjectively? In a word, the
concept and theory of sense datum seem to have apparently nothing to do with
the alleged misunderstanding of “have/haben” and “image/Vorstellung”—thus
Wittgenstein’s diagnosis is not convincing, and consequently, neither is his
therapy built thereon.
As for the metaphysical problem of time: one has to admit that it is not the
best way to formulate the question thus: “Where does the present go when
it becomes past, and where is the past?” But one can paraphrase Augustine’s
question as follows: “Does the past exist, and if so, in what sense?” to which
one can answer: “Yes, it exists, as do past facts, and past facts exist in the
same sense as present ones do.” Here is a sketch of a possible argument for
eternalism:

(1) For every true contingent proposition, there is (or: must be) something
which makes it true. For example, the proposition “Whales are mammals”
is made true by the fact that whales are mammals. If this fact did not obtain,
then the proposition “Whales are mammals” would not be true.
(2) Propositions about the past can be true. For example, the proposition
“Dinosaurs walked the Earth in the Jurassic period” is true. Or, the
proposition “Wittgenstein was born in Vienna” is also true.

Therefore:

(C) The past and past facts exist, and they are as real as the present and present
facts are. If only the present and present facts existed, then there would be
nothing that would make propositions about the past true, so they could not
be true.
94 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

My question is the same as before: can you see anything in this argument that
would allow you to draw the conclusion that the proponent of the argument for
eternalism is a victim of some conceptual confusion? Seriously, which premise
comes from the image of the river of time embedded in our language? Premises
(1) and (2) seem to be obvious truths. If I were ill-willed, I would invoke a
passage by Wittgenstein himself against his own therapeutic philosophy, saying
that our convictions that “There must be something that makes contingently
true propositions true” and that “We can assert true propositions about the past,”
in his own words, “form the foundation of all operating with thoughts (with
language)” (OC 401, italics mine). Consequently, these, as the cases of “pre-
knowledge” (“Vorwissen”), cannot arise from misunderstanding language.
Of course, in saying this I don’t want to claim that all premises of the above
two arguments are true, and that the arguments themselves are compelling.
All I claim is that, for the life of me, I cannot see any conceptual confusion or
misunderstanding of language in any of the premises. That is, even if both
arguments are strongly controversial, neither of them is meaningless.
A Wittgensteinian therapist could retort that I’m still a victim of conceptual
confusion. He might say: “It is true that in formulating the ‘argument from
hallucination’ you were not misled by the conjunction of the words ‘have’ and
‘image’—the reason you are mistaken this time around is that you overlook the
fact that in the case of hallucinations it is meaningless to say that ‘Someone
is aware of something.’” And likewise, he might continue: “It is true that in
formulating the argument for eternalism you are not being misled by the image
of the river of time suggested by our language—the reason you are mistaken this
time around is that you fail to notice that it is meaningless to say that ‘Such and
such a thing makes such and such proposition true,’ that is, ‘Something makes a
truth of something else.’” And after rebuking me this way, he could add that “It
is no wonder you don’t find Wittgenstein’s suggested therapies convincing, since
you keep using meaningless sentences even in giving reasons for why you don’t
find these suggestions convincing.”
This response is hard to answer—invoking again Wittgenstein’s own words:
“I have reached bedrock, and my spade is turned” (PI 217). All I can say is the
following: perhaps one cannot go on like that infinitely. To put it mildly, it is
not very polite for the Wittgensteinian therapist to counter my misgivings
about his offered therapies by saying that I misunderstand language again and
again. To put it differently, the reason it is extremely difficult to argue with the
Wittgensteinian therapist is that he keeps repeating that I don’t notice that I
speak nonsense even when I try to make him understand why it doesn’t seem to
 Therapy for Philosophers 95

me that there are any conceptual confusions or linguistic misunderstandings in

the above two arguments—he immunizes his standpoint against all objections.
Insofar as he were able to place himself in the perspective of “the baffled ones”
(let me add that he must be able to do that as a therapist), beyond a point, I
think, he would have to admit that it is rather hard to believe that every
philosopher who doesn’t see any conceptual confusions in the premises of the
above two arguments suffers from fatal blindness, and that Wittgenstein and the
Wittgensteinian therapists are the only ones who can see something that not a
single soul except them can see.

­2.3 Undermotivation
I think that Wittgenstein’s anti-philosophy attitude that characterized the whole
course of his career was engendered by his experience of philosophy’s epistemic
failure. As he puts it: “Philosophy really doesn’t make any progress, that the same
philosophical problems that occupied the Greeks keep occupying us” (BT 424,
italics mine). The already analyzed conceptual connection is clear: if philosophers
had succeeded in solving certain substantive philosophical problems, then
we should count that as progress—at t1 they did not yet know the solution of
this or that substantive philosophical problem, but at t2 they already know it.
Nevertheless, philosophers have not succeeded in solving a single substantive
philosophical problem, consequently we cannot talk about substantive progress
in philosophy.
I cannot see any other explanation. If some substantive philosophical problems
had been solved by the community of philosophers, and so there would be
consensually accepted philosophical theories, then Wittgenstein could not claim
that all philosophical problems are meaningless. If philosophers had agreed in
1935 that charge, mass, spin, etc., are immanent universals, as physicists did
about Maxwell’s equations in the same year, then Wittgenstein would not have
had any reason to deem the problem of universals to be meaningless.
However, let’s take notice that even if we face the epistemic failure of
philosophy as forcefully as Wittgenstein did, we still don’t have to interpret this
failure by saying that philosophical problems are meaningless pseudo-problems
arising from conceptual confusion. Considering the self-defeating character of
Wittgenstein’s therapeutic philosophy and its close-to-zero convincing force, it
seems more obvious to say that philosophical problems are meaningful but are
unsolvable with the tools of philosophy. I’m not saying that we have to be meta-
skeptics, all I’m saying is that the commitment to Wittgenstein’s therapeutic
96 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

philosophy is undermotivated. After all, if someone, like Wittgenstein does,

aims at achieving peace of mind, that is, stopping doing philosophy whenever
they want to (see PI 133), then they can achieve that goal by suspending their
philosophical beliefs as well. This is because the suspension of philosophical
beliefs entails “at best” the abandonment of philosophical truth-seeking, which
“offers the prospect” of the slow waning of one’s cognitive needs for dealing with
philosophical problems.

­3 Farewell to Wittgenstein

I think Wittgenstein does not react appropriately to philosophy’s epistemic

failure, nor does he give a right answer to the question of what we should do with
our philosophical beliefs in the light of the epistemic failure of philosophy. His
view is almost certainly self-defeating. His therapeutic practices have very little
convincing force and efficiency. Choosing his therapeutic philosophy would be
undermotivated, as there are other, probably more efficient ways of achieving
peace of mind.
But, instead of repeating my earlier criticism, I would like to say what it is that
I find especially unappealing in the later Wittgenstein’s philosophical attitude.
In my opinion, there are only two possibilities, and in my eyes, both are
equally insupportable. One is that Wittgenstein sees, and in his sincere moments,
even admits to himself that his therapeutic philosophy is self-defeating because
while he supports the diagnosis for his therapies with a substantive philosophical
conception of linguistic meaning (from now on, a bit defiantly, I’ll call this
concept “use theory”), he also thinks that all substantive philosophical theories
and all substantive philosophical theses are meaningless. If this is indeed the
case, what Wittgenstein does is quite unethical, as he hides behind the slogans
“Oh no, I’m not in the business a producing any real philosophical theses”; “Oh
no, far be it from me to advance any substantive philosophical theses.” Thus,
he consciously plays down and lies about an existing contradiction that seems
ineliminable. In a word, he is a charlatan.
The other (and much more probable) possibility is that Wittgenstein
seriously believes that the use theory of meaning underlying the diagnosis for his
therapies is not a substantive philosophical theory, and as such, it is not in need
of any philosophical justification. That is, he thinks that what the use theory of
meaning says is something absolutely evident, a triviality. He even introduces
it this way: “For a large class of cases—though not for all—in which we employ
 Therapy for Philosophers 97

the word ‘meaning’ it can be defined thus: the meaning of a word is its use in the
language” (PI 43, italics in original).
However, Wittgenstein must know (and he obviously knows) that there
are philosophers who strongly contest the truth of the use theory of meaning.
Wittgenstein is not silly, so he obviously sees that the reasoning of PI 43 is circular,
because he can only appeal to the use of the word “meaning” to point out the
trivial truth of the use theory of meaning if he has already committed himself to
the use theory of meaning—for why would it be of any interest otherwise?
With the above, I want to say that if Wittgenstein really seriously believes that
the things he says about meaning do not add up to any substantive philosophical
theory but—in spite of their controversial nature—are absolutely obvious, then
it can be strongly suspected (I for myself cannot imagine any other possibilities)
that Wittgenstein considers himself a kind of oracle, with the spirit or genius
of ordinary language speaking through him, someone from whom the truths
about linguistic meaning and rule-following are emanated. Which means that
he thinks “I, Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein, don’t need arguments; due to
my excellence I can access the working of ordinary language and can see it not
through a glass, darkly, but face to face; and this being so, I can safely ignore the
objections of all those who disagree with me.” For if he really does believe that
he says only trivial truths about meaning and he sees that other people disagree
with him, then his thought can only be: “Unlike me, they are lost in the labyrinth
of language.” In a word, he isn’t a charlatan but a fanatic.
Now, whether we consider the case that he consciously downplays self-defeat,
or the case that he considers himself an oracle, I feel that to me, Wittgenstein’s
attitude is anything but a model to be followed in accounting for the epistemic
status of my substantive philosophical beliefs. And, I think, it cannot be a model
to anyone who seriously faces up to the fact of pervasive disagreement in all
fields of philosophy (including dissensus about linguistic meaning); who doesn’t
think it would be right to downplay the problem with a philosopher drawing
on substantive philosophical theses to support his philosophical view that all
substantive philosophical theses are meaningless; and who feels it inappropriate
to consider himself an oracle capable of seeing through confusions no one
else can see through. Thus, it cannot be an example to anyone who considers
charlatanism and fanaticism as equally unacceptable.
98
 ­4

Philosophy With (Intended-To-Be)

Compelling Justification

Here’s the second reaction to philosophy’s epistemic failure:

I’m well aware that philosophers haven’t fulfilled their promises—they haven’t
solved philosophical problems. Still, this means only that my predecessors
and contemporaries have failed. I, however, have succeeded—I have found the
truth and I have got compelling justification for my substantive philosophical
beliefs.

This formulation: “I have found truth” or “I, of all people, am the one who has
compelling justification,” or perhaps “We, of all people, are the ones who have at
last succeeded” forms the essence of this reaction. It largely says that:

After thorough investigation, I have realized that there are no philosophers or

philosophical schools that are in possession of some well-founded philosophical
truths. Even if there are some philosophers who hold the right view, their
arguments aren’t strong enough—they don’t have compelling force. I myself
had to produce compelling justifications for this or that philosophical thesis. I
myself had to solve this or that philosophical problem. And, after a number of
aborted attempts by others, I myself had to create and promote philosophy as an
epistemically successful enterprise.

In this chapter, I deal with this reaction to philosophy’s epistemic failure,

which—not without sarcasm—I will call the “I’m the only one” view. First, I
will illustrate the “I’m the only one” attitude with some well-known quotes. In
what follows, I will put myself in the place of an imaginary “I’m the only one”
philosopher and try to vividly describe the gist of the “I’m the only one” attitude
and its main motivations. Finally, I will say why I think that the “I’m the only
one” philosophers’ reaction to philosophy’s epistemic failure is improper and
100 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

why I think they give a wrong answer to the question “What should we do with
our philosophical beliefs in the light of philosophy’s epistemic failure?”
A terminological note. You may be bothered by the wording “I’m the only one.”
You may think that typically not a single philosopher defends a philosophical
position (be it any of them), but many do, so it would be more appropriate to
use the phrase “We’re the only ones.” I admit that it would be more appropriate
in that regard. Still, what makes me prefer the term “I’m the only one” is that it
phenomenologically better captures the attitudes of those philosophers who are
certain that they have acquired substantive philosophical truths. The emphasis
is not on whether these philosophers have or do not have comrades. All that
matters is that, despite being aware of the permanent disagreements in all areas
of philosophy, they judge (or perhaps rather dare to judge) that while others
are wrong, being in possession of compelling arguments, they know substantive
philosophical truths.

1 The “I’m the only one” attitude—an illustration

The attitude of the followers of the epistemic tradition (for I’m speaking
about them, although not all of them) has always been characterized by the
above duality. On the one hand, they were dissatisfied with philosophy’s
accomplishment up to that point, and often had a very low opinion of some—
or even all—other philosophers’ activity. On the other hand, they themselves
made attempts to turn philosophy into an epistemically fruitful enterprise—not
infrequently considering themselves as the Copernicus or Newton of philosophy.
They precisely saw philosophy’s epistemic failure, but at the same time, they
were certain that—in contrast to their predecessors and contemporaries—
they will fulfil (or have already fulfilled) their promises and remedy (or have
already remedied) the situation. They often sharply criticized the arguments of
their predecessors and contemporaries, but thought that their own arguments
were flawless and so they might as well create the much-awaited consensus
in philosophy. Their characteristic rhetoric was the following: “So far all
philosophy” [insert a criticizing phrase here such as “was lost”; “had no solid
grounding”; “provided no certain knowledge”], “but now (!) that I have entered
the story, everything is going to change (!)” [insert a nice fat promise here]. This
rhetoric and attitude is familiar to you, isn’t it?
Among the great dead philosophers, Descartes voiced his dissatisfaction
this way:
 Philosophy With Compelling Justification 101

Concerning philosophy I shall say only that, seeing that it has been cultivated
for many centuries by the most excellent minds […] and that, nevertheless, there
still is nothing in it about which there is not some dispute, and consequently
nothing that is not doubtful […] Then, as for the other sciences, I judged that,
insofar as they borrow their principles from philosophy, one could not have
built anything solid upon such unstable foundations. […] And thus I thought
that book learning […] does not draw nearly so close to the truth as the simple
reasonings that a man of good sense can naturally make about the things he
encounters.
(1637/2000: 49–51)

Or, here’s Hume’s beautifully written passage:

Nor is there requir’d such profound knowledge to discover the present imperfect
condition of the sciences [that is, philosophy], but even the rabble without doors
may judge from the noise and clamour, which they hear, that all goes not well
within. There is nothing which is not the subject of debate, and in which men
of learning are not of contrary opinions. The most trivial question escapes not
our controversy, and in the most momentous we are not able to give any certain
decision. Disputes are multiplied, as if every things was uncertain; and these
disputes are managed with the greatest warmth, as if every things was certain.
(1739/2000: 3)

Let’s leap forward and see Husserl’s strict diagnosis:

I am not saying that philosophy is an imperfect science; I am saying quite simply

that it is still not a science, that is has yet to begin as science, when measured by
the standard of whether it possesses a piece, even if a small one, of objectively
justified theoretical doctrinal content.
(1910–11/2002: 250)

And now on to the promises! Here’s a promise from Kant, presented with
drumroll and packed with moderately creative metaphors:

[T]hese Prolegomena will bring [everyone] to understand that there exist a

completely new science, of which no one had previously formed merely the
thought, of which even the bare idea was unknown, and for which nothing
from all that has been provided before now could be used except the hint that
Hume’s doubts had been able to give; Hume also foresaw nothing of any such
possible form in science, but deposited his ship on the beach (of skepticism) for
safekeeping, where it could then lie and rot, whereas it is important to me give
102 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

it a pilot, who, provided with complete sea-charts and compass, might safely
navigate the ship wherever seems good to him, following sound principles of the
helmsman’s art drawn from a knowledge of the globe.
(1783/2004: 11–12)

­And the promise goes on (13):

Here then is such a plan subsequent to the completed work, which now can be
laid out according to analytical method, whereas the work itself absolutely had
to be composed according to the synthetic method, so that the science might
present all of its articulations, as the structural organization of a quite peculiar
faculty of cognition, in their natural connection.

But let me quote Kant’s account of the successes he achieved two years earlier:

I have not avoided reason’s questions by pleading the incapacity of human

reason as an excuse; rather I have completely specified the questions according
to principles, and after discovering the point where reason has misunderstood
itself, I have resolved them to reason’s full satisfaction. […] In this business I have
made comprehensiveness my chief aim in view, and I make bold to say that there
cannot be a single metaphysical problem that has not been solved here, or at least
to the solution of which the key has not been provided.
(1781/1998: 101, [Axii–Axiii], italics mine)

And here’s Husserl’s promise:

[A]gainst these and all similar ills [i.e., the failure of philosophies] there is
only one remedy: scientific critique and in addition a radical science, rising
up from below, grounded on sure foundations, and progressing in accordance
with the most rigorous method: the philosophical science we are advocating
here. Worldviews can quarrel, only science can decide, and its decision bears the
stamp of eternity.
(1910–11/2002: 291, italics mine)

Let me quote three other passages of Husserl’s, since he is probably the most
grandiose philosophical promise-maker of all times:

[I]t lies precisely in the essence of philosophy, insofar as it returns to the ultimate
origins, that its scientific work moves in spheres of direct intuition, and it is
the greatest step our age has to make the see that with philosophical intuition
in the right sense, the phenomenological seizing upon essences, an endless
 Philosophy With Compelling Justification 103

field of work opens up and a science that, without any indirectly symbolizing
and mathematical methods, without the apparatus of inferences and proofs,
nevertheless obtains an abundance of the most rigorous cognitions, which are
decisive for all further philosophy.
(1910–11/2002: 294, italics in original)

O
­ r:

What is the new “revolution” to mean to us? Perhaps the turn away from the
idea of rigorous science? And what is the “system” to mean to us for which we
yearn, which as ideal is to light the way in the depths of our inquiring work? A
philosophical “system” in the traditional sense; as it were, a Minerva that springs
already completed and armed from the head of a creative genius — in order then
in later times to be preserved in the silent museum of history alongside other
such Minervas? Or a philosophical system of doctrine that, after the colossal
preparatory work of generations, actually begins from below with an indubitable
foundation and rises up like any sound edifice, wherein stone is set upon stone,
each as solid as the other, in accordance with guiding insights? On this question
minds and paths must part.
(251, italics mine)

It is also worth seeing what Husserl thinks about the utmost significance of his
own philosophy, which is supposed to give a new meaning to human existence
due to phenomenological reflection:

[T]he ultimate self-understanding of man as being responsible for his own

human being [is] his self-understanding as being in being called to a life of
apodicticity, not only in abstractly practicing apodictic science in the usual sense
but [as being mankind] which realizes its whole concrete being in apodictic
freedom by becoming apodictic mankind in the whole active life of its reason —
through which it is human.
(1936/1970: 340–1, italics in original)

Finally, let me quote Moritz Schlick’s passage, who presented a sneakier way of
promising than the above authors, since not only does he emphasize how well
he is aware of philosophy’s epistemic failure so far, but he also stresses how well
he is aware of how many unfulfilled promises have been made previously by
different philosophers:

I refer to this anarchy of philosophical opinions which has so often been

described, in order to leave no doubt that I am fully conscious of the scope and
104 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

weighty significance of the conviction that I should now like to express. For I am
convinced that we now find ourselves at an altogether decisive turning point in
philosophy, and we are objectively justified in considering that an end has come
to the fruitless conflict of systems. We are already at the present time […] in
possession of methods which make every such conflict in principle unnecessary.
What is now required is their resolute application.
(1930–31/1959: 54)

And here’s Schlick’s optimistic prophecy and the epistemic degradation of those
philosophers who disagree with him:

Thus after the great turning point of philosophy shows its decisive character
even more clearly than before. It is only, indeed, because of this character that
the conflict of systems can be ended. I repeat: […] we may today consider it as
in principle already ended […] Certainly there will still be many a rear-guard
action. Certainly many will for centuries continue to wander further along the
traditional paths. Philosophical writers will long continue to discuss the old
pseudo-questions. But in the end they will no longer be listened to; they will
come to resemble actors who continue to play for some time before noticing that
the audience has slowly departed. Then it will no longer be necessary to speak
of “philosophical problems” for one will speak philosophically concerning all
problems, that is: clearly and meaningfully.
(1930–31/1959: 59, italics in original)

Of course, we rarely meet such great promises laced with rhetoric fireworks in
the literature of epistemic tradition. The rhetoric and the promise are usually
more modest.
As for the rhetoric, it is indeed true that of the followers of the epistemic
tradition, only a few describe their successes with expressions such as “complete
sea-charts and a compass,” a “safely navigating pilot,” the “indubitable
foundation,” the “stamp of eternity,” and a “great turning point of philosophy.”
At the same time, despite their moderate rhetoric, the “I’m the only one”
philosophers are just as certain that they can compellingly justify their own
philosophical views and disprove all the rival conceptions as Kant, Husserl, or
Schlick were. They are just as hopeful about the epistemic success of their own
philosophical activity as the great dead philosophers, and their belief about the
epistemic status of their own substantive philosophical beliefs is the same as
theirs—apart from the fact that they hardly ever compare their significance
to Newton’s or Copernicus’, thereby thankfully avoiding a comparison out of
proportion. You would misunderstand their intentions if you thought that their
 Philosophy With Compelling Justification 105

reserved rhetoric indicates that they don’t fully trust in the success of their
theory and present their arguments at half-mast, so to say.
As for the promises, it is indeed true that of the followers of the epistemic
tradition, only a few give their essays pretentious titles such as, for example,
Cudworth (A true intellectual system of the universe), or as Spinoza (Ethica: ordine
geometrico demonstrata), and only a few set such major goals to themselves as
the philosophers quoted above. Not all “I’m the only one” philosophers think
that they have succeeded in solving some big philosophical problem(s) once and
for all. Rather, many of them think something like this: “I have only solved just a
tiny piece of the great puzzle, and by solving this piece I do my share in the great
success of philosophy as an epistemic enterprise.” For example, if a philosopher
thinks that he has succeeded in compellingly justifying the philosophical thesis
that there are no abstract artifacts, and interprets his achievement as taking a
small but certain step forward on the road to making sure that later generations
can compellingly justify the big philosophical thesis that only concrete entities
exist, then he is also an “I’m the only one” philosopher. This means that the
“I’m the only one” attitude doesn’t presuppose that the philosophical thesis
to be compellingly justified is a significant, comprehensive one—what only
counts is that the philosopher must be sure that he has compellingly justified his
substantive philosophical beliefs.
I wouldn’t like to scorn the followers of the epistemic tradition—I’m just
trying to throw light on the nature of the “I’m the only one” attitude. Namely,
the “I’m the only one” philosophers are not naïve when they embark on a quest
for philosophical truths, and they do not underestimate the difficulty of their
enterprise. They are well aware that their predecessors and contemporaries have
not managed to fulfil their promises, but they are undeterred by this fact. The
later “I’m the only one” members of the epistemic tradition know precisely that
the promises made by the above-quoted great dead philosophers have remained
unfulfilled. They know that—pace Kant—nothing at all was “ultimately”
developed by the suggested analytic method, and if Kant has a way of observing
his successors’ (e.g., the German idealists’) works from the beyond, he is unlikely
to be rubbing his hands with satisfaction. They know that—pace Husserl—the
ideas he had about the redemptive role of his own phenomenology did not come
true, to put it mildly. Husserl thought that by intuitive fulfillment, he would be
able to anchor all his insights in a kind of field of evidence, and thanks to his
work, a so far undiscovered space will open, every fruit of which would grow out
of apodictic soil. In reality (and using another metaphor), as for the apodictic
truth-fishing in the transcendental sea of the eidetic phenomenology of essences
106 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

he introduced, the net hangs off his boat rather empty. They know that—pace
Schlick—it did not take too long before logical empiricism was crumbled to
pieces; and was considered as one of the least tenable theories put on display as
a deterring piece in the retrospective hall of the museum of philosophical ideas.
I really don’t want to heap scorn. Instead, I would like to draw your attention
to the peculiar feature that despite the incredible amount of unfulfilled promises
and failures, the epistemic tradition of philosophy has survived and is alive and
kicking even today. That is, to the feature that more and more philosophers join
this tradition, who try to “force truth into the open” with the tools of philosophy
again and again. And they are able to live with the unshakable certainty that—
unlike others—they (of all people) have succeeded in doing so.

2 Dialogue with an “I’m the only one” philosopher

One participant of the dialogue is Sophie. Of her, it is enough to say that she is
not a constructive (theorizing) character, yet she considers it very important
to clearly see the epistemic status of her philosophical beliefs, and she does her
best not to deceive herself. The other participant of the dialogue is a figure in
the epistemic tradition—a full-fledged “I’m the only one” philosopher. Of him,
it is enough to say that he is unshakably certain that he knows substantive
philosophical truths and that he has compelling arguments for his philosophical
view; moreover, he doesn’t hide his extra-high epistemic self-conviction. I will
call him “Philonous” for the sake of the game.

Sophie: I gather that you’ve worked out a metaphysical theory in detail on the
nature of possible worlds, right?

Philonous: Yes, I have.

Sophie: And what does the nature of possible worlds consist in?

Philonous: I’m an actualist, an ersatz-realist to be exact. I claim that there is only

one world that contains concrete particulars (physical objects and physical
events)—the actual world, the one we live in. Also, there are abstract entities
in our world besides the concrete particulars—they represent the ways our
world could be. Thus, I consider possible worlds abstract entities.

Sophie: And what do you make of the fact that your view (i.e., that possible
worlds are abstract entities) is just one of the great many rival philosophical
views? The other views (modal deflationism, modal fictionalism, robust
 Philosophy With Compelling Justification 107

modal realism, modal combinatorism, and modal dimensionalism) are

logically incompatible with ersatz-realism, but they are also well-supported
by philosophical arguments. Don’t you think you should take your confidence
back a notch?

Philonous: I don’t understand why I should bother. As opposed to my

interlocutors, I’m in an epistemically privileged position.

Sophie: What do you mean by that?

Philonous: I simply mean that the arguments for my view exactly suit the
ontological landscape of reality. They provide me with access to its natural
joints. But, if you don’t like these metaphors, I can put it this way: my view
is free from the mistakes of rival views and unifies their advantages. My
arguments have shown this—beyond all doubts, that is, compellingly.

Sophie: But apart from appealing to your alleged epistemically privileged

position, can you show me at least one independent argument for your
having no reason to worry about the others’ views?

Philonous: Of course I can. When I have to decide whether I can believe with all
certainty in the existence of abstract entities that represent possible situations,
I only have to consider the issues which are inherently connected with this
question. It would only be reasonable to “take my confidence back a notch”
if I discovered a seemingly irresolvable internal difficulty within my own
theory. However, I don’t see any such difficulty. I can show beyond all doubts
that all alleged difficulties are based on mistakes or on misunderstanding.
To put it differently, if I couldn’t answer the question “What distinguishes
the actual world from the innumerable non-actualized possible worlds?” or if
I couldn’t explain the concept of transworld identity, or, if, as I am committed
to the existence of abstract entities, I couldn’t answer the question “How we,
persons existing in space-time (concrete particulars) can have access to these
abstract entities that are outside of space-time?” then—I concede—I would
start having some doubts about the truth of ersatz-realism. But, excuse me,
I don’t care at all if the philosophical views held by others are incompatible
with mine, because it is evident that this fact is not one of the difficulties with
my theory. This has nothing whatsoever to do with it, being neither in favor
of nor against it.

Sophie: But how is it possible that your confidence is not shaken if you recognize
that there are rival theories that were also worked out by smart philosophers,
and they don’t accept your arguments as compelling? Why do you think that
it is precisely your own theory that is epistemically privileged? How can you
justify that it is precisely your own theory that carves nature at its joints, and all
108 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

other views misrepresent them? If you can consider yourself an epistemically

privileged person, then you must allow for the possibility that the advocates
of other views can do so as well. Or, if you can consider your arguments
compelling, then you must allow for the possibility that the advocates of
other views can consider their own arguments compelling as well.

Philonous: Of course, all my interlocutors would vindicate the epistemic

privileged position to themselves. But it is only I who can do it legitimately,
because my arguments do support my view compellingly, and I can make
irrefutable objections to the rival theories. Those who think otherwise than
me haven’t understood the arguments for my view. Although I pointed out
the mistakes of their arguments, it was in vain because they failed to recognize
them. It is not my responsibility if they cannot see the compelling force of my
arguments, just like it is not my responsibility if they cannot notice the fatal
pitfalls in their arguments. Sophie, the thing is that my interlocutors are not
my epistemic peers. All of them are my epistemic inferiors.

Sophie: Excuse me, but I still can’t believe you. Imagine a mathematician who
comes up with the proof of a conjecture. After reading his paper, his colleagues
conclude that the proof is insufficient, or at least not compelling. What’s the
difference between you and this mathematician? Your papers are read by
your colleagues who conclude that your proof is insufficient, or at least not
compelling. Perhaps is it the case that your arguments are more difficult to
follow than a mathematical proof? It’s hard for me not to suspect that you
keep advertising your epistemically privileged position so intensively so you
don’t have to face the fact that you—like other members in the epistemic
tradition—have failed to produce compelling philosophical arguments.

Philonous: Sophie, we’re going in a circle again and again. I can only tell you that
I already told you before. I can see clare et distincte that the premises of my
argument are unassailable and I can see clare et distincte that the conclusion
logically follows from its premises. That is, my argument is compelling, and
whoever denies its conclusion must be irrational.
But, as you’ve been nagging me so much, let me tell you how things
stand. Let’s suppose that you enter into a debate with a philosopher, an avid
follower of Marquis de Sade who cannot see that it’s morally wrong to cause
suffering to others out of sheer pleasure. You try to convince him with all
kinds of arguments, but he is adamant that you’re wrong. He brushes off your
arguments and requests you to produce some additional ones, which would
prove beyond all doubt that it is precisely your own view that carves the moral
world order at its joints.
 Philosophy With Compelling Justification 109

Sophie, you better admit that you couldn’t produce any additional
argument like that, moreover, you wouldn’t think that any such further
argument is necessary in this situation. You would simply think that the
Marquis’ follower doesn’t understand your arguments—he lacks the ability
of philosophical insight. You would say “I know I’m right, I know that my
interlocutor is wrong, because I can see clare et distincte the truth of the
proposition ‘It’s morally wrong to cause suffering to others out of sheer
pleasure.’” But you might as well say that “My interlocutor lacks moral
sense.” Now, what I think of my interlocutors is similar: it’s that they lack
the appropriate philosophical sense. If you wish, their “philosophical device”
is faulty. If you wish, they’re “epistemically ill-equipped.” And don’t give
me the line that whereas you would argue for some obvious truth in the
above imaginary situation and your interlocutor would deny some obvious
truth, I’m arguing for some non-obvious truth and my interlocutors deny
some non-obvious truth. You shouldn’t do that because, in the light of my
arguments, the truth of ersatz-realism is as evident to me as the truth of
the proposition “It’s morally wrong to cause suffering to others out of sheer
pleasure” is evident to you.

Sophie: Well, then let me also tell you how things stand in my opinion. I think the
thing is that you’re a victim of a peculiar defect. My diagnosis is that you’re
incapable of self-reflection, and unable to see yourself from the outside.
You’re aware that there are others who hold views incompatible with your
own view—you must obviously be aware of that, as you’re arguing against
them. Still, you’re unable—please note the emphasis—to step out of your
philosophical cave and see your own view as just one among many others
that are also well underpinned by philosophical arguments.
If you were capable of self-reflection (as you’re not), then you would
immediately realize that your philosophical view is just one among many. If
you could see the various views—among them, your own—from the outside,
you would immediately realize that yours doesn’t have a privileged status.
Thus, if you were capable of self-reflection, your certainty that it is precisely
your arguments that are compelling would vanish into thin air (for you
would now think “Indeed, why precisely my arguments?”); and you wouldn’t
think it evident that it is precisely your arguments that “map” the ontological
landscape of reality (for you would now think “Indeed, why precisely my
arguments?”).
Let me go further. If you could put yourself in your interlocutors’
perspective (as you cannot), you would see that they may be just as certain
that they’re right as you—the situation is symmetrical. You would realize
that their “certainty-awareness” is subjectively indistinguishable from
110 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

yours. Furthermore, if you could put yourself in their perspective, you

would understand at last that their and your philosophical views carry
equal weight, and they aren’t your epistemic inferiors, who cannot see the
compelling force of your arguments due to some fault in their “philosophical
device” or “epistemic equipment”—rather, these philosophers are your
epistemic peers. For you must concede that you cannot non-circularly
justify that the intuitions your interlocutors draw on in developing their
philosophical theories are less solid than those on which your own theory
is built.
Let me give you an example. If you were able to put yourself in Lewis’
perspective, you would immediately see that robust realists are able to
reduce modalities (they’re able to provide truth-makers with proper
metaphysical status for our ordinary, literally true modal statements),
thus Lewis’ theory—at least in this respect—performs better than the
ersatz-realism you hold, which cannot do that. To put it simply: there are
a number of important and fundamental intuitions and pre-philosophical
convictions about modalities that are more consistent with rival theories
than with yours.
Here’s a vivid passage which, in my opinion, sheds light on the situation:

Suppose, thousands of people, each of whom wants to go to São Paulo,

randomly board all flights departing Dallas-Fort Worth. Suppose they
fill all departing seats, but are not told where they are going. Of these
thousands, a few hundred in fact will land in São Paulo. Most will arrive
somewhere else. Philosophy seems like this in many respects. It may bring
some people to the proper destination, but it dumps most somewhere
else. Actually, matters are worse than that. Travelers will know whether
they have arrived in São Paulo. In philosophy’s case, some may indeed
arrive at truth. However, they will not have discernibly better grounds
for believing this than their mistaken peers. They may believe themselves
to have better grounds, and their peers believe this about themselves as
well. However, from the outsider’s perspective [that is, on the ‘level’ of self-
reflection], they look the same.
(Brennan 2010: 3–4, italics from Sophie)

Philonous: Dear Sophie, you’re saying what you’re saying with truly impressive
vigor—too bad that it’s altogether false. You’re wrong to claim that I’m
incapable of self-reflection. I am capable of it, and I did reflect on my
own activity—I’ve reviewed my own view in the multitude of the many
rival theories. However, my self-reflection has not revealed what you think
it should have revealed, namely that my view is just one among many.
 Philosophy With Compelling Justification 111

Rather, it has revealed that my view is the only true one among many other
false ones.
You’re also wrong to claim that I’m unable to put myself in my interlocutors’
perspective. I’ve already done that on several occasions, and thoroughly
investigated the kinds of evidence, pre-philosophical intuitions, and
fundamental convictions which my interlocutors appeal to in constructing
theories. However, this “putting myself in others’ perspective” has not
produced the result that you think it should have. Rather, it has produced
the result that most of my interlocutors’ pre-philosophical intuitions and
fundamental convictions are delusional.
In a word, your whole reasoning is flawed, and, frankly speaking,
unappealing. For—and now you note the emphasis!—you presuppose that
my self-reflection can only reveal that my view is just one among many
epistemically equal views. Moreover, you also presuppose that “my putting
myself in my interlocutors’ perspective” can only reveal that their intuitions
are not weaker than mine. Let me ask you a rhetorical question: why do you
think everything should work out just as you expect it should?
Furthermore, when you “suggest” that I’ve wrongly judged the epistemic
status of my view because in fact it is of equal weight as the others, and when
you “suggest” that the degree of my certainty cannot be higher than my
interlocutors’—well, I can tell you that you’re the one who judges wrongly
because you yourself are unable to see the compelling force of my arguments
for ersatz-realism.

I doubt that there are many “I’m the only one” philosophers who would put
it this bluntly. I admit that my depiction of Philonous’ figure as an “I’m the
only one” philosopher was a bit exaggerated—the sentences that I made
him utter were “a little” harsh. Still, I believe that Philonous’ attitude well
represents that of those philosophers who—although being aware of the fact
of permanent disagreement in all areas of philosophy—are certain that they
know substantive philosophical truths. At least deep in their heart, they must
assess the epistemic status of their substantive philosophical beliefs in the way
Philonous does.
This is because they cannot really do otherwise. For if they think that
they possess substantive philosophical truths, they must also think that the
reason they possess them is not that they happen to be the lucky winners of
an epistemological lottery draw; rather, they think the reason is that they have
compelling justifications for their philosophical beliefs at issue. Furthermore,
if they think that they have compelling justifications for their substantive
112 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

philosophical beliefs, then they must think what Philonous thinks. Namely,
that their views correctly represent the structure of reality; that the arguments
for their views “map” its ontological landscape; that their views are free from
the mistakes of the rival ones, and unify their advantages. And, indeed, that
those who disagree with them do not understand their arguments—they are
irrational because they don’t recognize their compelling force. Being aware of
the pervasive and permanent dissensus in philosophy, no one can think that
one knows compellingly justified substantive philosophical truths unless one
considers one’s own position as epistemically privileged and degrades one’s
interlocutors as one’s epistemic inferiors.
Using another terminology, the “I’m the only one” philosophers are
advocates of the steadfast view. Of course, they do not embrace the variant
of the steadfast view that goes hand in hand with permissivism—the “I’m
the only one” philosophers don’t allow for rational disagreements concerning
philosophical problems. In their opinion, there can be only one rational view
on a philosophical problem. Nor do they embrace that version of the steadfast
view which says that S can rationally stick to the truth of belief p because the
evidence (or set of evidences) on the basis of which S originally committed
himself to the truth of p has more epistemic weight than the fact, recognized
by S, that some philosophers who are his epistemic peers deny that p is true.
In the eyes of the “I’m the only one” philosophers, the latter wording is weak,
insincere, and unprincipled—for according to them, a philosopher can only
rationally stick to the truth of p, while being aware that others think p to be false,
if he does not consider those others his epistemic peers. The “I’m the only one”
philosophers think that the only right variant of the steadfast view which can be
upheld sincerely is that which enjoins one to epistemically degrade all those who
disagree with him—this is the only way for one to rationally stick to the truth of
one’s substantive philosophical beliefs.

3 The lesson of the dialogue—epistemic blindness

If I had to, I would bet a lot that you side with Sophie and not Philonous in their
debate. For there is something displeasing and almost irritating in Philonous’
attitude. It is probably clear from the dialogue what the most displeasing factors
are, but let me make them explicit.
 Philosophy With Compelling Justification 113

(1) You may find it displeasing and irritating in Philonous’ attitude that he is
not the least swayed by the fact that other philosophers do not consider
his arguments as compelling. You may think that Philonous has the
epistemic duty to take his self-confidence back a notch. Instead, he keeps
obsessively repeating that his arguments are compelling, and he knows
that with all certainty because he clare et distincte sees the compelling
force of his arguments. However, Philonous can retort that no argument or
justification can be invalidated by the fact that others hold it flawed. Since
he really clare et distincte sees the compelling force of his arguments, he
has no reason, not to mention epistemic duty, to take his self-confidence
back a notch.
(2) You may also find it displeasing and irritating in Philonous’ attitude his
unwillingness to concede that the rival theories about the metaphysics
of possible worlds are of equal weight as his ersatz-realism, and his view
that the advocates of rival theories are his epistemic inferiors. Philonous,
however, might reply that the reason he does not concede that the rival
theories are of equal weight as his is that they are not of equal weight as his.
His theory is true, and all other theories are false. And he rightly considers
his interlocutors as his epistemic inferiors because they believe falsehoods,
and are unable to see the compelling force of the objections against their
views.
(3) You may also think that Philonous does not understand the concept of
self-reflection, and—although he is convinced of it—he has not carried
out a single self-reflective act during his career. For had he carried out
one, he should have realized that his view is really just one among many
and is not privileged. Philonous, however, might reply that he does
understand the concept of self-reflection precisely and he has already
carried out several self-reflective acts. But his self-reflective acts have
made him see the incontrovertible truth that his view is not merely one
among many in the multitude of views, but a privileged one, because it
is true.
(4) Finally, you may also find it displeasing and irritating in Philonous’ attitude
that he is unable to put himself in his rivals’ perspective. He merely says that
he is able, but in fact he is unable to do that, and he merely says he has done
that, but in fact he has not. For had he done that, he should have realized that
his rivals also drew on strong intuitions in working out their theories, and
there are some intuitions that are consistent with those rival theories but not
with his own. Philonous, however, might answer that he does not merely
114 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

say so but he did put himself in his opponents’ perspective. But his putting
himself into their perspective has resulted in his seeing without a doubt that
the intuitions on which the rival theories are based are all delusional, and
deceive those who draw on them in constructing theories.

So, this is how I see the main lesson from the debate between Sophie and
Philonous and from the contrasts listed above. Philonous is the unshakable
champion of the “I’m the only one” view. He has answers to every objection.
He is able to neutralize all of them, and what he says is unassailable from
his own perspective. Philonous is absolutely consistent. If his arguments are
really compelling, then it is really irrelevant that others doubt them. Philonous
is absolutely sincere. He sincerely believes that he clare et distincte sees the
compelling force of his arguments. He also sincerely believes that the theory
he holds is epistemically privileged, and thus that his interlocutors are all
his epistemic inferiors whose intuitions and fundamental pre-philosophical
convictions are delusional.
At the same time (and now take it as a wink!) we both precisely know that
Philonous’ resistance to Sophie’s objections and his consistency and sincerity
are not virtues but rather symptoms. We do not believe him that he is capable of
self-reflection or that he is able to put himself in his opponents’ perspective and
to really weigh the intuitions on which the rival theories are based.
For, as Sophie has rightly pointed out, Philonous’ belief in his epistemically
privileged position stems from his special deficiency. I call this deficiency
epistemic blindness. Philonous is blind. He is not inattentive, like a man who
accidentally leaves his king in the hitting position during a game of chess. He
does not make any logical fallacies, either. He does not ignore the arguments
brought up against his view. He is simply blind to others’ epistemic perspective,
to the “epistemic attractiveness” of considerations and arguments for rival
theories.
And, of course, he is blind to his own deficiency. His own epistemic
blindness is hidden and undetectable for him. He is unaware of his incapability
of self-reflection. He is unaware of his incapability of putting himself in others’
perspective. As an “I’m the only one” philosopher (in his dark philosophical
cave), Philonous can do philosophy throughout his entire career, secure in the
conviction that his philosophical position is epistemically privileged and that the
truth of his ersatz-realism is beyond dispute—without having second thoughts
for a moment.
 Philosophy With Compelling Justification 115

Now (and take it again as a wink!), both of us can precisely see Philonous’
blindness. We see that he does not have the faintest idea as to what Sophie finds
wanting in his activity. Philonous’ epistemic blindness is transparent—and being
so, it is frightening. Philonous’ mind darkens whenever he judges himself to be
epistemically superior to everybody else. What is fatal about his blindness is the
fact that he cannot do anything against it, as he is unaware of it. Philonous is a
sick fanatic, an epistemic narcissist who is unfortunately able to make himself
believe that Sophie’s misgivings are all groundless and irrelevant (see Bernáth
and Tőzsér 2020: esp. sec. 2). In fact, it is his consistency and “unassailable”
arguments against Sophie that actually block the way to realizing his own
blindness.
Let’s suppose that Sophie, as a last desperate move, tries to parody Philonous.
She points out that Philonous’ self-confidence to shrug off all criticism is
ridiculous and at once pathetic. She lists the great many names of those who,
coming before Philonous in the history of philosophy, made self-confident
promises, the great many names of those coming before him who already said
“All philosophies have so far been wide of the mark, but mine is a game-changer.”
She brings it to Philonous’ attention that this promise-making can be continued
infinitely, because philosophers foolishly tend to believe that the more often
they repeat a promise—while bringing up the past breakings of promises with a
resentful or apologizing tone—the more convincing it will be, for the more truth
it includes of the past. In a word, she tries to appeal to Philonous’ sense of humor
or self-irony.
It might be that on watching the parody, Philonous would laugh at himself
together with Sophie and realize that his awareness of his epistemic privilege is
comic indeed. But knowing Philonous’ character, it is not too probable. A more
probable scenario is that Philonous would say to Sophie: “The punch line is off,
because I’m not one among many who broke their promises, but rather, I’m the
only one who has kept it.” To make Philonous laugh, it would be necessary to
enable him to see himself from the outside—but nobody could force him to do
so. Although we know that Philonous’ self-confidence is comic, he is incapable
of self-reflection, so there is a danger that his own comic nature remains forever
hidden to him.
116 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

4 Farewell to the “I’m the only one” view

Although I consider the “I’m the only one” view an improper reaction to
philosophy’s epistemic failure, I have some residual bad feeling. For, after
all, what if I’m wrong, and an “I’m the only one” philosopher who is able to
compellingly justify his substantive philosophical theses has already been born?
I have to admit that I wasn’t entirely correct in saying above “we both precisely
know” that Philonous’ epistemic confidence merely stems from his inability
for self-reflection and for putting himself in other’s epistemic perspective, and
in saying that “both of us can precisely see” that Philonous is in fact a fanatic
suffering from epistemic blindness, or a comic figure. All I’ve done is wink at you
and reject this reaction by appealing to your presumed agreement.
Now I have to say something to that. And the most I can say is this: I reject the
“I’m the only one” view as a reaction to philosophy’s epistemic failure because
I don’t want to be a man like Philonous. May I say, I don’t feel it right to become
a man who takes views with absolute self-confidence on questions surrounded
with permanent dissent, and doesn’t have the slightest doubt about things not
being the way he believes them to be—who imagines himself to be epistemically
superior to everybody else. And I don’t feel it right to become a man who thinks
that all his interlocutors are unable to recognize the compelling force of his
arguments, thinks that their “philosophical device” and “epistemic equipment”
are faulty, and simply declares that their intuitions and fundamental pre-
philosophical convictions are deceptive—who considers everybody disagreeing
with him his epistemic inferior. I feel that it would be wrong—not just a bit, but
very wrong—to become a man like this, and that’s why I reject the “I’m the only
one” view.
Of course, this is anything but an ordinary philosophical argument. But, as
I see it, like solipsism, the “I’m the only one” view or attitude is irrefutable and
unassailable. Just as the solipsist does not think that other persons’ epistemic
perspectives are relevant because he thinks they don’t exist and so he renders
himself virtually immune to any objections, the “I’m the only one” philosopher
does more or less the same. To put it differently, the “I’m the only one” view—just
like solipsism—looks “as a little frontier fortress that will undeniably be forever
invincible, but whose garrison can never leave, so we may go safely past it and
not be afraid to leave it behind us” (Schopenhauer 1818/2010: 129). And if it is
invincible, then—beyond winking and parody—I cannot do anything but tell
you why I feel that this infinitely consistent and unassailable attitude is morally
 Philosophy With Compelling Justification 117

wrong, and why I feel that for me, the “I’m the only one” philosopher is not a
role model, and his reaction to philosophy’s epistemic failure is not an example to
follow. In some instances, the most one can do is to make a personal confession
in rejecting a philosophical view or attitude.
Thus, in rejecting the “I’m the only one” view, I do not place the main
emphasis on the point that—in light of the pervasive and permanent dissensus
in philosophy—it is almost certainly the case that no “I’m the only one”
philosophers have so far succeeded in coming up with compelling arguments
for their substantive philosophical theses. (Who knows, perhaps some of them
have succeeded—I cannot rule out this possibility.) Rather, the main emphasis
is on the “I’m the only one” philosophers’ extra-high epistemic self-confidence
and the epistemic degradation of their interlocutors—and that is why I find their
attitude unacceptable, even if it stems from their epistemic blindness.

***

Now I make a leap. It is a well-known fact in the history of philosophy that

Descartes (as one of the “I’m the only one” philosophers) sent the manuscript
of Meditations to six philosophers, asking them to formulate objections to the
line of thought of his work. On the one hand, this is a very sympathetic and fair
gesture—Descartes insisted on having his book published with these objections
and the replies to them. On the other hand, however—and this is a lesser known
fact—he made only one change in the original text in response to the criticisms.
He revised this sentence

The second reason for doubt was that since I did not know the author of my
being, I saw nothing to rule out the possibility that my natural constitution made
me prone to error even in matters which seemed to me most true.
(1641/1991: 53)

by inserting seven words (five in Latin) in brackets into it “in response” to

Arnauld’s criticism:

The second reason for doubt was that since I did not know the author of my
being (or at least was pretending not to), I saw nothing to rule out the possibility
that my natural constitution made me prone to error even in matters which
seemed to me most true.
118 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

That’s all he did. By the way, he thought that each of the close to 100 objections
were misguided. None of them, he thought, was powerful enough to make him
change the “perfect” line of thought of the Meditations.
What I want to illustrate through this example is the “I’m the only one”
philosophers’ attitude towards other philosophers who disagree with them.
Descartes considered the objections of Hobbes, Arnauld, Gassendi, and others
as relevant and took their epistemic perspective seriously only to the extent that
he was able to incorporate their objections to his own “flawless” philosophical
theory, which enabled him to articulate it in an even more powerful and
elaborate form. That’s why he published his book with his replies to those
objections.
Just as in the case of Wittgenstein, Descartes’ attitude is not an example for
me to follow. Obviously, I’d like to have such intellectual hardware that Descartes
had (who wouldn’t?), but I wouldn’t like to have the same attitude as his to my
own philosophical beliefs.
 ­5

Philosophy Without Compelling Justification

Several philosophers think that there can be no compelling justifications for

our substantive philosophical beliefs. Thus, in their opinion, it is not right to
react to philosophy’s epistemic failure by sticking to the original goal of the
epistemic tradition. Nor it is right to react to it by committing ourselves to meta-
skepticism—to suspend our substantive philosophical beliefs and thereby end
the standard (ordinary) practice of philosophy. David Lewis puts it this way in
the preface to Volume 1 of his Philosophical Papers:

The reader in search of knock-down arguments in favor of my theories will

go away disappointed. Whether or not it would be nice to knock disagreeing
philosophers down by sheer force of argument, it cannot be done. Philosophical
theories are never refuted conclusively […]

It might be otherwise if, as some philosophers seem to think, we had a sharp

line between […] “intuition”, which must be taken as unchallengeable evidence,
and philosophical theory, which must at all costs fit this evidence. If that were
so, conclusive refutations would be dismayingly abundant. But whatever may
be said for foundationalism in other subjects, this foundationalist theory of
philosophical knowledge seem ill-founded in the extreme. Our “intuitions”
are simply opinions; our philosophical theories are the same. Some are
commonsensical, some are sophisticated; some are particular, some general;
some are more firmly held, some less. But they are all opinions, and a reasonable
goal for a philosopher is to bring them into equilibrium. Our common task is to
find out what equilibria there are that can withstand examination but it remains
for each of us to come to rest at one or another of them.
(1983: x, italics mine)

I would like to point out two things in the above quote. Firstly, according to
Lewis, the foundationalist theory of philosophical knowledge is ill-founded.
Our intuitions, pre-philosophical beliefs, and fundamental convictions do not
need any justification. Nonetheless, the intuitions, pre-philosophical beliefs,
120 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

and fundamental convictions have a decisive role in philosophical theorizing—

philosophers draw on them and elaborate them in constructing their theories.
As Lewis puts it in another context:

I­ t is not the business of philosophy […] to justify these preexisting opinions,

to any great extent, but only to try to discover ways of expanding them into an
orderly system. A [philosophical] analysis […] is an attempt at systematizing our
opinions […] It succeeds to the extent that (1) it is systematic, and (2) it respects
those of our pre-philosophical opinions to which we are firmly attached.
(1973: 88)

Gary Gutting sees things similarly:

On any account, philosophy is concerned with our convictions — beliefs

about fundamental human issues […] According to the view that I’ve called
philosophical foundationalism, the project of philosophy is to provide
compelling arguments for or against our convictions, so that our beliefs […] can
be put on solid rational basis. But, I have maintained, one of the most important
achievements of recent philosophy has been to discredit this foundationalism.
Philosophers themselves have good reason to believe that our convictions do not
require […] compelling philosophical justifications […]

Prior to philosophical reflection, our convictions are not very well articulated
and can be profitably regarded as expressing general pictures; that is, general
schemes for thinking about some major aspect of the world. One of the main
projects of philosophical thinking is the development of the precise and detailed
formulations of important pictures that I called theories.
(2009: 225, italics in original)

Secondly, Lewis distinguishes between the task of individual philosophers

and the community of philosophers. The task of individual philosophers is
to develop theories that are in harmony or equilibrium with their own pre-
philosophical convictions and to defend and protect this equilibrium. Although
Lewis does not say, he obviously thinks that insofar as philosophers can do that,
they can rationally stick to their philosophical theories, that is, their considered
philosophical beliefs. And the task of the community of philosophers is to present
more and more well-formulated philosophical theories which are resistant
to objections, thereby showcasing the possible views about philosophical
problems. In short, philosophy aims to populate the logical space with consistent
philosophical theories, stable equilibria.
 Philosophy Without Compelling Justification 121

This metaphilosophical vision stands in contrast with the epistemic tradition

in both respects. On the one hand, the followers of the epistemic tradition are
foundationalists—they consider their fundamental convictions as justified
(moreover, compellingly justified), on which they build their philosophical
theories. On the other hand, the goal of individual philosophers and the
philosophers’ community is the same in the epistemic tradition—to acquire
substantive philosophical knowledge, and to come up with compellingly justified
substantive philosophical truths.
As far as I can see, this kind of metaphilosophical vision that has given
up on seeking compellingly justified philosophical truths but wishes to
refrain from suspending beliefs is increasingly popular among contemporary
philosophers. More and more philosophers interpret their own activity within
the metaphilosophical vision described above, which is a humbler ambition
than that of the great dead philosophers. It is no surprise that this is so. What
this vision suggests—contrary to both the search for compelling philosophical
arguments and a general suspension of judgment—neither seems hopeless,
nor is depressing but something that philosophers are able to actually do and
philosophy is capable of doing.
Following Lewis, I will call this metaphilosophical vision equilibrism. In this, I
differ from the terminology in which “equilibrism” is used to denote a narrower
metaphilosophical vision than the one delineated above (see Beebee 2018).
As for terminology, according to equilibrism, philosophy is not an epistemic
or truth-seeking enterprise. To put it more precisely, it is not an epistemic
enterprise in the sense defined in Chapter 1 of this book, in that it should
present compellingly justified substantive philosophical truths. Apart from this,
equilibrism is, of course, also a cognitive (or, if you wish, a quasi-epistemic)
enterprise because it gives us knowledge of what equilibria are possible and
which equilibrium we should commit ourselves to in the light of our own pre-
philosophical convictions.
In this chapter, I first outline the metaphilosophical vision of equilibrism.
In doing so, I will try to introduce it in its most convincing form possible, and
underline those features that make it attractive to many philosophers. Secondly,
I will present my concerns about this vision. I will try to show that, however
attractive and lucrative the commitment to this vision that gives up on seeking
compellingly justified philosophical truths may seem, it is actually a wrong
reaction to philosophy’s epistemic failure—the equilibrist doesn’t give a right
answer to the question “What should we do with our philosophical beliefs in
the light of philosophy’s epistemic failure?” Finally, I will briefly deal with that
122 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

version of equilibrism which says that the good strategy is not to believe in
our substantive philosophical theses but only to accept them—and present my
misgivings about it.

­1 Equilibrism as a metaphilosophical vision

Let’s first see the goal of individual philosophers and that of the philosophers’
community, and then where the attraction of equilibrism lies.

1.1 The goal of individual philosophers

According to equilibrism, every philosopher has two clearly distinguishable
tasks. The first is to come up with a philosophical theory. Whether this theory
has Hegelian ambition or concerns only an isolated and partial problem; whether
it includes some positive view or a negative one; whether it has an existential
stake or not—these are all completely irrelevant. Now, a philosopher’s theory
construction is successful if she can come up with a consistent theory that is
in equilibrium with her own pre-philosophical convictions—those which she
is not willing to (or cannot) abandon. In short, if she can develop her own pre-
philosophical convictions into a philosophical theory.
To use a very simple example: if Esther’s fundamental pre-philosophical
conviction is that mathematical theorems are truths that are discovered instead of
being invented by mathematicians, and Esther constructs a philosophical theory
according to which there are abstract entities (there is a Fregean “third realm”),
then she has already completed her first task. She now has a philosophical theory
that is in equilibrium with her pre-philosophical conviction. What happens if
Ester’s pre-philosophical convictions change with time? Well, then she would
have to start the work again from scratch—she would have to work out a
philosophical theory which is in equilibrium with her changed pre-philosophical
convictions.
The second task of philosophers is just as important. What is more, they
spend most of their time completing this task, since it is not enough to find
or construct a philosophical theory that is in equilibrium with their pre-
philosophical convictions. They must defend this equilibrium as well, as it
is threatened by more than one thing. The equilibrium they reach, to use
Gary Gutting’s expression, needs intellectual maintenance (see 2009: 225;
2015: 258).
 Philosophy Without Compelling Justification 123

Intellectual maintenance has two components. Firstly, philosophers have

to defend the theories that are in equilibrium with their pre-philosophical
convictions against objections. They have to do this because philosophical
objections ultimately have the intended conclusion that it is not rational to stick
to the philosophical theories at issue. For this reason, the bulk of philosophers’
work is defensive in nature—they have to show that none of the objections
against their theories are compelling, and so they can continue to rationally stick
to them. If a philosopher is unable to find a weak point of the objections brought
up against her theory, she cannot rationally stick to it anymore, so she has to
give it up. In this case, the previously created equilibrium is upset. She continues
to have so and so pre-philosophical convictions, but she can no more rationally
believe the philosophical theory that elaborates them.
Here’s an example. Let’s suppose that Judith has the fundamental pre-
philosophical conviction that God, as an infinitely perfect being, exists. Of
course, Judith is well aware of the objections to the existence of God: the
arguments from evil and from divine hiddenness. It is relatively easy for her to
respond to the latter, because according to her elaborate vision of the history
of salvation (similar to Fichte’s [1806/1999]), one of the necessary stages
in the development of the human race is when it does not perceive its own
supernatural/divine origin. The argument from evil, however, is a challenge to
her. She does not hold the kind of theodicy to be convincing which explains
the evil in the world by appealing to man’s free will, nor the one which says
that every evil is the logical precondition for something greater good. She
thinks that due to the great many senseless and horrible human and animal
sufferings, one cannot rationally stick to the view that our world is the best of
all possible worlds, no matter which theodicy one chooses, and she thinks that
this belief of hers is incompatible with her belief in the perfection of God. After
lengthy consideration, Judith finally concludes that she can only resolve this
incompatibility by committing herself to theistic modal realism (see Almeida
2008), according to which our world is just one among infinitely many (taken
in the Lewisian sense) concrete universes created by God. And since God has
created a multiverse (a plurality of worlds), and since we do not have good
reasons to suppose that it is precisely our world that should be the best among
them, she thinks that God’s perfection is compatible with the fact that our world
is not the best of all worlds. In short, after committing herself to theistic modal
realism, Judith can continue to rationally believe in the existence of God as an
infinitely perfect being—for she can show that the argument from evil does not
have compelling force.
124 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

The second part of the intellectual maintenance of philosophical theories

does not have to do with possible objections but with the cognitive household
of philosophers, as the (naturally fragile) equilibrium they reach may be upset
otherwise than by certain objections. It can also be upset if a philosopher realizes
that her theory x is in equilibrium with her pre-philosophical convictions
c1, c2, and c3 and theory y that she also holds is in equilibrium with her pre-
philosophical convictions c4, c5, and c6, but y cannot be reconciled with one of c1,
c2, and c3. In short, the intellectual maintenance of philosophical theories assigns
philosophers the task of dissolving these types of conceptual tensions.
Let me give you an example of this as well. Let us suppose that Andy’s pre-
philosophical convictions are that the physical world is causally closed and
that there is mental causation. Unsurprisingly, he embraces a version of the
reductive physicalist theory of mind. Moreover, let’s suppose that Andy has
already defended reductive physicalism against the well-known objections,
so he has finished this phase of intellectual maintenance. However, during
his reflective self-monitoring he realizes that one of his pre-philosophical
convictions is that humans possess moral responsibility, and concludes
that only the theory of agent-causation can be in equilibrium with this pre-
philosophical conviction, because only this theory ensures proper (increased)
control. Nevertheless, he finds that agent-causation seems hardly compatible
with the causal closure principle, which he needs in order to rationally stick to
his belief in reductive materialism. In this case, the intellectual maintenance
of Andy’s beliefs should result either in his rejection of one of the two
philosophical theories, or perhaps in the reconciliation of them, against all
odds (see e.g., Timpe and Jacobs 2016).
It is hard to say about this description of philosophers’ activity that it is
unlifelike and “phenomenologically” implausible. In fact, I think it gives an
accurate picture of what philosophers actually do. With regard to this activity,
the following is worth stressing from the viewpoint of equilibrism.
The goal of the intellectual maintenance of a philosophical theory and
philosophical argumentation is not to “force the truth into the open”—the
goal of philosophers is not to convince everyone with their arguments.
Of course, philosophers can and do have positive arguments for their
philosophical theories, but these cannot be compelling. The fundamental role
of philosophical argumentation then is to defend theories—and a defensive
philosophical argument, as opposed to any positive one, can be successful.
Philosophers can successfully defend their philosophical theories against
objections (if they can show them not to be compelling), and so they can form a
 Philosophy Without Compelling Justification 125

right to rationally stick to their philosophical theories. According to equilibrism,

this is the only sense one can talk about successful philosophical arguments.
To sum up (and this is what I take to be the most important message of
equilibrism): philosophers’ activities are essentially egocentric. I don’t use this
word in a morally condemning sense, of course. Instead, what I want to stress with
this expression is the following. According to equilibrism, the goal of individual
philosophers cannot be more than (1) to construct philosophical theories that
are in equilibrium with their own pre-philosophical convictions which they are
unable to abandon and which form an essential part of their personal integrity
and cognitive economy, and (2) to defend and maintain these equilibria in ways
that are reassuring to themselves, thereby preserving them intact.
Make no mistake, however. The above does not imply that equilibrism would
like to ease the rigor of philosophical argumentation or to lower professional
standards in any sense. Philosophers must do the intellectual maintenance
of their philosophical theories with the same professional conscience as
those philosophers do who aim at coming up with substantive truths, try to
support their theories with compelling arguments, and make attempts to solve
philosophical problems.
Equilibrism also attributes epistemic duties to philosophers. They must
respond to all relevant objections that are known to them; they must strive for
consistency; they must carefully weigh all evidence that is accessible to them,
etc. That is, they must proceed the same way as if they were seeking the truth
themselves. The difference between those philosophers who act in the spirit
of the epistemic tradition and those who act in that of equilibrism is only to
be found in how they interpret their own activity. While philosophers who
set themselves less humble goals than equilibrism think that their work is to
formulate arguments which compellingly justify the truth of their philosophical
beliefs, equilibrists think that their work aims at no more than to create and
preserve the integrity of their own equilibria.

1.2 The goal of the community of philosophers

The goal of the community of philosophers can be defined as a function of the
individual philosophers’ goal. In this sense, if the philosophers’ goal is not to
present substantive truths and justify them compellingly but to develop theories
which are in equilibrium with their own pre-philosophical convictions and
can be shown to resist even the strongest of objections, then, as Lewis puts it,
“[The] common task is to find out what equilibria there are that can withstand
126 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

examination” (1983: x)—to present “the menu of well-worked-out theories”

(1983: xi). That is, the goal of the community of philosophers is to map the
logically possible and consistent philosophical views—to populate the logical
space with stable equilibria.
The goal of the community of philosophers can easily be formulated
differently, using different emphases and terminology—and maybe it is worth
doing so, as the descriptions given above may seem narrow and alien to certain
philosophers. Here are a few “more ceremonial” definitions: the goal of the
community of philosophers is to form perspectives which conceptually “organize”
the world; to develop viewpoints which “give meaning” to phenomena. Or, to
be even bolder: the goal of the community of philosophers is to come up with
“productive discourses,” “narratives,” “forms of meaning,” “spaces of meaning,”
“dimensions of meaning,” “constitutive connections in meaning,” etc., all of
which resist objections and can help those who are open to it to understand and
conceptually articulate the world and themselves within it.

1.3 The attraction of equilibrism

One of the main attractions of equilibrism stems from the fact that according to
this metaphilosophical vision, philosophy is not a failed enterprise, consequently
philosophers need not see themselves as participants in a failed epistemic
enterprise. The goal that equilibrism sets to the individual philosophers and
the community of philosophers is such that the tools of philosophy are suitable
for attaining it; moreover, philosophy has excelled in attaining it. From the
viewpoint of equilibrism, philosophy is one of the most successful intellectual
enterprises of all time. From the very start, it has been able to satisfy our innate
cognitive need for giving a conceptually well-articulated and consistent form to
our fundamental pre-philosophical convictions.
Just think about it. Seen from the ambition of the epistemic tradition, we
are bound to admit that philosophy has failed and stagnates—what we didn’t
know at t1 we still don’t know at t2 because we haven’t solved a single substantive
philosophical problem, we haven’t succeeded in finding the answer to a single
substantive philosophical question, nor in presenting a single substantive
philosophical truth. However, if we part company with this view in the spirit
of equilibrism, we can see that philosophy is successful and making progress—
the community of philosophers is able to develop an increasing number of
philosophical theories, that is, an increasing number of ways for us to think
consistently about the nature and knowledge of reality or about morally right
 Philosophy Without Compelling Justification 127

action; and, thanks to its activity, the cost-benefit equations of these philosophical
theories are becoming clearer and clearer. In Lewis’ words: “what we accomplish
in [philosophy]: we measure the price; [and] […] that is something we can settle
more and less conclusively” (1983: x). True, we don’t possess any substantive
sub specie aeternitatis truths, but the fact that we have come to possess several
important non-trivial and non-substantive truths richly compensates for it.
This is because knowing the costs and benefits of various philosophical theories
amounts to the recognition of many true propositions of the “If …, then …”
type and relevant conceptual distinctions, and as such, it qualifies as a case of
philosophical knowledge (see Gutting 2009: 226–31).
I can also put it this way: because according to equilibrism, the goal of
the community of philosophers is not to present well-founded substantive
truths, philosophers do not have to struggle with feelings of inferiority towards
scientists—philosophy is not a competitor to the natural sciences. Only the
advocates of the epistemic tradition think that it is—and needless to say, that it
stands on the losing side. And if so, the well-known malicious comment from
Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinov seems correct:

Philosophy is dead. Philosophy has not kept up with modern developments in

science, particularly physics. Scientists have become the bearers of the torch of
discovery in our quest for knowledge.
(2010: 5)

According to equilibrism, their criticism misses the point, because the goal of
philosophy is not to acquire knowledge of the world, but to map those conceptual
perspectives (equilibria) which form the foundation and starting points for us to
think consistently about the world.
At first sight, one could think that equilibrism is in trouble because it sets
different goals to individual philosophers and the community of philosophers.
For if the goal of individual philosophers is to work out and defend their own
equilibria, then, presumably, they are not motivated by working out one possible
equilibrium among many. But this is not so. Quite contrary, the equilibrists—
unlike the “I’m the only one” philosophers—do not suffer from epistemic
blindness and do not see their interlocutors as their epistemic inferiors. For
them, other philosopher’s views that are inconsistent with theirs are of the
highest importance. In fact, equilibrists are happy to see their opponents
formulating stronger and stronger arguments because it helps them to hold
their own equilibria in even stronger forms which are even more resistant
128 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

to objections. And the fact that the community of philosophers continues to

populate the logical space is useful and beneficial to equilibrists because they can
reliably “price” their own theories by comparing them to other theories. It is in
comparison with other theories that the virtues and weaknesses of their theories
“show up” sharply, which helps them to see the points where their theories need
improvement and the ways to improve them.
So, equilibrism is that variant of the steadfast view which goes hand in
hand with permissivism. Moreover, it is its friendliest and most lenient
form. For, according to equilibrism, if a philosopher successfully meets the
requirement of intellectual maintenance, then she can rationally stick to
her substantive philosophical beliefs. Furthermore, if a philosopher thinks
that her interlocutors (like her) have successfully met the requirement of
intellectual maintenance, then she must think of them that they are as rational
as she is—regardless of the fact that their substantive philosophical beliefs are
incompatible with hers.
But equilibrism has another two attractions that deserve mentioning. One
is that it seems that a philosopher’s performance can only be judged on the
basis of equilibrism. Let’s take Leibniz, for example. I think there is a massive
consensus within the community of philosophers that his central claims are
mistaken. It isn’t true that our mental life is causally closed. It isn’t true that
there are no causal connections among substances, nor is it true that their states
(perceptions) develop from an entelechy. It isn’t true that all truths are analytic.
Despite all that, we rank Leibniz among philosophy’s greatest figures. Now, if
this is the case, then the high ranking of Leibniz’s philosophical performance
has hardly anything to do with whether his claims are true or not. The only thing
it has to do with is that he came up with a very consistent metaphysical theory
(or theories) that reconciles diverging propositions—the equilibrium that he
worked out had not earlier been present on the logical map of philosophical
theories.
Another attraction of equilibrism is that it is able to legitimate the doing of
philosophy—more precisely, the way it is being done in academic circles. You
don’t have to agree with Dennett on the point that philosophy is just “luxury
decoration on society” (as quoted by Goldhill 2016: 2). The equilibrist may think
that philosophy can have a serious social value, namely, putting the outsiders’
minds in order. To use Gutting’s example: “an atheist who thinks all arguments
for God’s existence are demonstrably fallacious may need a clever philosopher to
show what’s wrong with a sophisticated version of the cosmological argument or
the design argument from fine-tuning” (2015: 258, italics mine). In other words,
 Philosophy Without Compelling Justification 129

the social value of doing philosophy lies in its capacity to help articulate one’s
fundamental convictions in a conceptually organized manner.
To sum up: equilibrism is especially attractive and motivated, because it seems
to be the only metaphilosophical vision that, unlike the epistemic tradition, does
not set hopeless goals to philosophers and, unlike meta-skepticism, it does not
offer them a bad deal. Here’s a possible consideration in support of equilibrism
that appeals to your sincerity:

­ ut your hand on your heart! Can you imagine that the following report will
P
ever be published in Nature: “X university’s philosophy research group has
recently confirmed that charge, mass and angular momentum are Aristotelian
immanent universals; multi-local entities, which can wholly and perfectly be
present at different locations in space at the same time, and more than one of
which can be present in one place at a time. It is only a matter of months before
they find a solution to the metaphysical nature of physical objects and have
their hypothesis confirmed that physical objects are bundles of universals plus
a fundamentally distinct entity, a substrate as a bare particular”. No, you cannot.
And, put your hand on your heart once more! Are you willing to give up all
of your philosophical beliefs because of philosophy’s failure as an enterprise to
find the truth if you can see clearly that they are built on your fundamental
convictions, which are the constitutive elements of your personal integrity and
cognitive household? No, you aren’t.

2 Why I cannot identify with equilibrism

Naturally, the strongest argument against equilibrism would be if I could

come up with some (undoubtedly) compelling argument for a substantive
philosophical thesis. In this case, I could say that any commitment to equilibrism
is undermotivated and we have no reason to attribute goals to philosophy that
are humbler than finding the truth, since philosophy is capable of attaining
these less humble purposes. But an equally strong argument against equilibrism
would be if I could come up with a compelling argument for meta-skepticism.
In this case, I could say that equilibrism is untenable, because every philosopher
has the epistemic duty to suspend their substantive philosophical beliefs—no
matter whether it would damage their cognitive household. But I don’t have such
compelling arguments, so I cannot show equilibrism to be either undermotivated
or untenable. On the contrary, I think that equilibrism is a rather strongly motivated
metaphilosophical vision. It is no accident that it is gaining in popularity.
130 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

My main concern to equilibrism is this: as an equilibrist, one cannot seriously

and sincerely believe in the truth of one’s substantive philosophical theses—one
cannot take epistemic responsibility for the truth of one’s substantive philosophical
beliefs.

­2.1 Two kinds of philosophical problems

I will start from afar. One can make a distinction between two kinds of
philosophical problems. One category includes problems concerning which
there is a truth simpliciter, i.e., things are a certain way independently of our
(linguistic or mental) representations. These problems are either about what type
of entities there are or about what their nature consists in.
Some examples: “Do the past and the future exist along with the present?”;
“Are there abstract entities?”; “Are there multi-local entities?”; “Are there worlds
that are causally and spatio-temporally disconnected from ours?” Or, “What is
the connection between our conscious experience and our brain states?”; “Is it
true that our actions were not predetermined by the universe’s initial conditions
(plus laws) but are not accidental either?”
I think all the questions listed above are such that you would be surprised if
God did not know the answers to them. You would be surprised if God said: “I
do not know if I created one world or a multiverse”; “I do not know whether the
past and the future exist or only the present does, even though I created time”;
“I do not know what the relationship is between the mind and the body, even
though I created all living beings, including humans,” etc.
The other kind of philosophical problems includes those concerning which
there are no truths simpliciter—these philosophical problems and the features
on which they are based do not exist independently of our linguistic or mental
representations. Thus, these problems are exclusively about how to conceptualize
certain phenomena—how to understand and how to make sense of them for
ourselves. These problems contain concepts that do not directly refer to
anything existing independently of these concepts—characteristically, the focal
points of these problems (either they are things, categories, or whatever else)
are carved out according to these concepts as a result of concept formation.
Some examples: “What is the definition of art?”; “What is modernity?”;
“How should we classify different speech acts?”; “What is the difference
between science and pseudo-science?”; “To what extent does the correct
interpretation of a literary text depend on its author’s intentions?”; “What does
 Philosophy Without Compelling Justification 131

civil disobedience consist in?”; “Do works of absolute music have meaning?”;
“How can we define the concept of labor?”
I think you would be surprised if God would be able to answer these questions.
You would be surprised to hear from Him, for example, that “I know that the
institutional theory of art is false, since a work of art is rendered as such by
virtue of its perceptual properties and these perceptual properties are structural
universals.” And before you would object (knowing your mind), He would go
on: “Duchamp-type ready-mades are not counterexamples—these are only
quasi-artworks, since revealing their punchlines substitutes for the perception
of their perceptual properties.”
In what follows, I will call the former set of issues factual philosophical
problems and those of the latter sort conceptual philosophical problems.
Now, this categorization of philosophical problems is universal and exclusive—
every single (meaningful and not merely verbal) philosophical problem is either
factual or conceptual, and there is no philosophical problem that belongs to
both kinds, just as there is no philosophical problem that belongs to neither.
Thus (and I consider it very important to emphasize this point), the meta-
question “Which philosophical problems are factual and which are conceptual?”
is itself a par excellence factual philosophical question—since this categorization
of philosophical problems is based on their (in)capacity to allow formulating
propositions that can be made true or false by a reality existing independently of
our conceptual framework.

2.1.1 Non-trivial cases

This categorization of philosophical problems is intuitively clear, though not
unproblematic. In contrast to the evident cases listed above, several philosophical
problems do not allow us to reassuringly decide whether we should categorize
them as factual or rather as conceptual. Such harder cases are, for example, the
following: “Are proper names rigid designators?”; “Are meanings in the head?”;
“Is there metaphysical necessity above and beyond logical necessity?”; “Are holes
material objects?” I’m sure that if I were to list these philosophical problems
under the heading of factual versus conceptual philosophical problems, then I
couldn’t expect a relatively stable consensus.
It is also an interesting and important question whether normative
philosophical problems belong to the category of conceptual philosophical
problems or rather to that of factual ones.
132 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

I see it as follows. Let’s suppose that Mike thinks that no moral values and
facts exist in their own right (independently of our concepts)—Mike denies the
(concept-independent) existence of a moral world order. He thinks that we do
not discover but rather “create” moral values and facts—in his opinion, moral
rightness or wrongness is ultimately a matter of agreement. Consequently,
normative ethical questions such as “Is it morally right to do X?” or “Must
X be done?” are conceptual to Mike—our answers to them depend on our
conceptual framework and cannot depend on anything else. However, let’s
suppose that according to Claire, some moral values and facts exist in their own
right (independently of our concepts)—according to her, there is a (concept-
independent) moral world order. She thinks that instead of “creating” moral
values and facts, we discover the truth of the proposition “It is morally wrong to
cause pain to others out of sheer pleasure,” just as we discover the truth of the
proposition describing the value of the gravitational constant, or the truth of
the proposition “If an integer n is greater than 2, then the equation ‘an + bn = cn’
has no solutions in non-zero integers a, b, and c.” Thus, normative ethical
questions such as “Is it morally right to do X?” or “Must X be done?” are factual
to Claire—our moral duties depend on the facts of a moral world order (existing
independently of our concepts).
Now, it is easy to see that the question which of them is right is also a factual
philosophical question. Their debate concerns whether there exist or not facts
independently of our concepts, which determine what counts as morally right.
Here’s another example. Let’s suppose that David has contextualist or
social constructivist views about propositional knowledge. He thinks that the
question “What conditions must obtain for S to know that p?” is not a factual
one—our answer to this question depends only on our (context-dependent)
conceptual framework, and cannot depend on anything else. Thus, normative
epistemological questions are conceptual to David. But let’s suppose that
Meryl thinks about propositional knowledge in the spirit of the classical
definition of knowledge (more precisely, some expanded and corrected
version of it). That is, according to Meryl, the question “What conditions
must be met for S to know that p?” is a factual one—because the concept-
independent fact that these conditions are met either obtains, in which case
S knows that p, or does not obtain, in which case S does not know that p.
Thus, normative epistemological questions are factual to Meryl—there is a
kind of “epistemic world order” (similarly to the moral world order), which
determines what conditions must be met so we can speak about knowledge
(and not mere true belief).
 Philosophy Without Compelling Justification 133

Also, it can be easily seen that the question which of the two is right is a
factual philosophical question. Their debate concerns whether there exist or not
facts independently of our concepts, which determine what counts as a case of
propositional knowledge.
With the above, I would like say that (even if the terminology may seem
strange at first sight) normative philosophical questions, too, are either factual
or conceptual. If there is a concept-independent moral and/or epistemic world
order which makes our moral and/or epistemic statements true, then normative
philosophical questions are factual. By contrast, if there is no concept-
independent moral and/or epistemic world order, then normative philosophical
questions are conceptual—the choice of those moral and/or epistemic statements
to which we commit ourselves depends only on our conceptual framework.

2.1.2 Two bad objections

There are certainly some who dispute the validity of the above categorization
of philosophical problems. Now, it is evident that those who do so do not think
that all philosophical problems are factual—they think that all are conceptual.
On the one hand, they can claim that this categorization is wrong because
there are no facts that exist independently of our concepts, and so there are
no philosophical problems concerning which there would be truth simpliciter
(independent of our conceptual framework). I can answer this objection as
follows: even if it were true (although I think it is certainly untrue) that there
are no facts existing independently of our concepts, the ones who formulate this
objection must concede that they have committed themselves to the truth of a
par excellence factual philosophical thesis, namely global anti-realism, which
leads them to contradict themselves.
On the other hand, they can argue by singling out a philosophical problem
which seems par excellence factual (for example, the question “Is there a God?”),
and then go on saying that “Even though this problem seems to be a factual one
at first sight, if we go deeper, we have to see that it all depends on what we mean
by the concept of ‘God’.”
I can answer this objection by saying that although it is true that the question
“Is there a God?” needs some conceptual clarification and specification, this isn’t
an impossible task. Here’s a somewhat more precise phrasing: “Is there anything
that has the following properties: it created the world; it is a person and not a
kind of principle; it is not indifferent to the fate of humanity; its abilities and
knowledge exceed our abilities and knowledge to an inconceivable extent?” If
they keep responding to this that the question “Is there a God?” is a conceptual
134 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

one, as everything depends on what we mean by “the creation of the world,”

“the fate of humanity,” etc., then I can only say to this, using Wittgenstein’s well-
known metaphor again, that “my spade is turned” (PI 217) and they are just
provoking me. If they sincerely meant what they said, then they could reiterate
the “What do you mean by this and that term?” question endlessly about the
existence and nature of every posited entity, and if they did this consistently, they
would have to conclude that there is no question the response to which could be
“yes” or “no.”
Using a different approach, concerning those who deny the existence of
factual philosophical problems in the above spirit, we must primarily appeal to
their truthfulness. It is worth asking them to be truthful and admit that (after
some conceptual clarification) everybody precisely understands the question “Is
there a God?”—no less than the question “Are there intelligent aliens similar to
us in the universe?” Also, they should admit that everybody knows exactly that
the answer to these questions is either a simple yes or a simple no, which means
that both questions are factual.
To sum up, I do not think it can be seriously thought that all philosophical
discourse en bloc and sui generis is not fact-stating, and there is no single
philosophical problem concerning which the question of truth or falsehood
comes up simpliciter and so there are no factual problems at all.

2.2 Insincerity
I came up with the above classification of philosophical problems because I
think that equilibrism cannot be sincerely held concerning factual philosophical
problems. But before I can show this, I must first explain why it can be sincerely
held concerning conceptual philosophical problems.
The point is the following. Insofar a philosophical problem is a conceptual one,
you can be satisfied with focusing on whether the philosophical theory you have
chosen or elaborated is in equilibrium with your pre-philosophical convictions.
The reason why you can be satisfied with this is that there is nothing besides
your pre-philosophical convictions (which you think you’re unable to reject)
that you should conform to or take into account during the construction of your
philosophical theory. Furthermore, if a philosophical problem is a conceptual
one, you can be satisfied with the intellectual maintenance of the achieved
equilibrium. The reason why you can be satisfied with this is that it is out of the
question that things may be different to the way as your philosophical theory
says they are—because the things at issue are not in any way at all in themselves,
 Philosophy Without Compelling Justification 135

independently of your conceptual framework. Thus, regarding conceptual

philosophical problems, you don’t need to worry that your pre-philosophical
convictions may turn out to be false and misrepresent the nature of those things
your philosophical theory is about.
Let me put it differently. If you take sides regarding a conceptual philosophical
problem, then you can sincerely believe in your philosophical theory. This is
because, if it is really the case that the things at issue are not in any way at all,
independently of our conceptual framework, then, in fact, it only matters to what
extent you are able to bring your philosophical theory into equilibrium with
your pre-philosophical convictions, and how successfully you can intellectually
maintain your philosophical theory. If you fully discharge these two epistemic
duties, you can sincerely believe from your egocentric perspective that you should
“piece together” or articulate your theory in this way and not in another one. You
will not have to ask the question that “This and that are my pre-philosophical
convictions, and this is my theory which is in equilibrium with them—but could
it be the case that I’m wrong and my theory is simpliciter false?”
I will go further. No matter how you take sides regarding a conceptual
philosophical problem, you don’t need to feel insecure knowing that other
philosophers have other pre-philosophical convictions and correspondingly
they conceptualize the phenomenon at issue differently than you. That is, you
don’t need to begin to have doubts because of the philosophical disagreement
between you and other philosophers. For if a phenomenon is not in any way at
all in itself, then you can safely think that other philosophers’ other equilibria
can be just as plausible, enlightening, and productive, etc. as yours.
What’s more, if entity e is not in any way at all in itself, then the pluralism
of philosophical theories (equilibria) of e is nothing short of a blessing. It
is welcome because the question of truth simpliciter will not arise about the
philosophical theories concerning e, and consequently it would be unnecessary
and meaningless to discredit even a single one of them. Each equilibrium “shows,”
“brings out,” “elucidates,” “captures,” etc., something about e—each offers us a
consistent conceptual framework/perspective/viewpoint for thinking about e.
Thus, by discrediting any of these equilibria, we would only divest ourselves of
a possible perspective in which (or on the basis of which) e can be interpreted.
By contrast, with regard to factual philosophical problems, the situation is
entirely different, because in this case the aim is to hit upon truth. Just think
about the following.
Firstly, if Sarah takes sides regarding a factual (and so non-conceptual)
philosophical problem, the truth-conditions of the proposition “Sarah achieved
136 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

the desired equilibrium and successfully defended it against objections” are

different to the truth-conditions of “Sarah’s philosophical theory is true.” The
first proposition can be true even if the second is false and vice versa. It follows
that in contrast to conceptual philosophical problems, in the case of factual
philosophical problems, the following always remains an open question: “Sarah’s
philosophical theory is in equilibrium with her pre-philosophical convictions
and she has intellectually maintained her theory through fully discharging her
epistemic duties, but is her philosophical theory true?” This question is open
because—according to the equilibrist—Sarah doesn’t have (and cannot have)
justification which would show that her pre-philosophical convictions, i.e., the
basis of her philosophical theories, are not false.
Secondly, every philosopher’s aim may be put in such a general way that they
would like to know what they should believe. However, note that the proposition
“Sylvia knows what she should believe” is ambiguous. On the one hand, it can
mean that “Sylvia knows what she should believe depending on what her pre-
philosophical convictions are.” On the other hand, it can also mean that “Sylvia
knows which proposition(s) she should believe in order to believe something
simpliciter true.” Now, while only the first meaning of “Sylvia knows what she
should believe” is in play in the case of conceptual philosophical problems, in the
case of factual philosophical problems both possible meanings are in play, and it
is the second one that is relevant.
Thirdly, every philosopher’s aim is to work out a philosophical theory in
which they can rationally believe. However, note that the proposition “Sonia
rationally believes in theory T” is also ambiguous. On the one hand, it can
mean that “Sonia rationally believes in theory T because T is in equilibrium with
her pre-philosophical convictions and her other beliefs, and no knock-down
objections can be brought against T (or at least, Sonia isn’t aware of any).” On the
other hand, it can also mean that “Sonia believes in T rationally because she has
good reasons to think that her justification of T is truth-conducive.” Now, while
only the first meaning of “Sonia rationally believes in theory T” is in play in cases
of conceptual philosophical problems, in cases of factual philosophical problems
both possible meanings are in play, and it is the second one that is relevant.
The three above-mentioned differences clearly show that while you can commit
yourself to your philosophical theory with a clear intellectual conscience if the
philosophical problem is a conceptual one, provided you fulfil the expectations of
equilibrism (by developing and intellectually maintaining a philosophical theory
which is in equilibrium with your pre-philosophical convictions), you cannot do
that regarding factual philosophical problems. After all, you’re not an “I’m the
 Philosophy Without Compelling Justification 137

only one” philosopher, you don’t believe that you have knock-down arguments
for your philosophical theory, so you may ask the questions quite emphatically,
unnervingly, and strongly appealing to your intellectual conscience: “What if I’m
wrong?”; “What if things stand otherwise than I believe they do?”; “What if my
philosophical theory is false?” Even if you have fulfilled all the epistemic duties
prescribed by the equilibrist, when you take sides in a factual philosophical
problem, it does not seem to be an unnecessary and meaningless worry or too
pedantic to ask yourself: “Can I seriously and sincerely believe in the simpliciter
truth of my philosophical views if the most I can provide them with is egocentric
‘justification’?”; “Can I firmly trust in the simpliciter truth of my philosophical
views merely on the basis of the fact that they are in equilibrium with my pre-
philosophical convictions and no compelling arguments can be brought up
against them?”; “Can I take epistemic responsibility for the simpliciter truth of
my philosophical views if my fundamental pre-philosophical convictions on
which my views are based are unjustified, and the most I can say for them is
that I cannot discard them without damaging my personal integrity and/or my
cognitive household?”
I would be surprised if someone dared to call these questions irrelevant without
further ado. I would also be surprised if someone disputed that these questions
may arise in the equilibrist in the most natural way—developing unnerving
doubts in her. All this, I think, clearly shows that equilibrism is insensitive to the
difference between conceptual and factual philosophical problems. On the one
hand, you can be content with the intellectual maintenance of your considered
philosophical beliefs in relation to conceptual philosophical problems, because
there is no question of truth or falsehood in relation to them independent of
your own conceptual framework—the only thing at stake is the preservation of
the integrity of your own equilibrium. On the other hand, you cannot be content
with the intellectual maintenance of your considered philosophical beliefs in
relation to factual philosophical problems, because what is at stake in relation to
these problems is not only to preserve the integrity of your own equilibrium but
also to find truth independent of your own conceptual framework.
Let me put it differently. If S believes that p concerning a conceptual
philosophical problem, then S’s p-belief does not aim at some truth that is
independent of her own concepts—rather, it aims at some truth that can be
inferred from S’s conceptual framework. This is because each and every belief
that is in line with S’s own fundamental pre-philosophical convictions can be
inferred from S’s pre-philosophical convictions and her conceptual framework.
By contrast, if S believes that p concerning a factual philosophical problem, then
138 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

S’s p-belief aims at some truth that is independent of her conceptual philosophical
framework. However, in this case, the truth of S’s belief cannot be inferred from
her pre-philosophical convictions and conceptual framework.
To sum up, concerning a factual philosophical problem if S believes that p,
then S believes that p is true simpliciter—p describes things as they actually are.
So, if all S can say is “(1) these and these are my fundamental pre-philosophical
convictions (which are unjustified but I cannot abandon them), (2) p is in
equilibrium with these and these pre-philosophical convictions of mine, and (3)
there are no knock-down arguments against p” (and these three claims are the
most the equilibrist can make), then S cannot take epistemic responsibility for the
truth of her belief p.
But let’s go more into depth. Here’s a confession of a disillusioned equilibrist:

I take it for certain that the mind-body problem is a factual philosophical

problem—that things stand one way or the other, independently of my
conceptual framework. I also take it for certain that if God exists, then He knows
the nature of this relation. He knows the truth about it.

What do I know? The only thing I know is which philosophical view I should
commit myself to so it can be in equilibrium with my pre-philosophical
convictions. As it happens, one of my pre-philosophical convictions is that our
conscious experiences can cause physical events—it seems to me untenable
that our conscious experiences are epiphenomenal. My other pre-philosophical
conviction is that conscious experiences are non-physical—I simply cannot
conceive how an entity whose nature is essentially subjective could be placed in
the framework of a purely physicalist ontology. Now, the only variant of dualism
with which these two pre-philosophical convictions of mine are in equilibrium
denies the principle of the causal closure of the physical.

Earlier, as equilibrist, I thought that if I can show that none of the arguments
against my dualism is compelling, and I can clearly see that my dualism doesn’t
contradict any of my fundamental pre-philosophical convictions, then I can,
in good conscience, commit myself to the truth of my dualism. That is, earlier,
I was an equilibrist because I was concerned exclusively with the intellectual
maintenance of my personal-cognitive integrity. Now, however, I can clearly see
that it isn’t enough to cherish my pre-philosophical convictions and my dualism
which is in equilibrium with them. What has changed?

Firstly, I realized that if the most I can say is that “I’m a dualist because dualism
is in equilibrium with my fundamental pre-philosophical convictions, which I
 Philosophy Without Compelling Justification 139

de facto have,” then I’m actually in no better epistemic situation than the one
who rolls a dice to decide which view she should commit himself to. While I can
say that “There is such and such relation between mind and body depending on
what my pre-philosophical convictions are,” she can say that “There is such and
such a relation between mind and body depending on the result of my dice roll.”

Apart from the fact that my decision about which propositions I hold true is based
on contingent factors similar to the result of a dice roll (for this must be the case
if I decide about them on the basis of my pre-philosophical convictions) seems
to be an irresponsible act in itself, I must also realize that I will quite probably
come to adopt mistaken views with the use of this “method.” There are several
different configurations of pre-philosophical convictions, and correspondingly
there are several possible equilibria. There is only a slight probability that of
all pre-philosophical convictions, it is precisely mine that are true and that it is
precisely the equilibrium corresponding to them that is true.

In other words, the community of philosophers has worked out several

epistemically equivalent and mutually inconsistent equilibria concerning
the mind-body problem. Now, if—as equilibrism says—these equilibria are
epistemically equivalent (they stand an equal chance of being true), then I have
no good epistemic reason to commit myself to the truth of any of them. This
is because it would certainly not be a proper epistemic reason for me to say
that “As it happens, these and these are my pre-philosophical convictions,
consequently I must hold dualism to be true out of the several epistemically
equivalent equilibria.”

Secondly, I was confronted with my former insincerity most acutely and

painfully when I finally asked myself, “Why are my fundamental pre-
philosophical convictions what they are and not others?” I thought that this
contingent fact should have a contrastive causal explanation, and, through
my self-reflective monitoring, I have come to the conclusion that the factors
determining my fundamental pre-philosophical convictions have absolutely
nothing to do with whether they are true or false. Now, if my fundamental
pre-philosophical convictions on which my dualism is based are biased, then
I cannot trust them, and therefore I cannot seriously and sincerely believe in
my dualism that elaborates on them—I cannot take epistemic responsibility for
its truth. Of course, this doesn’t by itself mean that my dualism is false—just
because my pre-philosophical convictions are biased, my dualism may still be
true. But it does mean that even if dualism is true, I believe it to be true not for
the reasons why it is true, but because of certain bias factors. And that’s not as
it should be.
140 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

­ ake, for example, my fundamental pre-philosophical conviction that our

T
conscious experiences cannot be physical. What bias factors explain this pre-
philosophical conviction according to my self-reflection? Well, from an early
age, I grew up in a highly religious environment—and the religious point of view
inexorably became part of me. Because of my childhood socialization, I believe
in the existence of God and the truth of the conditional that “If God exists, then
the mind (or soul) cannot be physical, for it is immortal.” Furthermore, in my
youth, I was indelibly influenced by Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave,” according to
which the visible (physical) world is not the ultimate reality—there is a more
fundamental existence than the physical. This reading experience strongly
shaped my epistemic character: I constantly felt (and sometimes still feel) that
I am homeless in this “visible” (shadow) world, and that the physical story is
not only incomplete, but just the surface of existence. And I confess that this
pre-philosophical conviction of mine was further strengthened by the fact
that during debates, my scientist-physicalist interlocutors often displayed such
an intellectual arrogance and disdain for everyone who didn’t categorically
preclude the existence of the supernatural, which literally filled me with
revulsion.

Of course, I’m not saying that the pre-philosophical convictions of all dualists
are determined by precisely these bias factors. Nor am I saying that these factors
are the ultimate causal explanation for my pre-philosophical conviction that
our conscious experiences cannot be physical. In a word, I’m not saying that
my self-reflection can gain access to the ultimate biases that determine my pre-
philosophical convictions. But I do claim that such factors (arising from my
environment, upbringing, etc.) had a decisive effect on the formation of my
epistemic character, and they determine my pre-philosophical convictions to be
what they are and not to be different. And I also claim that all philosophers are in
the same situation (no matter what their positions are, including physicalism)—
the content of their fundamental pre-philosophical convictions results from a
combination of certain contingent, causally effective factors that have nothing
to do with truth and are not under their control.

Finally, I asked myself one last question: what would it really mean to take
epistemic responsibility for the truth of my dualism? And here is what I have
concluded: it would mean that I would dare to bet high stakes (say, ten years of
my life) that dualism is the right mind-body theory. It would mean that I would
dare to try convincing the people who matter most to me to commit themselves
to dualism. It would mean that as an epistemic authority, I would dare, in every
possible forum, to stand up for the truth of dualism. But (and that’s crucial!), I
had to admit to myself that I wouldn’t dare to do any of these. Having realized
 Philosophy Without Compelling Justification 141

their biasedness, I could not trust any of my fundamental pre-philosophical

convictions to be veridical, hence in the truth of my dualism based on them.

These two revelations were a flash to me that made me quite uncertain. Thus,
I need to seriously consider the possibility of becoming a meta-skeptic—even
if it is a terrible thought that the suspension of my dualism would collapse my
cognitive household.

Take a deep breath and put your hand on your heart before you answer the
following questions! Do you think that the above confession is nothing more
than a philosopher’s excessive worry, groundless lack of self-confidence,
meaningless self-recrimination and causeless complaint? Do you think that
the uncertainty of this person is totally unfounded if she thinks that she is not
superior in terms of accuracy over the one who decides by rolling a dice which
substantive philosophical theory she commits himself to? Do you think that this
person distresses herself completely unnecessarily when, by her self-monitoring,
she concludes that her fundamental pre-philosophical convictions are biased;
and since they are biased, she cannot trust them, and therefore cannot take
epistemic responsibility for the truth of the theory based on them? And do you
think that it was completely groundless for this person to think that perhaps it
would be right for her to suspend her belief in the truth of dualism, since she
wants to avoid being mistaken about the solution of the mind-body problem at
all costs?
I think that you cannot answer these questions with a definite yes if you have a
bit of intellectual empathy. And if you realize that you cannot answer them with a
definite yes, then you must also realize what the insincerity of equilibrism’s ethos
consists of concerning one’s beliefs about substantive and factual philosophical
issues.

***

So, what’s the source of the trouble? I will try to present it as simply as possible.
Here’s what is on the equilibrist’s mind:

The goal that the followers of epistemic tradition set themselves is too ambitious:
to compellingly justify substantive philosophical theses. Now, since (1) this goal
is unattainable, and since (2) I don’t want to (cannot) stop doing philosophy,
I must settle for a more modest goal. This more modest goal, and at once the
most I can achieve, is to intellectually maintain my considered philosophical
beliefs—to keep my equilibria intact.
142 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

In this section (especially with the fictitious confession above), I tried to show
the following: despite our firm belief that the goal of the epistemic tradition
is unattainable, we still cannot be satisfied with what equilibrism can offer “in
its place,” “in exchange for it.” If the most we can bring up for the truth of our
considered substantive factual philosophical beliefs is that which equilibrism
allows us, then doubts come to us galore, in a completely natural way—and we
are completely defenseless against them. And those doubts don’t arise from the
fact that our philosophical theories are threatened by knock-down objections
(we can overcome them if we’re smart enough)—rather, they arise from our
realization that the most we can achieve (namely, keeping our equilibria intact)
isn’t actually enough.
How should I put it? Although facing the failure of epistemic tradition initially
seemed a viable option, and even the only viable option, equilibrism cannot make
up for what we have lost—namely, our confidence in the possibility of substantive
philosophical knowledge and in our ability to solve philosophical problems.
Just as it seems a hopeless undertaking to seek compelling justification for our
substantive factual philosophical theses, so too, trying to commit ourselves to
their truth without compelling arguments does not offer any prospects. There
are times when we clearly see that something is impossible for us to achieve, and
that the most we can achieve cannot satisfy us—and equilibrism is precisely this
latter option.

2.3 Epistemic schizophrenia

Let’s suppose that you realize that as an equilibrist, you cannot commit yourself
to your substantive factual philosophical views with epistemic responsibility.
Nevertheless, you also realize that you’re unable to discard these philosophical
views. On the one hand, you clearly see that the merely egocentric justification
of your views doesn’t entitle you to seriously and sincerely believe in their truth;
on the other hand, you cannot hold your beliefs to be irrational and suspend
them—you keep sticking to them.
Let’s not sugar-coat, this is writhing indeed. I will christen it right away: epistemic
schizophrenia. Now, I think that this epistemic schizophrenia overwhelms every
equilibrist who is sufficiently reflective and sincere to confess to herself that her
philosophical views are built on her unjustified pre-philosophical convictions,
and who, for this very reason, entertains doubts about her ability to sustain her
views with epistemic responsibility, but also realizes her inability to give up her
philosophical views without her personal-cognitive integrity falling apart.
 Philosophy Without Compelling Justification 143

Let me show how wicked epistemic schizophrenia can be in another dialogue—

this time with a real philosopher, instead of a fictitious one. The interlocutor is,
again, Sophie, but I’m going to quote the answers to her questions from actual
papers by van Inwagen:

Sophie: The other day I got involved in a lengthy and rather depressing debate
with Philonous about the epistemic status of his philosophical view. The take-
home message from our discussion was that he is incapable of self-reflection
and of putting himself in the perspective of his opponents. He thinks that
all those philosophers who disagree with him are his epistemic inferiors—
meaning that they don’t understand his arguments and they’re unable to
recognize their compelling force. I know that you’re not an “I’m the only
one” philosopher, yet you have definite views on certain philosophical issues.
You think that possible worlds are not concrete physical objects; that physical
objects are not four- but three-dimensional entities; and that free will is
incompatible with determinism. Let me put this question to you, too: aren’t
you made uncertain by the fact that the views that some other very smart
philosophers (Lewis, for example) hold on these issues are incompatible with
yours?

van Inwagen: So you wonder, “How can I believe (as I do) that free will is
incompatible with determinism or that unrealized possibilities are not
physical objects or that human beings are not four-dimensional things
extended in time as well as in space, when David Lewis—a philosopher of
truly formidable intelligence and insight and ability—rejects these things I
believe and is already aware of and understands perfectly every argument
that I could produce in their defense?” (1996: 138)

Sophie: Exactly. But, for the sake of simplicity, let’s take only the problem of free
will and determinism. What do you think of the significance of Lewis holding
a view different from yours? Do you think that your belief in incompatibilism
is rational while Lewis’ belief in compatibilism is not?

van Inwagen: “It seems more plausible to say (to revert to the example of David
Lewis and myself) that David and I have the same evidence in the matter of
the problem of free will, and to concede that this entails that either we are
both rational or neither of us is” (2010: 27).

Sophie: And what do you say to that?

­van Inwagen: “The position that we are both rational […] is hard to defend. If I
suppose that we are both rational, I hear W. K. Clifford’s ghost whispering an
indignant protest […]
144 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

If you and Lewis are both rational in accepting contradictory propositions

on the basis of identical evidence, and you accept one of these propositions—
incompatibilism—on the basis of evidence, that does not direct you toward
incompatibilism and away from compatibilism. (For, if it did, it would have
directed him away from compatibilism, and it would not have been rational
for him to be a compatibilist.) But of all the forces in the human psyche
that direct us toward and away from assent to propositions, only rational
attention to relevant evidence tracks the truth. Both experience and reason
confirm this. And, if you assent to a proposition on the basis of some inner
push, some ‘will to believe’, if I may coin a phrase, that does not track the
truth, then your propositional assent is not being guided by the nature of the
things those propositions are about. If you could decide what to believe by
tossing a coin, if that would actually be effective, then, in the matter of the
likelihood of your beliefs being true, you might as well do it that way” (2010:
28, italics in original).

Sophie: Let me tell you in my own words the nature of your doubt, step by
step. (1) You’re aware of the fact that Lewis has a view that is the opposite
of yours—namely, he’s a compatibilist. (2) You suppose that both of you
have the same evidential basis. (3) You think that if the evidential basis is
common yet your views are different, then the only explanation for it is that
the common evidential basis doesn’t sway you toward or away from any
view. (4) You think that if both of you expound your mutually incompatible
views drawing on the same evidential basis, then the theory construction or
line of argument of at least one of you is affected by “forces” that don’t track
the truth. (5) You think that these “forces” operate in an undetectable way,
and you cannot rule out the possibility that it is you who is being misled
by them. (6) Since you cannot rule out the possibility that these “forces”
deceive you, you cannot rationally (at least, concerning belief-accuracy or
truth-conduciveness) believe that incompatibilism is true and that your
Consequence Argument for it is compelling. (See van Inwagen 1975.)
From the viewpoint of equilibrism, the reason for this difference of views
between you lies elsewhere. According to it, the difference of views between
you persists because your fundamental pre-philosophical convictions are
different. Thus, it is not the case that you both start out constructing your
philosophical theories on the basis of a given and shared set of evidence, and
subsequently, at some point of theory construction, some “mysterious force”
starts to operate undetectably and leads both of you (or at least one of you)
astray. Rather, the case is that you and Lewis take different pre-philosophical
intuitions at “face value” during theory construction, and presumably it is at
 Philosophy Without Compelling Justification 145

this point where some “forces” or bias factors come into play that don’t track
the truth.
But all this is not so relevant to our present conversation, since as I see
it, the essence is the following. Let’s suppose that you’re right from God’s
perspective and Lewis is wrong. But, as you cannot rule out the possibility
that it is not you who is misled, at some point of your argument, by that
“mysterious force” of which Clifford’s ghost is speaking, after all it is a matter
of chance that you’re right and Lewis is wrong.
I know that you’re completely aware of all the above. Then, how is it
possible that you still stick to incompatibilism and don’t suspend your belief?

van Inwagen: “I am unwilling to listen to the whispers of Clifford’s ghost; that

is, I am unwilling to become an agnostic about everything, but empirically
verifiable matters of fact. (In fact, I am unable to do that, and so, I think, is
almost everyone else; as Thoreau said, neither men nor mushrooms grow so.)
And I am unable to believe that my gnosticism, so to call it, is irrational. I am,
I say, unwilling to listen to these whispers. But I am unable to answer them”
(2010: 27, italics from Sophie).

This is also writhing—epistemic schizophrenia. I am asking you to have empathy

and try to imagine what it like is to live through this “battle”! Try to imagine
yourself in van Inwagen’s place—you’re unable to give up your incompatibilism,
while you have to hear the continuous reproachful whispering of Clifford’s
ghost. What can come out of this? Something like this may do:

If I assume that determinism is true, then by that I state (or I may be guided by
“will to believe”) that given the world’s initial condition and the laws of nature,
nothing can happen differently to how it actually happens. If, however I state
that nothing can happen differently to how it actually happens, then I also
have to state (oh, it may just be my heart’s voice): every action, on account of
being a physical event, is forced by other physical events that do not fall under
the agent’s control. And if every action as a physical event is forced by other
physical events that do not fall under the agent’s control, then I have to say
this (although I am so afraid that this is only a result of “some inner push”):
when, for example, Franz Joseph signed the document declaring war on Serbia
in 1914, this was something he had no way to avoid—his hand had to move the
exact way it did.

You cannot just wave aside again this line of thought that is quite “impregnated”
with cognitive unrest, and cannot say that its author is troubled by unnecessarily
146 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

self-recrimination and meaningless worry. It would be a sign of excessive

insensitivity, wouldn’t it?
This cannot end well. If a philosopher’s doubt triumphs, then she will
become a meta-skeptic. She suspends her substantive philosophical beliefs and
gives up on seeking philosophical truths. And if a philosopher finally gives in
to an irresistible urge to stick to her view at any cost, then she cannot but try
to put Clifford’s ghost’s (or Sophie’s) words out of her head and retire to her
philosophical cave—even if it is (at least initially) accompanied by a hellish
intellectual remorse.

***

Still, perhaps neither of the above cases should occur. Let’s assume that someone
argues as follows:

I don’t believe that my arguments for the truth of my philosophical views have
compelling force. Neither do I believe that the rival views are underpinned with
arguments weaker than mine. In spite of all these, I think that I can confidently
believe that, in contrast to my interlocutors, I am the one who is right. I can do
so because beyond/above my philosophical arguments, but in accordance with
them, I have some further private evidence for the truth of my philosophical
views. Referring to it, I can attribute privileged status (extra weight) to my own
view—saying that my interlocutors don’t have THIS evidence. So, against the
equilibrists I can claim that my philosophical views aren’t merely ones among
many other equilibria because they aren’t merely elaborations of my fundamental
pre-philosophical convictions—I have further evidence for the truth of my views.
And I can say to the whispering of Clifford’s ghost that my private evidence does
track the truth—it directs me towards assenting to truth propositions.

It seems that van Inwagen himself tries to get out of this trouble in a similar way
(at least, some passages attest to it):

Well, I do believe these things [my first-order philosophical views]. And I

believe that I am justified in believing them. And I am confident that I am right.
But how can I take these positions? I don’t know. That is itself a philosophical
question, and I have no firm opinion about its correct answer. I suppose my
best guess is that I enjoy some sort of philosophical insight (I mean in relation to
these particular theses) that, for all merits, is somehow denied to Lewis. And this
would have to be an insight that is incommunicable — at least, I do not know
how to communicate it — for I have done all I can to communicate it to Lewis,
 Philosophy Without Compelling Justification 147

and he has understood everything perfectly everything I have said, and he has
not come to share my conclusions.
(1996: 138, italics mine)

It is hard to say anything to these proposals. If a philosopher’s confidence is

seriously shaken in the truth of his beliefs, then I’m afraid that he can hardly
regain it by citing some private evidence. Just think about it. What could he say
(how more specific he could be) about the nature of this private evidence, which
could convince him and restore his confidence? If he can say no more about this
private evidence that it is he who experiences it and what he experiences counts
for much more than someone else’s experience (e.g., Huemer 2011)—then it
surely won’t be enough. He might as well say: “The fact that I believe in the truth
of p is further evidence for the truth of p, above my arguments—please give me
back my confidence!”
The most he can say is this: the experience of this private evidence has a
specific phenomenology. For example: “When my philosophical theory appears
to me in its completeness, alongside my arguments for it, an inner voice always
starts speaking inside me, and assures me: ‘Yes, that’s true’, ‘Yes, this is how the
pieces come (must come) together!’—like God, taking a glance of what He
had done, ‘He saw it was good’.” To give another example: “An inner voice has
been showing me the way right from the start for working out my philosophical
theory; it ‘has been with me’ all along; it ‘has accompanied me’; it ‘has guided me’
during the argumentation; it has indicated the right direction to me: ‘Don’t go
that way!’; ‘Avoid that!’; ‘Try to find it this way!’; and it has assured me at each
and every step of the correctness of these steps.”
I don’t dispute that there are such inner voices, inner compasses, and inner
“truth-signalers,” neither do I dispute that these have an important role in
shaping our philosophical beliefs. But, no matter how we would like to avoid
it, we always come across the question whether we can trust in them. Can we
seriously and sincerely believe in the truth of p based on an inner voice that
assures us of the truth of p?
This doubt has two sources—it is easy to figure out what they are. One is:
what should I do if my interlocutors, too, appeal to private evidence? I can afford
to ignore it, saying “The inner guiding voice speaks in only those who, like me,
believe that p—by contrast, in those who believe that non-p, this voice remains
silent.” I can also say: “The inner guiding voice speaks in my interlocutors, too,
except that it tells them falsities.” However, they can say these things just like
me—the whole debate would turn into a farce. The other is: why should I believe
148 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

that the inner voice is reliable? For all I know, the inner voice which assures me
of the truth of p might be private evidence which really signals the truth of p; or,
it might be a mere “will to believe,” or again, some different “inner push” that
does not track the truth. This is an especially nagging issue, since the latter also
“show” me the “truth” and also “signal” the “right” direction to me. However, I
have to admit that I don’t have the right criteria to tell apart the private evidence
which (reliably) signals the truth of p to me from the various bias factors.
Each of these issues is banal (they couldn’t be more banal)—so, all the more
it is painful that we can hardly answer to them in good conscience. And if we
cannot do that, then our trust in the truth of our beliefs will not be restored—we
keep sinking deeper into the pits of epistemic schizophrenia. Earlier we had to
face that we cannot believe in the truth of our substantive factual philosophical
views with epistemic responsibility if all we can say is that they are elaborated
versions of our fundamental pre-philosophical convictions (which are unjustified
but I cannot abandon them), and there are no knock-down argument(s) against
them. Now we have to face that there is an inner voice assuring us that the way
things are is the way we think them to be. But, since we are at a loss when we
are requested to justify that this inner voice signals the truth to us, rather than
being a mere bias factor which has nothing to do with the truth, we cannot
keep believing in the truth of our substantive factual philosophical views with
epistemic responsibility.
Of course, independently of all that, some philosophers might convince
themselves (even permanently) that they have a kind of private evidence which
reliably signals them the truth of p, and consequently they can believe in the truth
of p in cognitive peace. Once again, it is hard to say anything to this. I feel like
shrugging my shoulders, saying: “Look, to what length some will go in order to
regain their trust in the truth of their philosophical beliefs—and look, how much
success they achieve in this regard!” But I feel that irony would be misplaced at
this point. Rather, here is how I see it: if a philosopher “achieves success,” then
that is one of the saddest things that can happen to him in his career.

3 Philosophy without philosophical beliefs

Here’s the core idea in brief. The advocates of Lewis-style equilibrism would
like to stick to their philosophical beliefs—what is important to them is
that they can believe in their philosophical theories. As Lewis puts it in his
“maxim of honesty”: “never put forward a philosophical theory that you
 Philosophy Without Compelling Justification 149

yourself cannot believe in your least philosophical and most commonsensical

moments” (1986: 135, italics mine).
The advocates of Lewis-style equilibrism admittedly don’t possess any
compelling justifications for their philosophical theories. However, the
intellectual maintenance of their considered philosophical beliefs (if you wish,
the mere egocentric “justification” of their philosophical theses) is not enough
for them to seriously and sincerely believe in the truth of their philosophical
theories.
The failure of Lewis-style equilibrism clearly shows that the philosophers’
beliefs are the source of all troubles. But it also clearly shows the solution: to be
able to commit themselves to a philosophical theory, philosophers should not
believe in it (what is more, it is even counter-indicated for them to do that), but
rather merely accept it (see e.g., Barnett 2019; Beebee 2018). The reason is that
the mere acceptance of a philosophical theory means a less binding and looser
commitment. We could say, “no belief, no cry.”

3.1 Belief vs. acceptance

Here’s one formulation of this suggestion:

I suggest […] that something like van Fraassen’s view about “acceptance” of
scientific theories can be made to solve the problem. Constructive empiricism
faces a similar problem to equilibrism: given that science does not aim at the
truth, and hence knowledge, of scientific theories — it only aims at empirical
adequacy — how can we make sense of the fact that scientists do (and indeed
must, for the purpose of pursuing that aim) make assertions that apparently
express belief in claim about unobservables for which they have no justification?
Van Fraassen’s answer, in short, is that “acceptance” of and belief in such claim
are two distinct phenomena — and that only acceptance is required […]

Roughly, then, the idea is that in “accepting” a scientific theory that is

ontologically committed to unobservables, the scientist does nor (or, at least
need not) adopt the attitude of belief towards what the theory says about those
unobservables […]

[I]f we are not entitled to believe that claims of our own theories, in what sense
can they truly be said to be our theories? How can we sincerely endorse the
claims those theories make? Acceptance, I take it, is supposed to deliver sincerity.
The attitude of acceptance does not, of course, constitute sincere belief, but it
150 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

is sincere nonetheless. The working scientist adopts a theoretical view, works

hard to accommodate the existing evidence and explore further consequences
of her theory, makes adjustments where necessary, and so on. And she can do
all of this entirely sincerely while yet merely accepting rather than believing her
own theory […] All of this, I suggest, amounts to the scientist’s taking a view in
as much of a sense of “taking a view” as is required of her for the purposes of
playing her part in the progress of science.

If something like van Fraassen’s notion of acceptance really can constitute

a legitimate sense in which one might “take a view”, then it can, I think, be
applied to the working philosopher no less that to working scientist. The aims
of science […] and the aims of philosophy […] differ, of course: the aim of
empirical adequacy in science is very different to the pluralist aim in philosophy
of discovering the equilibrium positions that can withstand examination. But in
each case the acceptance of a theory that one cannot rationally believe serves a
purpose relative to that aim. In the case of science, the aim of empirical adequacy
demands that theories that posit unobservables are developed and tested, and in
the case of philosophy the aim of the discovery of equilibria demands that we
take on board a set of core assumptions and methodological prescriptions in
order to develop and scrutinize an equilibrium position of our own that can
withstand examination.
(Beebee 2018: 20–2, italics in original)

The thing is the following. Let’s make a difference between belief in a theory and
acceptance of a theory (see e.g., Cohen 1989, 1992; Engel 1998; van Fraassen
1980). Putting subtleties and related major and minor disagreements aside, and
concentrating solely on factual philosophical problems, I would like to point out
the following differences between the concepts of belief and acceptance.
Firstly, if we believe that p, then our p-belief aims at truth. For example, if
we believe that mereological sums do not exist, it means that we hold true the
proposition that “Mereological sums do not exist.” By contrast, if we merely
accept that p, then the acceptance of p does not aim at truth—we accept p solely
for practical purposes. For example, if we merely accept that mereological
sums do not exist, it means that we hold mereological nihilism as a possible
philosophical equilibrium to be productive, rich in prospects, progressive, etc.—
something that yields a lot of “juice” when squeezed.
Secondly, if we believe that p, then we must be able to give reasons as to why
we hold p true. For example, if we believe that free will is incompatible with
determinism, then we must be able to argue for the truth of incompatibilism and
the falsity of compatibilism. By contrast, if we merely accept that p, then we do
 Philosophy Without Compelling Justification 151

not need to have reasons for the truth of p. For example, if we merely accept that
free will is incompatible with determinism, then we must only be able to argue
for the claim that incompatibilism as a philosophical equilibrium is productive,
rich in prospects, progressive, etc.
Thirdly, if we believe that p, then our p-belief is not a result of our deliberate
decision (or just very rarely is)—we do not have control over our beliefs (or have
only minimum control over them). For example, if we believe in the existence
of God, then we did not decide that from that moment on, we hold true the
proposition “God exists.” By contrast, if we merely accept that p, then it is always
a result of our deliberate decision—we have strong control over what we accept.
For example, if we accept that God exists, it means that we made a conscious
decision that from now on, we will work on developing and defending a theist
equilibrium, and take sides in other philosophical issues in its spirit.
Fourthly, if we believe that p, then our p-belief has personal significance to
us. For example, if we believe that phenomenal consciousness is not a physical
property, then this belief of ours cannot be detached from several other beliefs, and
is (or can be) an integral part of our personal and cognitive identity. By contrast,
if we merely accept that p, then our acceptance of p has no personal significance
to us. For example, if we merely accept that phenomenal consciousness is not a
physical property, then it has nothing to do with the system of our beliefs—it
may even be possible that we actually believe anti-physicalism to be false.
To sum up, as opposed to our belief in a philosophical theory, to accept a
philosophical theory is nothing else but to commit ourselves to a well-defined
working hypothesis, of which we believe (because this is the only thing we must
believe in) that it is sufficiently productive, rich in prospects, progressive, etc.,
to be worthy of our further development and defense, and to provide us a
framework for doing philosophy.
What is the significance of this distinction? Here’s the answer: if we start
from the assumptions (1) that we cannot appropriately justify our philosophical
theories to be able to seriously and sincerely believe in their truth, (2) that belief
in a philosophical theory is not a necessary condition for commitment to it,
(3) that we are free to accept any philosophical theory (equilibrium), and (4)
that doing philosophy is a valuable thing, which we should not eliminate, then
it is advisable that we show an attitude of acceptance towards philosophical
theories instead of an attitude of belief. The reason is that there is nothing at
stake for us in merely accepting a philosophical theory, it is not an integral part
of our system of beliefs, it does not involve taking a personal stance, and it has
nothing to do with our intuitions, pre-philosophical beliefs, and fundamental
152 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

convictions—consequently, it cannot happen that we are suddenly visited by

cognitive unrest or the disease called epistemic schizophrenia. In other words,
it is advisable that we merely accept philosophical theories instead of believing
in them because this is the only way for us to achieve complete cognitive peace
to do our share in implementing that great and noble goal of the community of
philosophers, that of populating the logical space with stable and increasingly
sophisticated equilibria.
Taking a different track, in contrast to Lewis’ (let me call it “human-faced”
from now on) equilibrism, according to the “no belief, no cry” equilibrism,
our appropriate reaction to philosophy’s epistemic failure should be just to
pretend having any philosophical beliefs—while we don’t believe in the truth
of a single substantive philosophical thesis. The proper conduct for us during
philosophical discourse is to act as if we had philosophical beliefs—while we
don’t have any. The right attitude for us is to interpret philosophical discourse
in a fictionalist manner—that is, as it is inevitable, we should keep saying that
“I believe that p,” but we don’t assert it literally. Thus, we can sustain our usual
philosophical discourse and don’t have to worry about the uncertainty of our
philosophical beliefs.

3.2 Phalanstery of philosophers

I don’t want to dispute that the “no belief, no cry” equilibrism offers an attractive
alternative to many philosophers. I also concede that if the “utopia” of the “no
belief, no cry” equilibrism came true, then philosophers would not live in
cognitive uncertainty any more indeed, as they would have no philosophical
beliefs, “the source of all troubles.” At the same time, I cannot identify with the
“no belief, no cry” equilibrism. I will try to briefly tell you why I am so averse to
and displeased by this metaphilosophical vision.
(1) Let’s imagine how work would go on in the “no belief, no cry” “utopia.”
Since, according to this metaphilosophical vision, philosophy’s exclusive goal
is to populate logical space with consistent equilibria that resist objections,
there is no doubt that the most suitable candidates for this task would be those
philosophers who do not at all have any philosophical beliefs. For if a philosopher
does not have philosophical beliefs that are significant to him (or, what is more,
have existential stake), then, after all, he can work with complete cognitive peace
of mind in the “assembly hall” of any equilibrium.
Of course, there could be some “malfunctioning” in the “no belief, no cry”
“utopia,” too, as the following dialogue illustrates:
 Philosophy Without Compelling Justification 153

Philosopher No. 123422: Dear equilibrium construction manager, I have

a small problem. Ashamed as I am, I have to confess this: it seems that
I still have some residual philosophical beliefs. One example is that a
political community does the right thing if it benefits the least advantaged
in allocating resources. Another one is that there are no abstract entities.
Yet another is that the mind is part of the physical world. I can “vividly”
believe all the (just-mentioned) propositions, and my personal-cognitive
integrity would be damaged if I had to give up any of them. But, as I take
it for sure that there can be no compelling arguments in philosophy, and
as I’ve realized that the Lewis-type “human-faced” version of equilibrism
necessarily gives rise to cognitive unrest, I cannot see how I could do
my part in the works of implementing philosophy’s ultimate goal, the
construction of equilibria.

Equilibrium construction manager: God save us from you constructing

philosophical equilibria related to these fundamental convictions of yours.
If you don’t want to catch the disease called “cognitive unrest” or “epistemic
schizophrenia,” just let go of your cherished pre-philosophical convictions
and the equilibria that elaborate them!

Philosopher No. 123422: But what should I do, then?

Equilibrium construction manager: Don’t worry! We will surely find some

philosophical problems that you don’t have any solid intuitions about. For
instance, do you have any solid pre-philosophical convictions about the
problem “The ship of Theseus”?

Philosopher No. 123422: None at all.

Equilibrium construction manager: Great! Starting from tomorrow, you will

be busily building the equilibrium which says that the original ship is
identical with the reconstructed ship—of course, in the spirit of mereological
essentialism. But if you deem the topic of mereological essentialism to have
already been thoroughly dissected by your predecessors, and think that you
would not benefit much from it, then feel free to choose an equilibrium that
promises more new insights. For example, the one which says that the original
ship undergoes fission. Still, the best you can do is to obtain a thorough
taxonomy of the “Ship of Theseus” problem (let’s say the one written by
Gallois [1998]) and choose the philosophical equilibrium from which you
think you can squeeze the most philosophical “juice.”

I­ don’t know about you but for me, the vision of “no belief, no cry” equilibrism is
not a pleasant, serene, sunny, and peaceful utopia, but a horrible and frustrating
154 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

dystopia. Of course, I cannot rule out that my unwillingness is idiosyncratic,

and perhaps even self-destructing in a certain sense. The most I can say is this:
I have some “vivid” substantive philosophical beliefs that are important to me,
and I think that a person like me would not prefer to live in this “utopia.” The
reason is that I consider it my epistemic duty to try to account for my substantive
philosophical beliefs in the light of philosophy’s epistemic failure—and if I
worked in the “no belief, no cry” utopia, doing philosophy in the spirit of “no
belief, no cry” equilibrism, then I would continuously and definitely feel that I
do not do what I should do, and what I should do is not what I do.
To put it bluntly, in my eyes the “no belief, no cry” equilibrism is a superficial
metaphilosophical vision, which downgrades doing philosophy to a lightweight,
no-stakes intellectual game, transforming it into a kind of charade, so to speak.
Within the framework of this game, no concepts such as “eutrophication,”
“flirtatiousness,” or “troubadour poetry” should be drawn and expressions such
as “Karamazov brothers,” “globalization,” “Sally-Anne test” shouldn’t be shown
without words. Instead of these very difficult riddles, this charade, made in the
spirit of “no belief, no cry” equilibrism, would include very difficult riddles
such as “Argue for panpsychism, show that photons have proto-consciousness!”;
“Argue that there can be aliens who have very different geometry than ours!”;
“Argue that any combination of temporal parts of any objects from any time, no
matter how scattered and disparate, composes an object!”
If the utopia of “no belief, no cry” equilibrism were realized, the doing of
philosophy would not be much different from this charade. I don’t dispute that
this charade would be a fun and exciting pastime for many, but I am quite certain
that those philosophers who have substantive philosophical beliefs would feel
homeless in this world. They would feel that they’re not of this world.
(2) Let’s imagine, however, a philosopher who—unlike me—would like to live
in this “utopia.” He might say this:

I like the vision of “no belief, no cry” equilibrism because I experience it as a

kind of liberation. I don’t believe that there could be knock-down arguments
in philosophy, and I don’t sympathize with the “human-faced” version of
equilibrism either. For me, the “no belief, no cry” vision is the only option to
commit myself to a philosophical theory with cognitive peace of mind. This is
because it requires me no more than to accept a working hypothesis, and do my
job in accordance with it day after day.

­ he reason why I can do my job with complete cognitive peace of mind by

T
accepting the working hypothesis that I’ve chosen or I’ve been assigned is
 Philosophy Without Compelling Justification 155

that for me, the work of building (or assembling) equilibrium x is no more
significant than the work of building (or assembling) equilibrium y. I believe
neither in x nor in y. And as I don’t have any philosophical beliefs, I don’t mind,
and even consider as another challenge, if in the meantime the community
of philosophers expects me to accept another working hypothesis (one
whose content is incompatible with the earlier one) and the construction of a
corresponding equilibrium.

But that’s not all. The vision of “no belief, no cry” equilibrism strongly attracts
me because it offers a moral redemption at once. I don’t have to lie to myself
any more when trying to account for my decision to continue my professional
philosophical activity, even though I no longer believe in any substantive
philosophical theories.

I don’t know about you, but in my eyes the above is a clear proof that the “no
belief, no cry” equilibrism is in fact nothing else but an open and sophisticated
yet displeasing form of that opportunism that tries to divert attention from
the unresolvedness of philosophical problems and the misery of those burnt-
out philosophers who have lost all their substantive philosophical beliefs by
reassuring them that “although you have failed both intellectually and morally,
you can keep on doing everything as you did so far.”
As you can see, I used some morally condemning expressions—I called the
“no belief, no cry” equilibrism superficial and unprincipled opportunism. At
the same time, I have to admit that whether a philosopher likes or dislikes the
“no belief, no cry” equilibrism is, like so many other things, dependent on value
choice at the end of the day—being a matter of taste, if you wish.
I fully admit that someone could think that populating the logical space,
knowing possible equilibria, and the clarification of the philosophical-logical
relations among them is a value in itself for which it is worth doing philosophy.
I don’t think it is. I cannot see why the production of increasingly more precise
and detailed maps of philosophical equilibria would be a value in itself if one
doesn’t want to believe at all in the truth of a single substantive philosophical
theory or equilibrium. In my eyes, for example, there is no special value in a
philosopher’s ability to make fine-grained distinctions among different kinds of
supervenient dependence; he has the highest resolution picture of the advantages
and difficulties of various theories of supervenience—while he does not (and
does not want to) believe anything at all about the mind-body relationship, or, if
he believes anything about it, his belief has nothing on earth to do with his above-
mentioned ability.
156 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

Of course, someone could say (see e.g., Barnett 2019), that we should only
temporarily be “no belief, no cry” equilibrists—until one or other equilibrium
gains the upper hand over its rivals. As soon as this happens, we may begin to
believe in their truth with clear conscience.
However, I cannot commit myself to this proposal either. Let’s suppose that
at some point in his career Thomas decides to do no more than accept certain
substantive philosophical theories because he sees that he cannot identify
with the “human-faced” version of equilibrism. In my opinion, Thomas can
seriously think that his decision is just a temporary one (and not final), only
if he strongly believes that sooner or later (hopefully, in his life) the “Epistemic
End of Days” (MacBride 2014: 231) will arrive—only if he strongly believes that
one day someone (hopefully, he himself) will come up with some knock-down
argument(s) for a given equilibrium, or refute all its rivals with knock-down
arguments, and so he will be able to safely discredit them all. Thus, Thomas
has good reason to think that he is just a temporary (and nor a permanent) “no
belief, no cry” equilibrist only if he at the same time believes that there can be
compelling justifications in philosophy.
Now, since like the “human-faced” equilibrists, I think that there can be
no compelling justification for our substantive philosophical theses, any
commitment to this optimistic version of the “no belief, no cry” equilibrism is
not a viable alternative to me.

4 Farewell to equilibrism

I don’t want to repeat my misgivings about the human-faced or the “no belief, no
cry” variants of equilibrism—I wish to say something different.
Recall the section in which I listed the main motives for choosing equilibrism.
Among them, I mentioned the fact that equilibrism is capable of legitimating
the received way of doing philosophy. To illustrate this, I quoted the passage
below from Gutting: “an atheist who thinks all arguments for God’s existence
are demonstrably fallacious may need a clever philosopher to show what’s
wrong with a sophisticated version of the cosmological argument or the design
argument from fine-tuning” (2015: 258). In what follows, I will confine myself
to reacting to this point, because this is where the insincerity of the human-faced
equilibrism is especially clear.
Let’s take again the mind-body problem as a factual philosophical problem.
Let’s suppose that Alex, an outsider, is deeply interested in how the mind and the
 Philosophy Without Compelling Justification 157

body are related to each other. What can the community of philosophers offer
her? Two things. Firstly, it can show her which philosophical view she should
endorse in light of her fundamental pre-philosophical convictions in order to
avoid logical/conceptual contradiction with herself. Secondly, it can enlighten
Alex about how she should address the objections against her view.
Nonetheless, this is not what Alex expects. She does not turn to the clever
community of philosophers in order to be enlightened about what she should
think in harmony with her fundamental pre-philosophical convictions and
how she could neutralize objections. For example, if Alex is uncertain but
inclined to believe in the immortality of the soul, it will not comfort her that
the community of philosophers shows her beyond doubt that no materialist
objection is compelling. Or, if Alex is uncertain but inclined to believe that the
soul is not immortal in any sense, it will not comfort her that the community
of philosophers shows her beyond doubt that none of the anti-physicalist
objections are compelling.
The equilibrist, of course, may say (what she has always said) that Alex cannot
expect more than this from the community of philosophers. Alex, however, may
retort (and I’m convinced that any outsider who is sincerely curious would retort
with this as well) that if the community of philosophers cannot provide more
than this, it would be more righteous or at least sincere for it to confess that it
does not have a clue about what the relationship is between the mind and the
body—because they actually do not have a clue.
But let me dramatize this further. I think that the insincerity of equilibrism is
even more obvious when an outsider turns to the community of philosophers for
an answer to a philosophical question which has great existential importance to
him. Let’s suppose that Sammy had a long but immoral life. He enjoyed torturing
others and tortured many people in an extremely cruel way. Furthermore, let’s
suppose that Sammy feels that the end is near. And let’s also suppose that Sammy
firmly believes in the truth of the conditional that “If God exists, sinners will be
condemned to eternal damnation.” (He believes this as firmly as he believes that
the plane which he boarded does not crash and almost as firmly as he believes
that there is a mind-independent reality.) However, he is uncertain about
the existence of God. Of course, Sammy would not like to be condemned to
eternal damnation, so he turns to the community of philosophers (for whoever
else could he turn to?) in order to learn what he should believe regarding the
existence of God and the afterlife.
Now, let’s suppose that Sammy is told: “First you should explicate your
fundamental pre-philosophical convictions about supernatural beings and the
158 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

mind-body problem, and then we will tell you in which theories of philosophy of
religion and philosophy of mind should you believe, given these convictions.” If
this is the answer from the community of philosophers to his question which has
extreme importance to him, then Sammy rightly retorts that it did not help him
at all, because he did not get a real answer to his question. He got to know certain
relevant aspects of the problem, but he did not get to know the most important
thing which was the reason he asked anything in the first place. Namely, he did
not get to know whether he does have reason to worry or not.
If the community of philosophers (as it did in Alex’s case) addresses this
problem by saying that one should not expect more from philosophy than this,
it is abundantly clear that what the equilibrist can provide Sammy is not more
than what a thoroughbred meta-skeptic is able to provide. The answer “If these
are your fundamental pre-philosophical convictions, then you should believe
this and that” has the exactly the same value for Sammy as the answer “We are
unable to tell you what you should believe.”
What is more—and in my view, this is the main trouble—if the equilibrist
was successful and Sammy was satisfied with the above “if …, then …”-type
answer, then the equilibrist would “teach” Sammy only how he does not have to
be aware that he is still as ignorant as he was before regarding a question which
has great importance to him. Thus, it was even worse for him than if he had
met a meta-skeptic. Sammy could not receive a reassuring answer from him
either, but the meta-skeptic could raise Sammy’s awareness of his ignorance
and its consequences. In contrast to the equilibrist, the meta-skeptic would not
mislead Sammy.
 ­6

Meta-skepticism

According to meta-skepticism, philosophers cannot rationally believe in the

truth of their philosophical theses, views, and theories, so their epistemic duty is
to suspend their philosophical beliefs.
This definition of meta-skepticism is incomplete as yet—it needs completion
at two points. Let’s first see what the meta-skeptic means by saying that
philosophers cannot rationally believe in the truth of their philosophical theses.
Rational belief is a broad concept that encompasses many different kinds of
belief, and a rather elusive concept at once, since “rational” has several mutually
contradictory definitions. Perhaps the most inclusive definition is this: S’s belief
in p is rational if S does well to believe that p. This can be interpreted in a number
of ways.
Firstly, “S rationally believes that p” can mean that S does well to believe that
p because S’s belief in p has some useful consequences or benefits for S (or for
someone else). For example, a candidate does well to believe she has prepared
for the exam (even if it’s not true) because by having this belief, she will probably
better perform than by having the contrary one. I call this concept (which
appeals exclusively to useful consequences and benefits and has nothing to do
with justification) pragmatic rationality.
Secondly, “S rationally believes that p” can mean that S does well to believe
that p because S’s belief in p is coherent with other beliefs of S—p fits S’s
worldview which is a constitutive element of S’s personal identity. For example,
a Young Earth believer does well to believe that the presence of fossils under the
ground is a deception, because this fits well her belief system, while the theory
of evolution is incoherent with it. I call this concept (which appeals exclusively
to the coherency of S’s belief system) pure coherentist rationality, and the
corresponding justification pure coherentist justification.
Thirdly, “S rationally believes that p” can mean that S does well to believe
that p because S’s belief in p is not only coherent with S’s beliefs, but p does not
160 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

have any defeaters (or, at least, S is not aware of any). For example, Bellarmino
did well to believe that the Sun revolves around the Earth because this belief was
coherent with his belief system and (at the time) it had no defeaters. I call this
concept (which appeals to the coherence of S’s belief system plus the absence
of defeaters) supplemented coherentist rationality, and the corresponding
justification supplemented coherentist justification.
Fourthly, “S rationally believes that p” can mean that S does well to believe
that p because the justification S has for p gives S good reason to believe that
p is true. That is, S rationally believes in p when S has good reason to believe
that the justification of p is accurate or truth-conducive. For example, Suzie does
well to believe that the Earth is round because, besides the fact that her body of
evidence strongly indicates that the Earth is round, the scientific community
unanimously agrees on this fact (true proposition). I call this concept (which
appeals to accurate or truth-conducive justification) epistemic rationality, and
the corresponding justification epistemic justification. (For the sake of simplicity,
in what follows, unless indicated otherwise, I will use only this concept of
rational belief.)
Now, when the meta-skeptic claims that “Philosophers cannot rationally
believe in the truth of their philosophical theses,” he doesn’t mean it in the
sense of “all-inclusive” rationality. He may allow that philosophers can (in the
pragmatic or in the pure coherentist or in the supplemented coherentist sense)
rationally believe in philosophical theses. At the same time, he maintains that
they cannot rationally believe in the truth of their philosophical theses in the
sense that they have good reason for thinking that they have accurate or truth-
conducive justification for their philosophical beliefs.
Thus, the meta-skeptic disputes that philosophy’s truth-seeking and
justificatory tools are adequate and suitable for establishing truth and for the
compelling justification of philosophical theses. And if they are not adequate
and suitable, then the use of these tools doesn’t give philosophers any good
epistemic reason to hold their philosophical beliefs to be true. Consequently,
they cannot rationally hold their philosophical beliefs to be true.
The meta-skeptic is dissatisfied with all kinds of externalist justification
(which merely appeal to some reliable cognitive process). According to him,
even if (similar to chicken-sexers) there were some chosen philosophers who
always believe the right philosophical propositions to be true thanks to some
philosophical super-skill that is inaccessible to them (like chicken-sexers accurately
determine the sex of a given chicken as female or male), they could not rationally
believe in the truth of their philosophical theses. The reason is that—primarily
 Meta-skepticism 161

in the light of the permanent dissensus in all areas of philosophy—they, too,

would have good epistemic reasons to doubt whether their philosophical skills
are reliable and whether their philosophical beliefs are true.
Let’s now turn to the second half of the meta-skeptical thesis. The meta-skeptic
does not necessarily dispute that philosophers may have good epistemic reasons
to believe in the truth of some non-substantive philosophical propositions.
He can allow that S can rationally believe in the truth of propositions like the
following: “If physical objects are bundles of immanent universals, then the
principle of the identity of indiscernibles is true.” Or: “Conceptualism about
perceptual content has the virtue of being able to easily account for the role of
perceptual experiences in our beliefs about the external world, but it has a hard
time accounting for the phenomenology of perceptual experiences, for example
for the phenomenological fact that perceptual experiences are finer-grained
than the concepts under which they are subsumed.” In a word, S does not have
to suspend her non-substantive philosophical beliefs of this kind.
Another interesting issue is whether the meta-skeptic would expect
philosophers to suspend those beliefs of theirs concerning which we cannot
talk about truth simpliciter—their philosophical views on purely conceptual
philosophical problems. The meta-skeptic can be hardline, or alternatively, he
can be lenient. If he is hardline, he can say that “Because S cannot have good
epistemic reason to believe, for instance, the proposition that ‘Works of art are
expressions of the artist’s emotions’, S must suspend this belief.” But if he is lenient,
he can say that “If S’s philosophical belief p does really nothing but enables S to
conceptually ‘piece together’ the ‘world’, then for all I care, S may believe that p,
and S need not suspend p.” From now on, I will focus on the lenient variant of
meta-skepticism—considered as a more consistent version of it.
An even more interesting issue is whether the meta-skeptic would expect
philosophers (or any sane person) to suspend their belief in the external
world or other minds, and in the possibility of reliable cognition at all. No, he
wouldn’t. But of course, the reason why he wouldn’t expect them to do so is
not that according to him, there are compelling philosophical arguments for
their beliefs of this kind. On the contrary, our insistence on these beliefs has
nothing to do with any kind of philosophical consideration—nobody believes
in these propositions on the basis of philosophical arguments. The meta-skeptic
can acknowledge that we have some (even if very few) beliefs which we can
rationally insist on due to their special content. I call these beliefs with special
content inherently warranted beliefs. Not in the sense that belief p warrants
(justifies) itself or p is warranted (justified) just by virtue of being p (like our
162 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

beliefs about our own mental states do, see e.g., Alston 1976), but simply in the
sense that one would be mad to deny p.
Even though philosophers disagree about the grounds of their inherently
warranted nature, there is a kind of agreement that the lack of these beliefs
would make the practice of epistemic justification absurd in the first place.
This is because the very motivation to justify our beliefs is closely connected to
their truth even if it is hard to tell what their precise connection consists in. Just
think about it! What would justifying our beliefs mean if no minds or nothing
at all existed besides our minds? Or if our minds were incapable of reliable
cognition? Let’s suppose that someone argues that there is only one mind, there
is no external world, and no one is capable of reliable cognition. Although we
might be tempted to think that this kind of talk provides some evidence for these
claims, the sane approach would be to reject them even if we cannot present any
arguments against their truth.
Since our insistence on these inherently warranted beliefs has nothing to
do with philosophical considerations, the meta-skeptic does not dispute that
everybody is entitled to sustaining these beliefs. In this way, he can accept that
there are at least three substantive and factual philosophical theses in which any
philosopher (or, in fact, anyone) can believe—we do not have an epistemic duty
to suspend them.
Thus, the meta-skeptic does not claim that philosophers have the epistemic
duty to suspend all of their philosophical beliefs. What he must claim is this:
philosophers have the epistemic duty of suspending only those substantive and
factual beliefs which they reached or hold solely on the basis of philosophical
considerations—but they have to suspend those beliefs without exception.
Taking these remarks into account, I would like to give the following definition
of meta-skepticism as the fourth reaction to philosophy’s epistemic failure:

Meta-skepticism: (1) Philosophers cannot (in the epistemic sense) rationally

believe in the truth of their substantive and factual philosophical theses because
they have no accessible and good epistemic reasons for thinking that their
substantive and factual philosophical theses are appropriately justified, therefore
(2) philosophers have the epistemic duty to suspend their substantive and factual
philosophical beliefs that are based solely on philosophical considerations.

It is important to emphasize that although meta-skepticism is, of course, a

normative philosophical view, in the meta-skeptic’s eyes (1) and (2) are not
conceptual but factual philosophical theses—independently of our conceptual
framework, it is true simpliciter that philosophers’ substantive factual beliefs are
 Meta-skepticism 163

irrational, and independently of our conceptual framework, it is true simpliciter

that they have to suspend them. Which means that according to the meta-
skeptic, it is a fact (existing independently of our conceptual framework) that
philosophers’ substantive factual beliefs are not justified appropriately enough
to entitle them to rationally stick to them, and it is a fact (existing independently
of our conceptual framework) that philosophers have the duty to suspend them.
In a word, according to the meta-skeptic, we do not have to accept (1) and (2)
because they follow from our conceptual framework, but because (1) and (2) are
made true by the epistemic world order.
To be sure, most philosophers don’t consider meta-skepticism an attractive
alternative. There are three well-known and rather serious worries which make
them think that meta-skepticism is an untenable metaphilosophical view.
Firstly, meta-skepticism is a self-defeating view—the propositional content
of this view defeats the belief in its propositional content. According to the
meta-skeptic, philosophers cannot rationally believe in the truth of their
substantive factual philosophical theses, consequently the meta-skeptic cannot
rationally believe in the truth of the substantive factual philosophical thesis
that “Philosophers cannot rationally believe in the truth of their substantive
factual philosophical theses,” either. Furthermore, according to the meta-
skeptic, philosophers must suspend their belief in the truth of their substantive
factual philosophical theses, consequently the meta-skeptic, too, must suspend
his belief in the truth of the substantive factual philosophical thesis that
“Philosophers must suspend their belief in the truth of their substantive factual
philosophical theses.”
Secondly, the meta-skeptical view requires us to do something psychologically
impossible (or at least extremely difficult), namely to suspend even those
philosophical beliefs that are essential parts of our personal integrity and
constitutive elements of our cognitive household. We simply cannot go down
this road—we cannot live our lives as consistent meta-skeptics.
Thirdly, even if somehow it were psychologically possible for us to suspend
those substantive factual philosophical beliefs, we would be much worse off if we
committed ourselves to meta-skepticism. It offers no prospects and narrows down
our intellectual options, in particular the scope of our philosophical activities and
stances, without offering anything in exchange. This means that adopting the
meta-skeptical strategy is the worst possible business.
The above three worries do not have equal weight. The first one is the most
serious because if all possible arguments for meta-skepticism undermine their
own conclusions, then it is not rational to adopt meta-skepticism. But if it is
164 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

possible to formulate a non-self-defeating and perhaps compelling argument for

meta-skepticism, then the second and third worries are eo ipso invalidated. This
is because if there are compelling arguments for the thesis that philosophers
have the epistemic duty to suspend their substantive factual philosophical
beliefs, then—however difficult and painful, and however hopeless it may be—
they must suspend them.
In this chapter, I first expound and characterize the general argumentative
strategy of meta-skepticism, trying to show what premises a meta-skeptic can
use in his argument to support his view in the most promising way. I give a
detailed analysis of the meta-skeptic’s theses (1) and (2), and say what he can do
with the problem of self-defeat. In what follows, I put myself in the meta-skeptic’s
perspective to describe what he sees as the mistake of those philosophers who
stick to their philosophical beliefs, and what kind of “training” he offers them so
they can suspend their philosophical beliefs. Finally, I try to show that the meta-
skeptic doesn’t react well to philosophy’s epistemic failure, and doesn’t give a
right answer to the question “What should we do with our philosophical beliefs
in the light of philosophy’s epistemic failure?”

1 The meta-skeptical argumentative strategy

1.1 The main argument for meta-skepticism

Before presenting the argument, I would like to make some preliminary
clarifying remarks. First, the meta-skeptic must give compelling argument(s) for
his view. Why cannot he be satisfied with non-compelling arguments? Because
non-compelling arguments—as you could see in the discussion of equilibrism—
can at most provide egocentric “justification,” and so the meta-skeptic could be
allowed to say just this much: “In my opinion, philosophers cannot rationally
believe in their substantive factual philosophical theses, and in my opinion, they
should suspend their substantive factual philosophical beliefs, for this view
is in equilibrium with my fundamental pre-philosophical convictions.” This
formulation, however, is not identical with the thesis of meta-skepticism—it is
no more than one equilibrium among other (metaphilosophical) equilibria.
The meta-skeptic, then—at least in this respect—must proceed similarly to
the followers of the epistemic tradition. The meta-skeptic is indeed different
from the equilibrist. While, according to the equilibrist, there can be no
compelling arguments in philosophy, the meta-skeptic thinks that one can
 Meta-skepticism 165

argue compellingly for the philosophical thesis that philosophers cannot

rationally stick to their substantive factual philosophical beliefs and so they
must suspend them.
Secondly, the argument for meta-skepticism must be distinguished from the
one for conciliationism. From the fact of dissensus among experts recognizing
each other as epistemic peers, the conciliationists typically conclude that the
rational thing to do for the participants of a debate is to suspend their beliefs
or at least reassess their epistemic status. In the argument for meta-skepticism,
however, the fact of dissensus has a different role. As the meta-skeptic sees it,
philosophical disagreement (or rather, the permanent dissent in all areas of
philosophy) clearly indicates that the tools of philosophy are inadequate and
unsuitable for establishing truths. As Jason Brennan puts it:

The goal of philosophy is uncover certain truths. Radical dissensus shows that
philosophical methods are imprecise and inaccurate. Philosophy continually
leads experts with the highest degree of epistemic virtue doing the very best they
can, to accept a wide array of incompatible doctrines. Therefore, philosophy is
an unreliable instrument for finding truth.
(Brennan 2010: 3, italics mine)

To complete the argument: if the tools of philosophy are inadequate and

unsuitable for establishing truths, then philosophers cannot have good epistemic
reasons to stick to their substantive factual philosophical beliefs, and, willy-nilly,
painfully or not, they must suspend them—except if they aren’t entitled to hold
them for reasons that have nothing to do with philosophy.
To sum up, the main difference between the argumentative strategies
of conciliationism and meta-skepticism is that the meta-skeptic does not
directly infer from the fact of dissensus among philosophers that philosophers
cannot rationally believe in their theses. He doesn’t go into the epistemology
of disagreements, and his goal is not to present philosophical arguments for
conciliationism and against the steadfast view. In the eyes of the meta-skeptic,
the epistemology of disagreements is merely an n+1st philosophical problem,
about which—just like in other areas of philosophy—there is disagreement
among philosophers. Instead, the starting point of the meta-skeptic is that the
fact of dissensus in all areas of philosophy is an unambiguous, unassailable, and
indisputable proof that the tools of philosophy are inadequate and unsuitable
for establishing truths and compellingly justifying substantive factual
philosophical theses, and from the latter, he infers that philosophers cannot
rationally believe in the truth of their substantive factual philosophical theses,
166 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

and they must suspend them—except if they are entitled to believe them
regardless of any philosophical consideration.
Thirdly, the meta-skeptical argument against philosophical knowledge works
otherwise than standard (first-order) skeptical arguments. The latter (and here
I don’t mean the skeptical arguments appealing to infinite regress) are made
to the following recipe. (1) Take a bizarre scenario (we are brains in a vat; we
are dreaming all the time; God created the world five minutes ago, etc.), which,
if true, would be indistinguishable from normal experience from a subjective
perspective. (2) Show that there is no way for us to rule out the possibility that
we are actually in the scenario at issue. (3) Draw the conclusion that we do not
have knowledge of the external world, or of the past that is earlier than five
minutes ago because all our beliefs of this type are unjustified because of (2).
Standard skeptical arguments derive their extraordinary force from the fact
that although everyone is absolutely certain that the skeptical scenario does not
obtain, this certainty means nothing—everyone would still be absolutely certain
that it does not obtain even if it did. Everyone would still be just as certain that
they are not a brain in a vat even if they happened to be just that.
The argument for meta-skepticism is made to a different recipe. (1) Take as
your starting point the fact of philosophy’s epistemic failure. (You can safely
do that, given the permanent dissensus in all areas of philosophy.) (2) In the
subsequent premises, use expressions that properly capture the nature of this
failure (for example: the truth-seeking and justificatory tools of philosophy are
“wrong”; “inaccurate”; “unreliable”; “inadequate for establishing truths”; “not
truth-conducive”; “unsuitable for compelling justification of philosophical
theses,” etc.). (3) Finally, make it explicit that based on such truth-seeking and
justification, no rational person can believe in the truth of their substantive
factual philosophical theories, views, or theses—they have to suspend them.
Here’s a meta-skeptical argument made to this recipe:

(1) Philosophy is a failed epistemic enterprise—the pervasive and permanent

disagreement in philosophy is a clear sign that philosophers have not solved
any substantive factual philosophical problems, nor have they come up with
any compellingly justified substantive factual philosophical theses.
(2) The best explanation for philosophy’s epistemic failure is that the truth-
seeking and justificatory tools of philosophy are inadequate and unsuitable
for establishing substantive factual philosophical truths and for providing
compelling justification of substantive factual philosophical theses—
philosophers seek truth and justify their substantive factual philosophical
theses with tools that are inadequate and unsuitable for establishing truths
 Meta-skepticism 167

and for providing compelling justifications for their substantive factual

philosophical theses.
(3) If philosophers seek truth and justify their substantive factual philosophical
theses with tools that are inadequate and unsuitable for establishing truths
and for providing compelling justifications for their substantive factual
philosophical theses, then philosophers cannot rationally believe in the
truth of their substantive factual philosophical theses—except those very
few theses in which one, regardless of philosophical considerations, is
entitled to believe.

Therefore:

(C1) Philosophers cannot rationally believe in the truth of their substantive

factual philosophical theses—except those very few theses in which one,
regardless of philosophical considerations, is entitled to believe.

Furthermore:

(4) If philosophers cannot rationally believe in the truth of their substantive

factual philosophical theses, then they have the epistemic duty to suspend
their substantive factual philosophical beliefs.

Therefore:

(C2) Philosophers have the epistemic duty to suspend their substantive factual
philosophical beliefs—except those very few beliefs in which one, regardless
of philosophical considerations, is entitled to believe.

1.2 The premises of the meta-skeptical argument

It is the “I’m the only one” philosophers who deny premise (1). They think it is
untrue that philosophers haven’t solved any philosophical problems and haven’t
come up with any compellingly justified substantive factual truths. For they have
solved this or that philosophical problem and they do have some compelling
arguments for their philosophical view. According to them, the presence of
pervasive and permanent philosophical disagreement can simply be explained on
the grounds that others do not recognize the compelling force of their arguments.
Like the equilibrist, the meta-skeptic doesn’t believe the “I’m the only one”
philosophers. In his eyes, the “I’m the only one” philosophers are unlucky,
epistemically blind, fanatic, or just comic figures whose raving assertions are not
to be (and must not be) taken seriously.
168 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

The meta-skeptic may admit that he cannot infallibly rule out the possibility
that philosopher X has already presented some knock-down argument for
some substantive factual philosophical thesis. However, according to him, it is
incomparably more plausible to think that there have never been any compelling
arguments in philosophy. Because if there had been any, then the community
of philosophers would have recognized their compelling force—similar to the
way the community of mathematicians can recognize the compelling force of a
mathematical proof, however complex, ramified, and hyper-sophisticated it may
be. To put it differently, in the eyes of the meta-skeptic, it would be insufficient
and intellectually unscrupulous to argue against premise (1) like this: “Premise
(1) is not sufficiently supported because (i) some philosophers are convinced
that they have substantive factual philosophical knowledge (true belief plus
corresponding compelling justification), and (ii) no one would be able to prove
beyond doubt that they are mistaken.”
Some may object that the whole justification of premise (1) presupposes that
one should regard different philosophical positions as positions that exclude
each other. That is, premise (1) of the meta-skeptical argument takes for granted
that only p or not-p can be true and one of them is true. However, some, alluding
to Hegel’s historicism, can say that one can regard philosophical positions as
complementary ones that are somehow unified by means of synthesis on
a higher level, as time goes by. In other words, taken together, the seemingly
contradicting philosophical positions show the whole truth because there is
some truth in both of them and only their synthesis can present the truth in
its fullness. Thus, philosophical knowledge is the knowledge of all relevant
philosophical positions and their proper synthesis (for the analysis of a similar
approach, see Ribeiro 2011).
The problem with this position is twofold. Firstly, it is hard to see how “p and
not-p” can be true in any sense. It is one thing to claim that there is some truth
in both theories that contain, among many things, p and not-p respectively,
and another thing to argue that “p and not-p” may be true to some degree.
Truth does not admit of degrees, yet the notion of synthesis would require it
to be the case, since the position resulting from it must be somehow “truer”
in a sense than the two pre-synthesis positions. Thus, Hegelians should not
dispose so light-heartedly of the principle of non-contradiction. Secondly,
this grandiose metaphilosophical vision is just one among many and is highly
controversial. Are we supposed to apply the denial of this principle of logic to
this metaphilosophical vision itself, which means that it does not contradict
other metaphilosophical visions just because they are also part of the whole
 Meta-skepticism 169

truth? Or this time, should we “freeze time” and make an exception for some
reasons? To my mind, this idea is confusing and it is hard to make any sense of it.
Against premise (2), one can say that it is not true that the best explanation for
philosophy’s epistemic failure is that philosophy’s truth-seeking and justificatory
tools are inadequate and unsuitable for establishing substantive factual truths
and for compellingly justifying substantive factual philosophical theses.
So far so good, but what explanation could one offer instead of it? One
could say this: the reason why philosophical problems are unsolved is not that
philosophy’s truth-seeking and justificatory tools are inadequate and unsuitable,
but the way individual philosophers do philosophy. The truth-seeking and
justificatory tools of philosophy are good, it is just that philosophers use them
in the wrong way—mistakes are bound to happen whenever philosophers try to
use the tools of philosophy: they commit some fatal (but otherwise avoidable)
mistake in justifying their views.
The meta-skeptic can admit that he cannot infallibly rule out the possibility
that it merely happened so (is a contingent fact) that philosophers have been
unable to solve philosophical problems and to come up with compellingly
justified substantive factual truths; and they might as well have been successful if
they appropriately used the truth-seeking and justificatory tools of philosophy—
for, after all, they are adequate and suitable. However, he might add, this is a
highly implausible explanation. Why?
How should I put it? Occasional failures can be plausibly explained with
occasional mistakes—by contrast, a pervasive and permanent failure could
hardly be explained this way. Let’s suppose that 80 percent of customers assemble
a piece of IKEA furniture by consulting its assembly instructions, and only
20 percent of them fails to assemble it. In this case, a plausible explanation is that
the 20 percent of them has made some mistakes—and the assembly instructions
are impeccable. But let’s suppose that nobody is able to assemble a piece of IKEA
furniture at issue by consulting its assembly instructions. In this case, it is not a
plausible explanation that each and every customer has made some (otherwise
avoidable) mistake—the plausible explanation is that the assembly instructions
are unsuitable for assembling that piece of furniture while consulting them.
The situation is similar with philosophy. If it were the case that some
philosophers succeed in coming up with compellingly justified substantive
philosophical truths, whereas other philosophers fail to achieve that, then a
plausible explanation would be that those who fail have made some mistake.
But, in fact, no philosopher can come up with compellingly justified substantive
philosophical theses. Consequently, the explanation that each philosopher makes
170 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

some (otherwise avoidable) mistake is implausible. It is much more plausible

and lifelike to suppose that the source of the trouble is that philosophy’s truth-
seeking and justificatory tools are inadequate and unsuitable for establishing
substantive factual philosophical truths. Which is to say that the way (namely,
using the tools of philosophy) in which philosophers seek truths and try to
justify their theses is sui generis inappropriate for the goal.
Make no mistakes about it. When the meta-skeptic claims that the source
of the trouble are philosophy’s truth-seeking and justificatory tools, he doesn’t
mean by it that philosophy has some special truth-seeking and justificatory
toolkit that is different from the toolkits of all other epistemic enterprises, and
that the style of argument that uniquely characterizes philosophy is inadequate
and unsuitable. Of course, he doesn’t dispute that there exist general rules of
arguments, nor does he dispute that philosophers know and conform to these
rules. What he claims is this: the standard tools of truth-seeking and justification
fail whenever they are applied to philosophical problems. This is all that the
meta-skeptic means by saying that philosophy’s tools are inadequate and
unsuitable for establishing truths and for compellingly justifying substantive
factual philosophical theses.
Here are the four most important explanations for the unresolvedness
of philosophical problems in a nutshell. Firstly, problems about the world
can only be solved by scientific tools but philosophy is not a science—the
only reliable way to justify theoretical hypotheses is empirical, but one
cannot empirically justify any philosophical hypotheses. All philosophical
justifications necessarily hang in the air. Secondly, philosophical problems
are extremely complex—“what makes these problems so resilient is […] their
encompassing and compounding character” (MacBride 2014: 231). For one
thing, they are closely interconnected—and the conceptual clarifications of
these very complex interrelations are yet to come. For another, they cannot be
isolated from the results of the natural sciences—at least some philosophical
problems cannot be resolved without a complete physics, which remains
to be seen. Thirdly, the construction of the concepts necessary for solving
philosophical problems is cognitively closed to us—the constitution of our
minds is adapted to the Stone Age environment, so our cognitive equipment
does not enable us to solve philosophical problems. As Colin McGinn puts it:
“[o]ur mind are not cognitively tuned to [philosophical] problems” (1993: 13);
“[w]e can envisage questions that require conceptual and theoretical resources
that exceed the contingent limits of [ours]” (1993: 8). Fourthly, philosophers
have not succeeded in solving philosophical problems because their beliefs
 Meta-skepticism 171

(even those of the most excellent ones) are shaped by factors that ought to play
no role here—factors which have nothing to do with the truth (see e.g., Bernáth
and Tőzsér 2021). Some think that these bias factors stem from our personal
character. For example, this is how William James sees it: “[t]emperaments with
their cravings and refusals do determine men in their philosophies, and always
will” (1907/1979: 39) or “[a philosopher’s] temperament really gives him a
stronger bias than any of his more strictly objective premises” (1907/1979: 47).
Others think that the source of the trouble is that in trying to provide
justification for their philosophical beliefs, philosophers inevitably appeal to
their intuitions—however, people’s intuitions differ significantly; what is more,
they differ as a function of (cultural, geographical background, socioeconomic
status, etc.) factors that have nothing to do with the topic under discussion and
the corresponding truth (see e.g., Nichols and Knobe 2007; Nichols, Stich, and
Weinberg 2003; Swan, Alexander, and Weinberg 2008; Weinberg, Nichols, and
Stich 2001/2008).
It doesn’t matter which explanation the meta-skeptic sympathizes with, he can
consistently stick to premise (2). None of these explanations is compatible with
thinking that the individual philosophers’ activity is behind the unresolvedness of
philosophical problems—all of them rule out the supposition that philosophers’
efforts might have been crowned with success if only they had avoided some,
otherwise avoidable, error in seeking to establish the truth.
Against premise (3), one can argue in this way: philosophy’s tools are indeed
inadequate and unsuitable for compellingly justifying philosophical theses.
However, they are adequate and suitable for the task of exploring and working
out the possible (consistent) views concerning various philosophical problems.
Moreover, they entitle philosophers to rationally stick to that view which is in
equilibrium with their fundamental pre-philosophical convictions—provided
that no knock-down objections can be brought up against it.
This is the view of “human-faced” equilibrism. Thus, the equilibrist rejects
premise (3) of the meta-skeptical argument. She may (and probably would)
accept as true premises (1) and (2) of the meta-skeptical argument—the two
reactions or attitudes to philosophy’s epistemic failure come to diverge on
premise (3).
The meta-skeptic may concede that philosophy’s tools are indeed adequate
and suitable for helping philosophers commit themselves to philosophical
theories that are in equilibrium with their fundamental pre-philosophical
convictions, and these tools are also adequate and suitable for helping them
defend their already elaborated philosophical theories against various objections.
172 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

Nevertheless, he could go on to say that since according to equilibrism, our

fundamental pre-philosophical convictions are unjustified, our philosophical
theories that are built upon them and elaborate them are not appropriately
justified for us to be able to rationally stick to them.
To put more precisely, the meta-skeptic can acknowledge that S’s fundamental
pre-philosophical convictions can be rational in the sense of pragmatic rationality
(in the opposite case, it would have the untoward consequence of damaging her
personal-cognitive integrity) and that S can believe in her philosophical theories
in the sense of supplemented coherentist rationality (if they are in equilibrium
with her fundamental pre-philosophical convictions plus there are no knock-
down objections to them). However, he firmly denies that S can (in the epistemic
sense) rationally believe in the truth of her substantive factual philosophical
theories. This is because for it to be the case, S should have epistemically good
reason to believe that the justification of her philosophical theory is accurate
and truth-conducive, and it is as clear that the equilibrist (i.e., egocentric)
justification is hardly enough for this.
In brief, since S cannot have good reason to believe that the egocentric
justification of her substantive factual philosophical beliefs is accurate and
truth-conducive (quite contrary, she has good reason to believe that the truth-
seeking and justificatory tools of philosophy are inadequate and unsuitable for
establishing substantive factual philosophical truths), except for some of her
(inherently warranted) beliefs, S is not epistemically entitled to rationally stick to
her substantive factual philosophical beliefs.
Finally, let’s turn to premise (4). This premise draws on the concept of
epistemic duty, and so the meta-skeptic strongly commits himself to a doxastic
deontology. Here’s a nice definition of it:

Prior to philosophical reflection we tend to take it for granted that we are

responsible for our beliefs in roughly the same way as we are responsible for our
actions. Just as we have moral duties prescribing or forbidding certain types of
actions in various situations, we also have epistemic duties prescribing what we
should or should not believe under various conditions. Moreover, just we can be
blamed for failing to fulfill our moral duties and praised for fulfilling them, we
can be blamed and praised for our beliefs. Doxastic deontology is the view that
this analogy is right: beliefs are subject to a kind of deontic evaluation which
is very similar to the deontic evaluation of actions, so there are true doxastic
deontic statements.
(Forrai 2019: 688, italics mine)
 Meta-skepticism 173

­ hat would the meta-skeptic consider as relevant and true doxastic deontic
W
statements? The following: “As philosophers have no good epistemic reason to
believe or deny that p, philosophers must not believe either that p or that not-p”;
“As philosophers must not believe either that p or that not-p, they must suspend
their beliefs in p or in not-p”; “If philosophers believe that p or that not-p, then
they deserve to be blamed for it”; “If philosophers suspend their beliefs in p or in
not-p, then they deserve to be praised for it.”
Nevertheless, some may object that the meta-skeptic cannot commit himself
to doxastic deontology—given that it is a strongly controversial philosophical
theory. In his argument intended-to-be compelling, he cannot draw on a
philosophical theory against which rock-hard objections can be brought (see
e.g., Alston 1985, 1988).
The meta-skeptic can do the following. He may concede that we have
significantly less control over our beliefs than over our actions. He may also
concede that we don’t have any control at all over some of our beliefs. In a word,
he may concede that his commitment to doxastic deontology is not without
problems.
Still, he can say two things in his defense. On the one hand, he can warn us that
we must not mistake doxastic deontology for doxastic voluntarism, which says
that we have power over believing whatever we want. The latter is implausible
indeed—we cannot change our beliefs at will. But his commitment to doxastic
deontology is a different matter, because all he demands is that we suspend
certain beliefs of ours as soon as we realize that our epistemic justifications for
them are insufficient.
On the other hand, the meta-skeptic may say that even if there are a handful
of propositions in which we are entitled to believe and some other propositions
in which we cannot suspend our belief due to our psychological incapability, his
commitment to doxastic deontology would only be fateful to him if the set of our
consciously suspendable philosophical beliefs were empty. This, however, seems
to be a grossly inflated claim, what is more, an extremely insincere one at that.
For why would it be psychologically impossible for a philosopher to suspend
his beliefs with zero existential stake such as “Negative causation is genuine
causation,” “A statue and a lump of bronze which constitutes the statue are two
numerically different things,” or “A scar on Harry Potter’s forehead in the shape
of a lightning bolt is an abstract object which was created by J. K. Rowling in the
1990s”? It would be a weird claim that these propositions are those in which we
are entitled to believe no matter what. In brief, according to the meta-skeptic,
174 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

we cannot reject the whole of doxastic deontology because it deeply pervades our
everyday practice—we unwittingly blame others for believing in crazy things, or
in things which they have no grounds at all to believe in.
This is how the meta-skeptical argument looks like in outline, and I’m inclined
to admit that the denial of its premises is weaker than the premises themselves
are. For let’s see how plausible the propositions featuring in the objections are.
Please consider, for each of them, whether you can believe it seriously and
sincerely!
(i) There are some “I’m the only one” philosophers (Hegelians included) who
have already solved substantive factual philosophical problems and possess
compellingly justified substantive philosophical truths. (ii) The best explanation
for the unresolvedness of philosophical problems is that philosophers use
philosophy’s good truth-seeking and justificatory tools in the wrong way—
and without ever noticing where and when they make (otherwise avoidable)
mistakes in using them. (iii) We have good epistemic reason to believe in the
truth of a substantive factual philosophical proposition p if we can show that p
is in equilibrium with our epistemically unjustified but pragmatically “justified”
fundamental pre-philosophical convictions and there is no knock-down
objection to p. (iv) We have no epistemic duties at all because we do not have
control over any of our beliefs—not even that much that would enable us to
suspend them on realizing the insufficiency of our justification for them.

1.3 The conclusions of the meta-skeptical argument

1.3.1 What does the meta-skeptic mean by saying that philosophers

cannot rationally believe in the truth of their substantive factual
philosophical theses?
Let’s assume that Katie holds the view that free will exists. And, let’s also assume
that she has a dispute with somebody who denies that free will exists by appealing
to the thesis of psychological determinism, and she comes up with the following
argument to support her view:

You say that you think there is no free will because you think it is highly unlikely
that psychological determinism is false. For this reason, you are asking me to
change my belief—to give up my belief in the existence of free will and accept
what you say. As if I had the duty to do that in the light of the facts you’ve
brought up. But the reason why I cannot give up my belief in free will is exactly
that because you asked me to. The way I see it is that we can only have epistemic
or moral duties if we have free will, meaning we can choose how to act and what
 Meta-skepticism 175

steps to take on the road to knowledge. Animals have no moral or epistemic

duties partly because they have no free will. So, I can only assume that I would
have the moral or epistemic duty to give up my belief in free will only if I was
also to assume that I have free will. But this would obviously be an irrational step
for me to take. I only have two rational options: either I assume that we have no
epistemic and moral duties, or that free will exists. However, right now when
you are placing the burden of proof on me, I can see clearly that I do indeed
have epistemic and moral duties. Consequently, I can also see clearly that free
will must exist.

The meta-skeptic doesn’t dispute that Katie is justified in believing in the

existence of free will. But (and this is a very big “but”), he immediately adds
that the proposition “Katie is justified in believing in the truth of p” means
nothing more than Katie can give reasons for why she believes in the truth of
p—she is able to adduce philosophical arguments for the truth of p. However,
he continues, since the justificatory tools of philosophy are wrong, inaccurate,
unreliable, and inadequate for establishing the truth of p, the proposition
“Katie has a philosophical justification for the truth of p” is to be interpreted in
the following way: “Katie has a wrong, inaccurate, unreliable, and inadequate
justification for establishing the truth of p.” Hence, independently of whether
she can use the philosophical argument above to give a reason why she believe
in the truth of p, she cannot (in the epistemic sense) rationally believe in the
truth of p.
Let’s assume that Tom holds the same philosophical view as Katie. He also
asserts that free will exists. If someone asks him to justify his view, he can
only say:

I believe in the existence of free will because I don’t experience any inner push to
do this or that during my decisions and actions—the way a decision appears to
me shows that (i) several possibilities are equally open to me until the moment
of my decision and (ii) it solely depends on me which of these possibilities is
actualized.

The meta-skeptic doesn’t dispute that Katie’s argument is stronger than Tom’s,
and so her belief is more justified than Tom’s. But (and this “but” is at least as
big as the previous one), he immediately adds: the proposition “Katie’s belief is
more justified than Tom’s” means nothing more than that whereas Katie is able
to give reasons, against certain objections, for why she believes in the truth of
p, Tom’s argument for the truth of p is merely based on the phenomenology of
decisions and actions. However, he continues, since philosophy’s truth-seeking
176 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

and justificatory tools are inadequate and unsuitable for rationally grounding
any philosopher’s belief in the truth of p, independently of how “strong”
philosophical arguments Katie adduces for why she believes in the truth of p,
she cannot rationally believe in the truth of p. Katie does her best in vain to
justify with philosophical arguments her belief in the existence of free will, and
proceeds in vain as conscientiously, circumspectly, and thoroughly as possible,
since the grounding of her belief is at most as “solid” as Tom’s.
This is one of the hardest pills to swallow concerning the meta-skeptical view.
Yet, this is exactly what the meta-skeptic claims, and he cannot claim anything
else on the basis of premises (2) and (3) of the meta-skeptical argument.
To see it from another angle, let’s assume that Dalma and Charlie both believe
in astrology. They think that reliable horoscopes can be prepared on the basis
of astrological methods. Let’s also assume that Dalma is a particularly well-
versed and thorough astrologist (you may even call her an expert), who prepares
every horoscope with utmost circumspection and conscience. She consciously
uses the Placidus house system instead of the Regiomontanus one, which she
supports with different astrological arguments. As opposed to (in her opinion
outdated) astrologists, she also takes into consideration the placement of the so-
called “new planets” (Uranus and Neptune); she uses the sidereal zodiac instead
of the less effective tropic one (due to certain astrological considerations); her
humble starting point is that a horoscope is only good for personal development
and personality analysis, but, as man is a free being, it is not suitable to make
predictions; and she only starts preparing someone’s horoscope if she knows the
subject’s exact time of birth. And, let’s assume that Dalma puts forth the following
proposition after long hours of analysis: “Someone who was born at 7.07 p.m.
on June 12, 2000 much prefers security to seeking out risky adventures.” Let’s,
however, also assume that Charlie also believes this proposition because he
read in a tabloid’s five-line horoscope that people born in Gemini are better off
avoiding adventures due to their character traits and spending as much time as
possible with friends and family, where they feel secure—and as it happened, he
was born on June 12, 2000.
Although the meta-skeptic does not assert that astrology and philosophy are
similar epistemic enterprises, in his eyes Katie’s philosophical belief is on the
same level as Dalma’s astrological one, with respect to their epistemic status. Both
are able to give reasons for why they believe what they believe—and to this extent
(but only to this extent) their beliefs are justified. They both are top professionals
who do all they can to support their beliefs with the best arguments available to
them—and to this extent (but only to this extent) Katie’s belief is more justified
 Meta-skepticism 177

than Tom’s, and Dalma’s belief is more justified than Charlie’s. What’s more,
the meta-skeptic does not dispute that, in a sense, through their unwavering
efforts, both Katie and Dalma can elicit our respect—“Look how determined
both Katie and Dalma are to find the truth!” But (and this is the biggest “but”),
he adds immediately, neither of them can gain our epistemic respect, as their
truth-seeking tools are totally inadequate for establishing truth.
Naturally, the meta-skeptic doesn’t generally dispute that if S has justification
for the truth of p, then S can rationally believe in the truth of p. He doesn’t
dispute that this is the case for epistemically successful enterprises. He doesn’t
dispute, either, that it is right to say about the participants of a successful epistemic
enterprise that if they justify the truth of p, then they can rationally believe in
the truth of p.
However, philosophy is a failed epistemic enterprise—stricken with wrong
and unreliable truth-seeking and justificatory tools. The meta-skeptic may
admit that it is a sad and disappointing result, but, as he may add, we are forced
to realize that no matter how circumspectly, thoroughly, and conscientiously we
use these tools, we cannot come to conclusions in which we have good epistemic
reason to believe. And this is what conclusion (C1) of the meta-skeptical
argument says.

1.3.2 What does the meta-skeptic mean by saying that philosophers

have the epistemic duty to suspend their substantive factual
philosophical beliefs?
In the introductory section of this chapter I noted that the meta-skeptic doesn’t
necessarily expect the philosophers to suspend all their philosophical beliefs.
He doesn’t necessarily expect them to suspend some of their non-substantive
philosophical beliefs because he can concede that they may have good epistemic
reasons for holding them true. He also doesn’t necessarily expect them to
suspend their beliefs on purely conceptual philosophical problems, because in
their case the question of truth simpliciter does not arise. And he also doesn’t
expect them to suspend their (very few) substantive and factual beliefs to which
one is entitled due to their inherent warranty, as these beliefs have nothing to
do with philosophy. Apart from these, however, philosophers must suspend
all their philosophical beliefs. More precisely, apart from these, philosophers
have the epistemic duty to suspend all those beliefs of theirs which are based
solely on philosophical considerations—without exception. And insofar as
philosophers don’t fulfil this epistemic duty of theirs, they are reproachable in
the epistemic sense.
178 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

Nevertheless, in the case of some substantive factual philosophical beliefs

which philosophers aren’t entitled to stick to, the meta-skeptic may exempt them
from the epistemic duty of belief suspension. According to him, they may have
excuses (but only excuses) for not suspending some of their substantive factual
philosophical beliefs—similarly to their having excuses (but only excuses) for
not fulfilling some of their moral duties.
Don’t get me wrong. When the meta-skeptic exempts philosophers from the
epistemic duty of suspending some of their substantive factual philosophical
beliefs, he does not thereby say that they can rationally believe in the truth of
these theses. (Don’t mistake the concept of “exempting circumstance” for the
concept of “appropriate justification”!) Rather, he says:

Although philosophers have the epistemic duty to suspend their belief in the
truth of p and they are irrational if they don’t do that, some non-epistemic
factors like their psychological incapacity may prevent them from doing so. For
this reason, they are exempt from suspending their p-beliefs, but they must not
forget that otherwise they would have the epistemic duty to suspend p.

Of course, the problem is that it may differ from person to person which
substantive factual philosophical beliefs they are psychologically unable to
abandon despite having the epistemic duty to do so. This is to say that the set
of one’s visceral beliefs is highly personalized and depends on several contingent
factors (culture, historical context, education, etc.). Now, any philosopher can
say that this or that philosophical belief of theirs is a visceral one, and this being
so, the meta-skeptic should exempt them from the epistemic duty to suspend
this or that belief. However, the meta-skeptic cannot allow every philosopher
to submit such a “petition” for their own pet philosophical beliefs—at the
same time, nor can he ex cathedra assert that someone can viscerally believe in
some substantive and factual philosophical thesis but cannot believe in some
other one.
But then, how could he make a principled decision? To be sure, he cannot
present us with any exact criteria. There are, however, some clear-cut cases.
Among these are “All properties of physical objects (even their shape) are in
fact dispositional ones” and “The causal relationship is an extrinsic relation.”
These are clear-cut cases because it is highly unlifelike to suppose that someone
could have visceral beliefs in these propositions. The existential stake of these
propositions is zero, so a philosopher who claims them to be his visceral beliefs
is almost certainly insincere. Of course, appealing to unlifelikeness is not an
 Meta-skepticism 179

ordinary argument, just as it is not an ordinary argument for the meta-skeptic to

say that he does not believe those who claim to have among their visceral beliefs
the proposition that “There are scattered objects.” But he can hardly do more
than appeal to the philosophers’ sincerity.
One may well wonder how the meta-skeptic deals with those substantive
factual philosophical beliefs that certainly have existential stake. Let’s suppose
that, like many others, Agnes is certain that she has had religious experiences
(God appeared to her and talked to her), and based on these experiences, she
comes to believe that there is a God. As God often visits her, she reaches a level
where her belief in God’s existence becomes a visceral belief for her. Like in the
case of all visceral beliefs, the meta-skeptic can exempt Agnes from the duty
to suspend belief. Of course, the meta-skeptic does not claim that Agnes can
rationally believe that there is a God in the light of her religious (or allegedly
religious) experiences. This would only be granted if Agnes had compelling
philosophical arguments to prove that her religious experiences are veridical
and not hallucinatory. It would not suffice to say that she was not on magic
mushrooms or that she regularly has these religious experiences and that as far
as she knows, she has never had a hallucination before. Agnes, however, can
certainly not justify her belief with compelling philosophical arguments. That
said, the meta-skeptic can still acknowledge (because he can believe) that Agnes’
belief in God is a real visceral one, and thus he can exempt her from the duty to
suspend belief.
Of course, most people appeal to their moral beliefs in objecting to the
epistemic duty to suspend beliefs. Even those who are not averse to meta-
skepticism and the suspension of beliefs often voice concerns like this:

I’m okay with suspending my philosophical beliefs about issues such as “Are
events structured particulars?”; “Are there bare dispositions?”; “Are there tropes,
and if so, are they thin or thick?”—for questions like these, I don’t mind, I’m
willing to suspend my philosophical beliefs. In my everyday life, however, I often
find myself having to decide about important moral dilemmas that affect human
lives. Now, it is one of my fundamental convictions that there are objective moral
facts and I’d like to make the morally right decisions in their light. So, I can’t
suspend my moral beliefs. What is more, it would be morally wrong for me to
experiment with doing so.

According to the meta-skeptic, the situation is similar to the case of Agnes.

Just as he may exempt Agnes from the duty to suspend belief because he can
believe that her belief in God is a visceral one, he may exempt these philosophers
180 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

from the duty to suspend their moral beliefs because he can believe that their
moral beliefs are visceral. The meta-skeptic would not like these philosophers
to become unable to make decisions during their lives. He only expects them to
suspend those among their moral beliefs that they formed on the basis of their
philosophical considerations.
Nevertheless, the meta-skeptic gives the following piece of advice for difficult
decisions:

When you are about to make an important moral decision, don’t draw on ethical
theories and don’t start at all weighing up philosophical considerations. Avoid
these, for philosophy (including moral philosophy) is an epistemic enterprise
that uses inadequate and unsuitable tools to establish truths. Consequently,
when you evaluate your potential decision on the basis of considerations from
(moral) philosophy (whether it is morally right or wrong to make the decision at
issue), then you choose an inadequate and unsuitable way to evaluate it.

But there’s more to it. According to the meta-skeptic, it is definitely worse to use
the strategy of drawing on ethical theories before making your decisions than to
see these theories through meta-skeptical eyes.
Let’s take the moral dilemma Sartre analyzes (see 1946/2007). A young man
has to decide whether to look after his gravely ill mother or to go to war against
the Nazis. The meta-skeptic thinks that it would not help him at all to turn to
philosophy for advice. If he were to meet a deontologist, he would probably say:

Stay home and look after your mother. You have special moral duties to her as
your close relative. What happens in the battlefield will not be up to just you. You
have no control over those events—as opposed to fulfilling your moral duties.
It might even happen that you will be fatally shot in combat five seconds after
going into your first action, before you could use your weapon.

And if he were to meet a consequentialist, he would probably receive the

following advice:

Go to war. This will be much more beneficial than caring for, bathing and
comforting your mother and changing her chamber-pot. If you kill a lot of
Nazis, you will contribute to the fall of the Nazi regime in your own way, which
is incomparably a greater good than your mother’s peace and comfort. Her being
contented that her son is taking care of her is useless.

­ hat the meta-skeptic tries to say is not what Sartre did (namely that everyone is
W
condemned to be free and is responsible for everything), but that philosophical
 Meta-skepticism 181

theories—including ethical theories of moral duty—are unavailing when it comes

to actually making decisions. There is dissensus in philosophy about the nature
of morally right actions—one ethical theory recommends a different course
of action than another one does. Thus, if you do not already have any kind of
(ideally visceral) willingness for the decision that is based on non-philosophical
considerations, then you will be incapacitated in your decision-making when
you turn to different ethical theories which provide mutually inconsistent pieces
of advice.
In short, according to the meta-skeptic the best thing to do if you have a
moral dilemma is to be a meta-skeptic and to try to make a decision on the
basis of various non-philosophical considerations. If you started weighing up in
a given case whether you will act morally rightly if you follow Kant’s guidance
or instead, if you follow Mill’s, then you could put your mind to anything only
after refuting one of those views by using philosophical arguments. Even tossing
a coin is better than doing that—Sartre’s young man could toss a coin and decide
that “If it is heads, I will tend to my mother, if it is tails, I will go to war,” and then,
once the coin lands on the table, he could immediately introspect whether he is
happy about the result. If so, he could accept it, if not, he could decide against it.
To sum up, the meta-skeptic cannot provide clear criteria for distinguishing
the philosophical theses in which one is allowed to believe viscerally from those
in which one isn’t. Consequently, he has no clear criteria for distinguishing
between those substantive factual philosophical beliefs from whose suspension
he exempts one and those from whose suspension he doesn’t. Nevertheless, one
has the epistemic duty to suspend most of one’s substantive factual philosophical
beliefs. According to the meta-skeptic, there is one thing that is dishonest. It is
when philosophers simply assert that they have a visceral belief in the truth of
p, and then go on to assert that thereby they are immediately exempted from
the duty to suspend their belief in p. In the meta-skeptic’s eyes, this would be
nothing else but abusing the epistemic requirement of suspending philosophical
beliefs, which cannot be allowed under any circumstances—just as abusing our
moral duties cannot be allowed either, however usual and frequent it may be.

1.4 The problem of self-defeat

­ lthough the premises of the meta-skeptical argument presented above have
A
great convincing power and its conclusions follow from the premises, the
argument itself seems irreparably self-defeating.
Here’s the thing. The first intended conclusion of the meta-skeptical
argument is that philosophers cannot rationally believe in the truth of their
182 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

substantive factual philosophical theses—yet the proposition that “Philosophers

cannot rationally believe in the truth of their substantive factual philosophical
theses” is a substantive factual philosophical thesis. Furthermore, according
to premise (2) of the meta-skeptical argument, the tools of philosophy are
inadequate and unsuitable for providing appropriate justifications of substantive
factual philosophical theses—yet the meta-skeptic uses the tools of philosophy
to justify the truth of the substantive factual philosophical thesis that “The
tools of philosophy are inadequate and unsuitable for providing appropriate
justifications of substantive factual philosophical theses.” Moreover, the second
intended conclusion of the meta-skeptical argument is that philosophers must
suspend their substantive factual philosophical beliefs—consequently the meta-
skeptic, too, must suspend his substantive factual philosophical belief that
“Philosophers must suspend their substantive factual philosophical beliefs.”
The meta-skeptical argument would not be self-defeating if the meta-skeptic
could make us believe that his argument is not a philosophical one. In this case,
he could say that “There is no question of self-defeat because I don’t assert that
non-philosophical arguments cannot be compelling.” And it would not be self-
defeating, either, if it were not meant to be a compelling argument, and each
premise were prefixed with the expression “In my opinion.” In this case, the
meta-skeptic could say that “There is no question of self-defeat because all I
assert is that ‘In my opinion, philosophers cannot rationally believe in the truth
of any substantive factual philosophical thesis’.”
But the meta-skeptical argument is a philosophical argument, and it is
intended to have compelling force. Thus, the meta-skeptic asserts that “Because
my argument is a philosophical argument with compelling force, I can
rationally believe in the truth of the substantive factual philosophical thesis that
‘Philosophers cannot rationally believe in the truth of their substantive factual
philosophical theses’.”
The meta-skeptic can give only two responses to the problem of self-defeat.
Firstly, he can say that the meta-skeptical argument is not self-defeating—that of
all philosophical arguments, it alone has compelling force; the only substantive
factual philosophical thesis which we can rationally believe is that “we cannot
rationally believe in any substantive factual philosophical theses”; and the truth-
seeking and justificatory tools of philosophy fail in all cases except when we use
them to show that “the truth-seeking and justificatory tools of philosophy fail
in all cases.” This is how Brennan puts it: “It may just be that all philosophy
is unreliable except anti-philosophy philosophy [i.e., meta-skepticism],” and
“[I]t may just be that a small set of philosophical issues is answered and that
 Meta-skepticism 183

philosophical methodology works reliably on a small set of issues, i.e. just in the
areas needed to make the sceptic’s argument” (Brennan 2010: 8–9).
Brennan tries to show that it is mistaken to think that meta-skepticism is
a necessarily self-defeating standpoint—after all, he says, it is possible that the
argument for it is the only philosophical one that works for some reason. However,
this kind of defense is not very convincing—it cannot be taken seriously, to say
the least. For why on earth it would be the case that the meta-skeptical argument
would be immune to premise (2), which says that philosophy’s truth-seeking
and justificatory tools are inadequate and unsuitable? Why would the epistemic
status of our substantive philosophical beliefs be that “philosophical issue”
concerning which “philosophical methodology works reliably”? Obviously, the
meta-skeptic can say something in response—but I’m afraid that what he says
could only be a contrived ad hoc “explanation.”
According to the second response, the meta-skeptical argument is self-
defeating but this doesn’t mean that its premises undermine the truth of its
conclusions. At first glance, this may seem a strange maneuver, but it is not at all
unprecedented in the history of philosophy. Here’s the best-known analog case.
The young Wittgenstein wrote the Tractatus, a work crammed with substantive
factual philosophical theses. You can read in it sentences like the following: “The
world is the totality of facts, not of things” (TLP 1.1); “The logical picture of the
facts is the thought” (TLP 3); “The sense of a proposition is its agreement and
disagreement with the possibilities of the existence and non-existence of the
atomic facts” (TLP 4.2); “The world and life are one” (TLP 5.621); “There is only
logical necessity” (TLP 6.37); “The sense of the world must lie outside the world”
(TLP 6.41); “Scepticism is not irrefutable but palpably senseless” (TLP 6.51). At the
end of the work, Wittgenstein asserts that “The right method of philosophy would
be this: To say nothing except what can be said, i.e. the propositions of natural
science, i.e. something that has nothing to do with philosophy” (TLP 6.53, italics
mine). He dissolves the looming self-defeat in the following well-known way:

­ y propositions are elucidatory in this way: he who understands me finally

M
recognizes them as senseless, when he has climbed out through them, on them,
over them. (He must so to speak throw away the ladder, after he has climbed
up on it.) He must surmount these propositions; then he sees the world rightly.
(TLP 6.54)

The meta-skeptic, too, can use a similar maneuver. For example, he may say this:
“After you have seen the truth of the premises of the meta-skeptical argument,
184 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

and accepted its conclusions (for the deductive steps of the argument are valid),
you don’t need the meta-skeptical argument itself any more. You can throw
it away just as if it were a ladder, so you can see the epistemic status of your
philosophical beliefs rightly.”
I don’t know how satisfying you will find maneuvers like this. If you allow
Wittgenstein to make this kind of move because you don’t think that what he
does is cheap evasion, then you must allow the meta-skeptic to do that as well.
But if you don’t allow him to make it because you think that what he does is
cheap evasion, then you must not allow the meta-skeptic to do that either. I
agree with the latter view—in my eyes, this defense of meta-skepticism is no
more convincing than the previous one.
What I think is the following. Granting that the problem of self-defeat does
not deal a fatal blow to the meta-skeptical argument, and to meta-skepticism
as a whole (as I’m inclined to think), neither of these responses is entirely
reassuring—in fact, both of them look very much like desperate attempts to
evade a quite real and intractable difficulty. At the same time, if you appeal
merely to self-defeat in thinking that you are done with meta-skepticism
once and for all and that you don’t have to take the meta-skeptical argument
into account any more, then you don’t proceed with sufficient intellectual
conscience.
Here is why. Let’s suppose that you read the meta-skeptical argument
before you face the difficulties of those metaphilosophical views which say
that philosophers can rationally stick to the truth of their substantive factual
philosophical beliefs. In this case, you would have every reason to think that
self-defeat is such a serious problem that the meta-skeptic would have done
better not to start arguing in the first place, because due to this problem he starts
from a very handicapped position, so his argument stands no chance of having
even the slightest convincing force.
Nevertheless, if you have already realized that neither the advocates of the “I’m
the only one” view nor those of equilibrism give good responses to philosophy’s
epistemic failure, then you cannot preclude in advance that meta-skepticism
could be the best, or at least the sincerest reaction to it. Thus, if you want to reject
meta-skepticism, then you cannot be content with this much: “As there is no
reassuring response to the problem of self-defeat, I don’t have to take it seriously
the challenge posed by meta-skepticism.” It takes more than that. You must give
reasons why you can rationally stick to the truth of your substantive factual
philosophical beliefs, despite the fact that neither the “I’m the only one” view
nor equilibrism seems promising—not to mention that the objections to the
 Meta-skepticism 185

premises of the meta-skeptical argument seem to be built on less solid ground

than the premises themselves.
To put it more sharply, if the problem of self-defeat is the only thing you
can adduce as a reason for rejecting meta-skepticism, and if you think that
this immediately lets you get rid of the challenge posed by meta-skepticism,
then you don’t seriously face philosophy’s epistemic failure, nor the failure of
the earlier reactions to philosophy’s epistemic failure. Also, you don’t seriously
face the convincing force of the meta-skeptical argument, in that it says that
if philosophy is an epistemically failed enterprise because philosophers have
neither solved a single philosophical problem nor presented any compellingly
justified substantive truths, then you do have good epistemic reason to believe
that philosophy’s truth-seeking and justificatory tools are inadequate and
unsuitable. And, so the argument goes, if philosophers work with such truth-
seeking and justificatory tools, then you do have good epistemic reason to believe
that philosophers cannot rationally believe in the truth of their substantive
factual philosophical theses. I think it would be “somewhat” displeasing and
unconscientious for you to merely say that “Meta-skepticism is untenable
because the meta-skeptic cannot reassuringly respond to the challenge of self-
defeat”—without your being able to give reasons why you can rationally stick to
the truth of your substantive factual philosophical beliefs.
To sum up, I don’t want to say that self-defeat isn’t a major problem for meta-
skepticism. All I’m saying is that you need to appeal to something other beyond
self-defeat so you can rest assured to reject meta-skepticism.

2 Dialogue with a full-fledged meta-skeptic

I hope two things from the dialogue between Sophie and the full-fledged
meta-skeptic. One is that I can bring the meta-skeptic’s attitude closer to you
and describe it vividly—I can say what the meta-skeptic sees as the error of
philosophers sticking to their philosophical beliefs and what “training” he
proposes for these philosophers so they can suspend their substantive factual
philosophical beliefs in conformity with the epistemic duty of belief suspension.
The other is that I can show why meta-skepticism is an inappropriate reaction
to philosophy’s epistemic failure and why the meta-skeptic doesn’t give the right
answer to the question “What should we do with our philosophical beliefs in the
light of philosophy’s epistemic failure?” Accordingly, I will divide the dialogue
into two “acts,” an elaborative and a critical one.
186 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

2.1 Act One: Meta-skepticism close up

Sophie: I concede that the meta-skeptical argument is convincing and that meta-
skepticism seems to be the sincerest of all reactions to philosophy’s epistemic
failure. That is to say, I concede that both philosophy’s epistemic failure
and the failure of those three previous reactions to this failure point in the
direction of commitment to meta-skepticism. My first question: what is your
explanation for the unpopularity of meta-skepticism as a metaphilosophical
vision among philosophers?

Meta-skeptic: I explain it primarily by giving psychological reasons appealing

to the frailty of human nature. I’m not naïve so I know that suspending
our philosophical beliefs is not an easy thing to do. If a philosopher is in
the process of developing arguments for his pet philosophical view, then
it comes as no surprise that he is reluctant to suspend his philosophical
beliefs.
Yet, that is what I expect him to do because it is his epistemic duty. I’m
tolerant of those beliefs to which anyone is entitled to stick to (if they are
indeed such beliefs) as well as the visceral beliefs of philosophers (if they are
indeed such beliefs), but I’m not tolerant of their non-visceral philosophical
beliefs to which they aren’t entitled to stick. I think philosophers who cling
to their epistemically mundane non-visceral philosophical beliefs are
either throwing good money after bad because they are too cowardly to
admit defeat, or they resemble the narcissistic writer who wouldn’t press
“Delete” to drop a sentence that they have crafted with meticulous care.
Philosophers aren’t courageous enough to face philosophy’s epistemic
failure and draw the proper conclusions about their own philosophical
beliefs.

Sophie: Are cowardice and the sunk cost fallacy the only reasons for philosophers’
intransigence?

­Meta-skeptic: No, there’s more to it. I imagine a philosopher who has put
extraordinary intellectual efforts into his research, conscientiously followed
the latest developments in the relevant literature for years, produced fairly
complex and technically rich lines of reasoning and made subtle conceptual
distinctions—and now he encounters the meta-skeptical argument. This
argument is not sophisticated in the least; what’s more, it doesn’t contain
anything that he wouldn’t have known already or shouldn’t have known. The
philosopher feels sad. Of course, he could make some random objections,
but let’s assume that deep in his heart he feels that the argument is spot on.
This philosopher may feel that the whole scenario is unworthy and
unfair. It is just as unworthy and unfair as those medieval knights—who
 Meta-skepticism 187

trained their bodies and minds for decades and wrote romantic poems
to their ladies—felt it to be unworthy and unfair to be shot by a crossbow
of a simple illiterate peasant boy who only practiced for a few minutes.
The triumph of this peasant boy, cut off from the world of learning and
having neither knightly virtues nor outstanding skills is unworthy indeed—
and perhaps the meta-skeptic scores exactly such a “triumph” over the
philosopher who stubbornly sticks to his philosophical beliefs. But please
don’t miss the real point! It’s no use for the philosopher to bring up how
unworthy and unfair it is to prove the irrationality of his substantive factual
philosophical beliefs with the help of the meta-skeptical argument which
features the most obviously true premises. It doesn’t exempt him from the
duty to suspend his beliefs just because he feels it was unworthy of him, in
the same way as the knight doesn’t rise from the dead after the rusty and
unshapely arrowhead tore up his chainmail armor and damaged his organs
(liver, lungs, spleen) just because he felt it was unworthy of him and he was
killed in an unfair way.

Sophie: Wow! What a graphic description!

Meta-skeptic: I’m just putting myself in the place of those who would be
unwilling to abandon their philosophical beliefs even under the compelling
force of the meta-skeptical argument. I understand why they think that “If
someone can show us that we have to suspend our philosophical beliefs,
then his argument should be aesthetically pleasing, elegant, sophisticated
and witty—if we are to lose, let’s lose nicely, as a hero would!” The above
meta-skeptical argument (and all of its variants), however, has none of
these properties. Once the self-deception of philosophers sticking to their
philosophical beliefs gets unmasked, there’s no elegance in it—they can
only see their downfall as nasty and depressing. This circumstance may also
explain why many philosophers don’t accept the meta-skeptical argument
as compelling and why they are unwilling to suspend their philosophical
beliefs.

Sophie: It seems that you have a very low opinion of those philosophers who
don’t suspend their substantive factual and non-visceral philosophical beliefs.

Meta-skeptic: Are you surprised? Just try to take an impartial look at the
meaning of the history of philosophy! Although they spared no time and
efforts, philosophers were striving in vain to solve a single philosophical
problem or to come up with a single compellingly justified substantive factual
philosophical truth. They should have already realized that their truth-
seeking and justificatory tools are inadequate and unsuitable, a fortiori they
use such tools to form and justify their philosophical beliefs. And they should
188 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

also have already realized that because the tools they use are inadequate and
unsuitable for this purpose, they have no good epistemic reasons to stick to
their philosophical beliefs—they have the duty to suspend them.
Despite that, both the members of the epistemic tradition (the “I’m
the only one” philosophers) and the “human-faced” equilibrists are
totally convinced that they can rationally believe in the truth of their
substantive factual philosophical theses. When I hear the “I’m the only one”
philosophers say that “My arguments for the truth of p are compelling”;
“Without any doubt, I know that p is true”; “My counter-arguments refute,
once and for all, those theories which say that p is not true,” then what
else should I think of them than that they are wretched people stricken
with epistemic blindness? And when I hear the equilibrists say that “I can
rationally believe in the truth of p because p is in equilibrium with my
fundamental pre-philosophical convictions that essentially belong to my
personal-cognitive integrity, and I can show that no objection against p
is compelling,” then I’m only waiting for the moment when it dawns on
these unfortunate people that it doesn’t entitle them to stick to the truth of
p in the epistemic sense and they start showing the painful symptoms of
epistemic schizophrenia.

Sophie: I see what you mean. Let me now ask you about the phenomenology
of suspending our philosophical beliefs. It is not clear to me what it is
like. If at t1 a philosopher believes in the truth of p, then obviously, he
doesn’t believe at t1 that he should suspend his belief in p. Then “something
happens” and at t2 he no longer believes that p is true nor that not-p is
true. I cannot imagine it otherwise than, from one moment to the next,
the philosopher “finds himself ” thinking that “Lo, earlier I believed that
p is true but now I no longer believe that p is true nor that p is false.” The
act of suspending our philosophical beliefs doesn’t seem to be a mental
event under our conscious control. As far as I’m concerned, this is what
my experience is like of how certain philosophical beliefs of mine vanished
into thin air as time went by.

Meta-skeptic: Indeed, we mostly “sleep through” the act of suspending our

philosophical beliefs. What happens is what you say: philosophers “find
themselves” no longer to believe in the truth of p nor in the falsity of p,
although earlier they believed in the truth of p. However, you forget the most
important thing—namely, that if a philosopher at last realizes that he has no
good epistemic reason to stick to the truth of p, then from that moment on,
he has the epistemic duty to train himself to be able to suspend his p-belief.
Thus, speaking about the epistemic duty of suspending philosophical
beliefs, I don’t merely expect philosophers to take notice of the following: “To
 Meta-skepticism 189

be able to rationally believe in the truth of p, my justification must meet

certain standards, and since the justification of my belief in the truth of p
doesn’t meet these standards, I irrationally believe that p is true.” Likewise, I
don’t merely expect them to stop producing philosophical arguments for p—
to restrain themselves from propagating p in any forum, resist the temptation
to convince others of the truth of p in debates, and answer that “I don’t know
whether p is true” whenever someone asks them if they hold p true.
It isn’t enough for philosophers to shut up and throw into a wastepaper
basket the manuscripts of their arguments for the truth of p. I expect them
to do more than not letting their philosophical beliefs “manifest themselves,”
because in this case they continue having those beliefs—it’s just that they
don’t express them.
As a meta-skeptic, I expect philosophers to act differently. As an advocate
of doxastic deontology, here is what I expect them to do: if they cannot
fulfil the epistemic duty of suspending philosophical beliefs, then they
should do their best to achieve it. The meta-skeptical argument itself is just
a “springboard”—it doesn’t automatically trigger the suspension of their
philosophical beliefs. They have to work hard to achieve the suspension of
their philosophical beliefs. That’s why they need to do training or practicing.

Sophie: OK, but what kind of activity do you have in mind? What kind of
training? Should philosophers repeat ten, twenty or a hundred times in front
of their mirrors “I don’t believe that p is true nor that p is false,” every day in
the morning, at noon, and in the evening?

Meta-skeptic: I don’t take exception to that if it helps them. It’s just that I don’t
believe it to be an efficient practice. But, speaking about training in front of
the mirror, here is my proposal instead of it: whenever philosophers “find
themselves” holding true a proposition as a result of a spontaneously arising
train of thought, for example the proposition “H2O is a structural universal,”
then they should immediately remind themselves that they certainly arrived
at this philosophical thesis with the use of inadequate and unsuitable truth-
seeking tools, and consequently they cannot rationally believe in its truth.
The obligatory recall of the meta-skeptical argument several times a day can
be an effective therapy—it can erode their philosophical beliefs.

Sophie: Do you expect all philosophers to start repeating the meta-skeptical

argument as a mantra whenever they “find themselves” believing in the truth
of some substantive factual philosophical proposition?

Meta-skeptic: That’s not the whole story. Really effective meta-skeptical training
consists in practicing self-reflection.

Sophie: What do you mean by self-reflection?

190 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

Meta-skeptic: Don’t expect me to give a precise definition. By self-reflection I

simply mean that someone sees his activity from an outside and impartial
viewpoint. What I mean is a kind of self-perception which is free from
distortions determining his internal cognitive perspective.
Just think about it. Most of our character flaws—vanity, envy, self-
importance, cowardice, intemperance, stinginess, greed, low self-esteem,
and so on—can usually be judged more accurately from the outside than
from a first-person perspective. In contrast to our occurrent mental states to
which we have privileged access, the situation is the opposite with our non-
occurrent mental states, in particular our character traits and flaws, because
others have better access to them than we do. Just as we are epistemically
superior to our dentist with regard to whether it hurts when he drills our
tooth, impartial outsiders are usually more reliable when it comes to judging
our character traits and non-occurrent mental states.

Sophie: If I understand you right, executing self-reflection must be a difficult

thing to do. It’s not easy to occupy an outside viewpoint and see ourselves
from “over there.” We may happen to think that we see ourselves in an
impartial manner, whereas in fact we fail to interiorize the undistorted,
outside perspective and are still enslaved by internal distorting factors.

Meta-skeptic: It’s not an easy task, indeed. We need to practice so we can reliably
eliminate all internal distorting factors. We’re not as lucky as Socrates was,
whose daemon warned him every time he believed something for which he
had no proper epistemic reason. So it’s hard to do indeed, but the only way to
the attainment of reliable self-knowledge (and, of course, reliable philosophical
self-knowledge) is to exercise self-reflection. For us, self-reflection plays the
role of Socrates’ daemon.
Now let me explain the role of self-reflection—let me elucidate it with
an ordinary case. Let’s assume that Rachel cheats on her partner with a lot
of people. She keeps lying about her nights out. She regularly mocks her
partner’s sagging breasts to her lovers. She slags her off, because her partner
is not willing (or is hardly ever willing) to please her in bed the way she likes
it. She badmouths her because her partner spoils their pets. She is often late
for their dates, or simply forgets that she has an arrangement to meet her
partner.
When it comes to their relationship and her acquaintances criticize her
for not loving her partner, Rachel starts explaining vehemently that she does.
She tells them with genuine honesty that “Whenever she is quietly snoozing
next to me, I feel really touched and warm inside.” Or: “When I see that she
 Meta-skepticism 191

has made me my favorite meal when I get home from work, I’m overcome
with waves of affection.” And, if Rachel happens to be a philosopher, she
might even say “When I feel this special warmth for her, this feeling has a
definite phenomenal character that differs from the phenomenal character of
other experiences—there is something it is like to be in love with our partner.
Love is actually not a dispositional property but an occurrent mental state—it
is a conscious experience with a special phenomenal character, and that is all
that matters.”
I’d like to emphasize three things about this not-too-uplifting story.
Firstly, Rachel has formed a false belief about herself—she believes that she
loves her partner, but she doesn’t. Seen from an impartial outside viewpoint,
Rachel’s defense is unconvincing. On the contrary, it would be considered an
unambiguous instance of repulsive and immoral camouflage—and of course,
this undistorted, outside viewpoint is correct.
Secondly, if Rachel really believes that she loves her partner, then she
gets caught in the trap of the following kind of self-deception. (1) It is an
evident fact that if someone continuously does so and so (or continuously
doesn’t do so and so), then she has certain character flaws. (2) S knows about
the truth of these conditionals. (3) Despite the fact that S, too, continuously
does so and so or continuously doesn’t do so and so, S fails to realize her
own character flaw and uses every means to deny its existence. That is, S is
not cognitively closed off from those criteria on the basis of which she could
realize her own character flaw, yet she still doesn’t realize it and misjudges
herself. Rachel’s self-deception is exactly like this. She knows the criteria
on the basis of which she could realize that she misjudges herself when she
believes that she loves her partner—and yet she doesn’t realize it. Her self-
deception remains hidden to her.
Thirdly, insofar as Rachel at last realizes that she really doesn’t love her
partner, she comes to realize it through self-reflection—she becomes able to
see herself from an impartial, outside viewpoint. Her self-reflection unmasks
her self-deception. Of course, it’s not impossible that an n+1st argument
would also convince her that she deceives herself, but it is an unlifelike
assumption—for (as you saw) she has always been ready to respond to various
arguments with “proper” counterarguments, and very easily convinced
herself of her innocence.
Now, the case of philosophers sticking to their philosophical beliefs is
relevantly similar to that of Rachel. Firstly, these philosophers form false
beliefs about the epistemic status of their philosophical beliefs—they believe
that they can rationally stick to them, although they cannot.
Secondly, the philosophers sticking to their philosophical beliefs get
caught in a similar trap of self-deception: they aren’t cognitively closed
192 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

off from realizing that their sticking to their philosophical beliefs has no
sufficient epistemic grounds—everything is already there in the meta-
skeptical argument as clearly as the sun at noon-day. Nonetheless, they don’t
realize it, and so their self-deception remains hidden to them.
Thirdly, when philosophers at long last realize that they have
false beliefs about the epistemic status of their substantive factual
philosophical beliefs—they falsely believe that they can rationally stick
to them although they cannot—, they achieve it through self-reflection.
Their self-reflection unmasks their self-deception. It is very unlifelike to
suppose that an n+1st philosophical argument would convince them of
their self-deception. Both the “I’m the only one” philosophers and the
equilibrists are ready to respond to it with “proper” counterarguments.
The former ones keep saying that “I can rationally believe in the truth of
p because I have knock-down arguments for the truth of p.” The latter
ones keep saying that “I can rationally believe in the truth of p because
p is in equilibrium with my fundamental pre-philosophical convictions,
and I can show that none of the objections against p are compelling.”
Nevertheless, when they exercise self-reflection, then the “I’m the only
one” philosophers at long last realize that their view is only one among
many, and as such it has no privileged status, whereas the equilibrists
at long last realize that their fundamental pre-philosophical convictions
(which they de facto have) are a matter of chance, and so no such
philosophical theory can be constructed on their basis in whose truth
they could rationally believe. So, it is through their self-reflection alone
that they can rightly “see” the epistemic status of their philosophical
beliefs, and it is through their self-reflection alone that they can gain
reliable philosophical self-knowledge.
I’m not claiming that philosophers are already successful at their very first
attempt. Due to their cowardice and clinging to positions in whose defense
they have invested a great deal of hard work, they tend to stubbornly stick
to their philosophical beliefs, which is a serious obstacle to the detached
self-reflective monitoring of these beliefs. Nevertheless, I cannot emphasize
enough that the ultimate aim of doing philosophy is to overcome this sticking
point, and the most effective way for philosophers to achieve it is to keep
trying to execute self-reflection in an uncompromising manner. For if they
do that, they will “get the whole picture” sooner or later, and realize that
their clinging to their substantive factual philosophical beliefs is completely
groundless, so they can suspend them in cognitive peace to fulfil their
epistemic duty.
 Meta-skepticism 193

Sophie: I may be wrong, but I think you’re over-mystifying the role of self-
reflection in the story. How is it different from intellectually seeing the
compelling (or at least in your opinion compelling) nature of the meta-
skeptical argument?

Meta-skeptic: It is different and more than that because what the philosophers
have as a result of self-reflection is not merely an intellectual grasp of the
truth of a proposition (it is not mere propositional knowledge), but rather the
experience of the futility of their sticking to their philosophical beliefs.
I’ll try to explain this, too, although it’s not so easy. Think about the
Buddhist enlightened ones—if there are any at all. They not only intellectually
see the truth of the proposition “All suffering is necessarily caused by our
attachment to the objects of our desiring,” but literally let go of their desires.
I don’t know how it exactly happens, but I assume it goes somehow like this:
during their enlightenment, the enlightened ones experience the complete
futility of their attachment to the objects of their desire. Their enlightenment
is a conscious experience during which they come to see face to face the
causal mechanism which connects their attachment to the objects of their
desires with their suffering, and this conscious experience has such a flash
that it blows out their desires once and for all and leads them to nirvāṇa, a
state in which all suffering is extinguished.
According to the Buddhist tradition, the Buddha describes his
enlightenment in the following way:

When my concentrated mind was thus purified, bright, unblemished, rid

of imperfection, malleable, wieldy, steady, and attained to imperturbability,
I directed it to knowledge of the destruction of the taints. I directly knew
as it actually is: “This is suffering”; […] “This is the origin of suffering”;
[…] “This is the cessation of suffering”; […] “This is the way leading to
the cessation of suffering”; […] “These are the taints”; […] “This is the
origin of the taints”; […] “This is the cessation of the taints”; […] “This
is the way leading to the cessation of the taints.” When I […] saw thus,
my mind was liberated from the taint of sensual desire, from the taint of
being, and from the taint of ignorance. When it was liberated there came
the knowledge: “It is liberated.”
(MN 36, italics from the meta-skeptic)

I’d like to use this parallel to point out that it is one thing to intellectually
see—thanks to the compelling nature of the meta-skeptical argument—the
truth of the proposition “Philosophers cannot rationally believe in the truth
of their substantive factual philosophical theses, and have the epistemic duty
to suspend these beliefs.” It is, however, another thing to literally experience,
194 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

through our self-reflective monitoring, the futility of our sticking to our

philosophical beliefs.
In other words, no matter how strong the meta-skeptical argument may
be, philosophers can fight against it. They’re smart, and are able to convince
themselves of the falsity of some of its premises. By contrast, if their self-
reflection reveals to them (with the experience of complete certainty whose
veridicality they have no reason at all to doubt) that their p-belief is just one
among many, and that their fundamental pre-philosophical convictions x, y,
z (which they de facto have) are a matter of chance, then the self-reflective
monitoring of their philosophical beliefs may be such a flash that “blows out”
their sticking to their philosophical beliefs once and for all.

Sophie: I think I see what you mean, but the mental act of self-reflection cannot
be forced.

Meta-skeptic: Indeed. There’s no guarantee that philosophers will carry out a

self-reflective act by which they can gain reliable self-knowledge. It’s entirely
up to them whether they will develop a proper perception of themselves
as epistemic agents thanks to a (really executed) act of self-reflection, and
experience the futility of their sticking to their philosophical beliefs. And yet,
some philosophers do execute this required self-reflection.
I highly appreciate them. My appreciation is part epistemic, part moral.
It is epistemic to the extent that their self-reflection puts them in a privileged
position—they’ll clearly see the epistemic status of their philosophical beliefs.
And it is moral to the extent that, having overcome all psychological obstacles,
they’re able to let go of their non-visceral philosophical beliefs thanks to their
experience resulting from self-reflection.

Sophie: The only thing left I’d like to know is this. Let’s suppose you’re right in
everything you say. Self-deception is the only way for us to “wriggle out” of
the compelling force of the meta-skeptical argument, and a really executed
act of self-reflection (like enlightenment) is such an experience or flash that
can “blow out” our sticking to our philosophical beliefs. That said, I think
that the parallel with Buddhism is a bit unenlightening. While the Buddha
promises great benefits (the cessation of all their sufferings) to his followers,
meta-skepticism offers no prospects. What could you say to those who
argue like this? “Even if I’m defenseless against the meta-skeptical argument
and even if I concede that I have no good epistemic reasons to stick to my
substantive factual philosophical beliefs, I don’t have enough motivation to
start doing the exercises proposed by the meta-skeptic. This is because the
commitment to meta-skepticism has no benefits at all.”
 Meta-skepticism 195

Meta-skeptic: Indeed, many think so. But they’re wrong. Commitment to meta-
skepticism is the appropriate reaction to philosophy’s epistemic failure. Meta-
skepticism gives the right answer to the question “What should we do with
our philosophical beliefs in the light of philosophy’s epistemic failure?” In a
word, meta-skepticism is the correct metaphilosophical view.
But if seeing the truth weren’t in itself enough motivation, here’s a list of
those further benefits that the complete identification with meta-skepticism
can offer. Seeing that you cannot rationally believe in your substantive factual
philosophical theses, you can get clear on your epistemic-cognitive limits.
Thanks to your properly executed self-reflection, you can, in cognitive peace,
let go of those of your beliefs which you now have irrationally, and so you
become immune to having false beliefs. Insofar as you were an “I’m the only
one” philosopher, you will be cured of your epistemic blindness. Insofar
as you were an equilibrist, you won’t be threatened by the disease called
“epistemic schizophrenia” any more. The commitment to meta-skepticism
gives you access to the Socratic wisdom “The only thing I know is that I know
nothing”; “I only know that I don’t know.” To recap, meta-skepticism presents
you with the virtue of epistemic modesty, which is nothing else but the main
and noblest goal of doing philosophy.

2.2 Act Two: Farewell to meta-skepticism

Sophie: After thinking through what you said and how you said it, I have
concluded that you don’t react appropriately to philosophy’s epistemic failure,
and don’t give the right answer to the question “What should we do with our
philosophical beliefs in the light of philosophy’s epistemic failure?”

Meta-skeptic: Let me hear your concerns!

Sophie: Before I start, I’d like to clarify one more thing that is important but has
not been spoken of until now. My question is: why are you not a Pyrrhonian
skeptic? Here’s a nice and concise formulation of Pyrrhonism by Sextus:

[W]hen the Skeptic set out to philosophize with the aim of assessing his
phantasiai — that is, of determining which are true and which are false
so as to achieve ataraxia — he landed in a controversy between positions
of equal strength, and, being unable to resolve it, he suspended judgment.
But while he was thus suspending judgment there followed by chance the
sought-after ataraxia as regards belief.
(PH I 27, italics from Sophie)
196 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

So, like you, a Pyrrhonian skeptic, too, takes the fact of pervasive and
permanent philosophical dissensus as his starting point; he, too, suspends
his substantive factual philosophical beliefs; and as a result of that, he, too,
achieves cognitive peace.
However, unlike you, the Pyrrhonian skeptic is not threatened by self-
defeat. This is because all he claims is this: “for every argument that I have
examined and that establishes something dogmatically, there appears to me to
be opposed another argument that establishes something dogmatically and
is equal to it as regards credibility and lack of credibility” (PH I 203, italics
from Sophie); and so, what he says is “just a report of a human pathos, which
is apparent to the person experiencing it” (PH I 203, italics from Sophie). All
he claims is this: “I am now in such a state of mind as neither dogmatically
to affirm nor deny any of the matters in question” (PH I 197, italics from
Sophie); “[a]nd this he says, reporting what appears to him concerning the
matters at hand, not dogmatically and confidently, but just as a description
of his state of mind, his pathos” (PH I 197, italics from Sophie). Slogans like
“I withhold assent”; “I determine nothing”; “I suspend my beliefs,” actually
only “express a personal pathos, in accord with which the Skeptic declines
for the present to take an affirmative or negative position on any of the non-
evident matters of inquiry” (PH I 201, italics from Sophie). In brief, since a
Pyrrhonian skeptic is “simply reporting, like a chronicler, what now appears
to him to be the case” (PH I 4, italics from Sophie); that is, since all he does
is describe his experiences, his position (attitude, praxis, you name it) is not
self-defeating. (See e.g., Bailey 1990.)
By contrast, you do not merely want to share your experiences with us,
but firmly claim that philosophers cannot rationally believe in the truth
of their substantive factual philosophical theses, and for this reason they
must suspend them all. And, here’s the source of troubles—it seems that the
content of your statement is self-defeating. Now, if your argument is self-
defeating, then it would be irrational for one to accept its conclusions and
commit oneself to meta-skepticism. And, whichever way I look at it, you
cannot give a reassuring response to the problem of self-defeat—at least,
you’re most certainly unable to “whitewash” your argument.
Let me go on. Since all the Pyrrhonian skeptic does is describe his
experiences, what he says does not contain any normative elements. He doesn’t
claim that everybody must suspend their substantive factual philosophical
beliefs. Your claim, however, amounts to just that, and that is a source of
troubles. This is because for you to be able to make that claim, you have
to commit yourself to doxastic deontology. Without doing so, you cannot
require philosophers to suspend their substantive factual philosophical
 Meta-skepticism 197

beliefs. However, doxastic deontology isn’t beyond dispute—there is

disagreement among philosophers about whether it is a correct view or not,
and there are strong arguments against it. Thus, you should show that the
arguments adduced against doxastic deontology are all bad—and to achieve
that, you should present philosophical arguments (what is more, knock-
down philosophical arguments), although you think that all philosophical
arguments are sui generis inadequate and unsuitable for establishing truths. It
follows that either premise (4) of your argument remains unjustified, which
means that it is not compelling. Or, if you attempt to justify (4), then you’re
bound to do that with tools that are inadequate and unsuitable according to
your view, and so you end up contradicting yourself.
That is why I’m asking you again: why you are not a Pyrrhonian skeptic?
In this case, too, you could achieve cognitive peace as a result of suspending
your substantive factual philosophical beliefs, and you wouldn’t have to excuse
yourself due to self-defeat or due to committing yourself to philosophical
views that you should not embrace.

Meta-skeptic: That’s a good question. Look, the Pyrrhonian skeptic’s proposal

cannot result in cognitive peace. So much so, that if you think about it, this
whole therapy gets stuck already before we suspend our beliefs. I, for one,
would not suspend my philosophical beliefs just because it appears to me
that the philosophical theories (which I more or less know and understand)
concerning a given philosophical problem are of equal weight. I would be
(quite) worried to find myself content with this much—after all, it may
easily be the case that I’m insufficiently circumspect and thorough, and
don’t realize that one theory has stronger support than the other, right? The
question would keep bothering me: “Theories X and Y appear to me to be of
equal weight, but are they really of equal weight?” The thought would keep
haunting me: “Couldn’t it be the case that my impressions—on which I base
the suspension of my philosophical beliefs—deceive me?”
What the above comes to is this: the suspension of our philosophical
beliefs, the achievement of cognitive peace and its maintenance require
“something” more than appearances. And indeed, there is “more” than
that. Namely, the insight that the tools of philosophy are inadequate for
establishing truths and for the compelling justification of substantive factual
philosophical theses. For, if we gain this insight, then (but only then) the
suspension of our philosophical beliefs will become really reasonable, and
the suspension of our beliefs can really result in our reaching the state of
undisturbed cognitive peace. In this case, X and Y do not only appear to us
to be of equal weight, but we also realize that they are of equal “weight”—at
198 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

least in the relevant sense that both are “products” of a wrong and unreliable
truth-seeking procedure.
The main thing is that in order to achieve and maintain cognitive peace,
one needs certainty. The Pyrrhonian, however, does not (and cannot) have
certainty. He can have no experience which he could rightly judge to be
veridical, as opposed to being mere appearances. Now, that is why I am not
a Pyrrhonist skeptic.

Sophie: But is it not precisely the main tenet of Pyrrhonism (if I can say so) that
cognitive peace can be achieved even without certainty? Here is how it all
adds up, in my view. We set out to find philosophical truths. On our way, we
stumble upon a number of philosophical theories which are incompatible
with each other, yet appear to us to be of equal weight. At this point, we
suspend our philosophical beliefs. As a result, cognitive peace becomes our
companion “by chance […]” (PH I 29). We experience this cognitive peace to
be good. That is when it dawns on us: “Wow! Undisturbed mental tranquillity
has come to us without our being certain in anything—even independently of
whether our earlier impressions of the equal weight of philosophical theories
were right or not.” The bottom line is that concerning the achievement of
cognitive peace, nothing depends on whether things appear to us the way they
are or the way they aren’t.

Meta-skeptic: You’re on the right track. Cognitive peace visits the Pyrrhonian
skeptic out of the blue. Here’s the complete passage from which you just
quoted:

What happened to the Skeptic is just like what is told of Apelles the
painter. For it is said that once upon a time, when he was painting a horse
and wished to depict the horse’s froth, he failed so completely that he gave
up and threw his sponge at the picture—the sponge which he used to wipe
the paints from his brush—and that in striking the picture the sponge
produced the desired effect. So, too, the Skeptics were hoping to achieve
ataraxia by resolving the anomaly of phenomena and noumena, and,
being unable to do this, they suspended judgment. But then, by chance as
it were, when they were suspending judgment the ataraxia followed […]
(PH I 29)

Now let me ask: would you embark on a path knowing in advance that
by following it you will reach your goal (i.e., cognitive peace) not in the way
and not at the time you expect, that is, as an outcome of your efforts, but
by chance. Would you accept the following invitation: “If you suspend your
beliefs (regardless of whether they are well-founded or not), then cognitive
peace will descend upon you, not as a result of this suspension but in some
 Meta-skepticism 199

other way (I don’t know how), although I cannot promise this because the
connection between the two is contingent?” For this is essentially what the
Pyrrhonian skeptic is offering. Against this, I hold that attaining cognitive
peace requires certainty (recognition of the compelling force of meta-
skeptical argument plus reaching self-knowledge through practice of self-
reflection)—these two ensure that you achieve cognitive peace as a result of
your efforts and not as a contingent by-product.

Sophie: OK, let’s leave Pyrrhonism alone—I think you’ve convinced me. And
I’ve received a clear answer to my question: the reason why you’re not a
Pyrrhonian skeptic is that you cannot imagine undisturbed cognitive peace
without certainty. At the same time … how to phrase it … speaking of your
certainty or certainty-awareness, I’ve got to admit that its extent is scary.
We’ve been already conversing for a good while, and as I was listening to
you, I started getting the impression, and I cannot get rid of it, that you eerily
resemble Philonous.

Meta-skeptic: Behold!

Sophie: Well …, it seems to me that you think yourself to be infallible like he does.
You’re just as much complacent and narcissistic as he is—you’re an “I’m the
only one” philosopher. The only difference between you guys is that whereas
he’s an “I’m the only one” philosopher concerning his first-order philosophical
beliefs, the same goes for you concerning your metaphilosophical beliefs.
Moreover, your hubris is more displeasing than Philonous’. While he is
unable to exercise self-reflection due to his epistemic blindness and to see his
own view as just one among many first-order philosophical views, you keep
preaching about the significance of exercising self-reflection, although you,
too, are unable to see your view as just one among many metaphilosophical
views.

Meta-skeptic: Come on, Sophie, you’re just hurling insults at me. You must
surely feel that what you’re saying is unfair. Why shouldn’t I assert—without
reservation, in the possession of the meta-skeptical argument and especially
in light of my veridical experiences resulting from my self-reflection—that
philosophers cannot rationally believe in the truth of their substantive
factual philosophical theses, and consequently they must suspend their
corresponding beliefs? This is an entirely different kettle of fish than
Philonous’ fanaticism.

Sophie: I cannot see in what ways they differ. What I clearly see, however, is that
while you claim that the noblest goal of doing philosophy is that it teaches
epistemic modesty, you yourself seem to be the antithesis of this virtue. I
200 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

clearly see that you’re not epistemically more modest than the equilibrist
who doesn’t believe that she has compelling arguments, but—as she has a
personal stake in answering certain philosophical questions and doesn’t want
to stand defenseless against the objections—tries to defend her beliefs with
philosophical arguments.

Meta-skeptic: I’m glad that by now you’ve got the big picture. But apart from
lashing out at me, would you please let me know at last what objections you
have against meta-skepticism?

Sophie: Beyond standard objections, I have only another two—still, in my eyes

both are stronger than any of the standard ones. Firstly, in my opinion,
you give a one-sided description of what self-reflection reveals about our
philosophical beliefs. You only emphasize that “aspect” of it which supports
your view. You say that if we carry out the self-reflective monitoring of our
philosophical beliefs, then the only thing we can realize is the futility of our
sticking to our substantive factual philosophical beliefs, and this is a kind of
flash which can optimally prompt us to suspend them.
Self-reflection, however, reveals more than that. It also reveals that we
have a burning (or at least quite strong) cognitive need to take stances on
substantive factual philosophical issues which affect us deeply, and which
can be addressed only with the tools of philosophy in the first place—actually,
we don’t have any tools other than those of philosophical truth-seeking for
this purpose. Now, it seems to me that you entirely overlook this indisputably
existing cognitive need which is also revealed by self-reflection. You act as if
it didn’t exist.

Meta-skeptic: I know exactly what you’re talking about. But, when during their
self-reflection philosophers experience this “burning” cognitive need in
themselves, they also experience the hopelessness of satisfying it. So to speak,
the “aspect” of self-reflection described by me (and especially the flash
which I spoke about) overrides the cognitive need of the philosophers you
describe—by revealing the hopelessness of its satisfaction.

Sophie: I don’t think it would override it. Rather, the two appear in parallel during
the self-reflective monitoring of our philosophical beliefs, and thereby create
tension. Let me share my own experience. On the one hand, my self-reflection
reveals that I have the cognitive need to do something with those substantive
factual philosophical questions which are important to me, and which—
lacking any other truth-seeking tools—I can only address with the tools of
philosophy. On the other hand, my self-reflection reveals your point that I
don’t have any good epistemic reasons to believe in the truth of propositions
which I have arrived at with the use of philosophy’s tools.
 Meta-skepticism 201

Meta-skeptic: Sophie, if your self-reflection really reveals this duality and the
tension it generates, then it just shows that you haven’t finished your job yet.
I think I was speaking clearly earlier: the main goal of doing philosophy is
that we give up on philosophical truth-seeking once and for all by suspending
our philosophical beliefs—that the cognitive need in us to take stances on
philosophical issues be eradicated or blown out due to the recognition of its
hopelessness.

Sophie: I understand that you must make this claim, but I’m slightly revolted by
this vision. Let me return to the phenomenon of epistemic schizophrenia,
discussed in relation with van Inwagen’s confession. On the one hand, he
believes in the truth of p, so he believes (because he cannot do otherwise)
that his belief p is rational. On the other hand, he also believes that his
belief p is not rational because he cannot, with a clear conscience, ignore
the whisper of Clifford’s ghost, which says that there’s a good chance that
he has obtained his belief p through considerations that don’t track the
truth but rather the voice of the “will to believe.” The lesson drawn from the
story was that the only way for van Inwagen to believe in the truth of p in
cognitive peace is to be able to convince himself that beyond his philosophical
arguments, he has exclusive access to a further piece of evidence that reliably
indicates for him the truth of p (more exactly, the truth of the premises of
his arguments).
Let’s now return to our case. On the one hand, we realize that we cannot
use philosophy’s tools to arrive at substantive factual philosophical theses
in which we could rationally believe in the epistemic sense. On the other
hand, we also realize that we have the cognitive need to take stances on
substantive factual philosophical issues. I think that the only way for us to
resolve this tension—and the only option for your proposed meta-skeptic
“training” to bring cognitive peace—is to sink into intellectual apathy as a
result of it.
Now, in my opinion, none of these ways of achieving cognitive peace
are desirable. It is undesirable if someone convinces oneself of the truth
of one’s beliefs through appealing to some private evidence, and it is also
undesirable if someone lets go of his philosophical beliefs once and for all
in such a way that he becomes completely insensitive to the philosophical
problems at issue.
What I want to say is that earlier you painted an implausible picture of the
phenomenology of suspending our philosophical beliefs. Things are not so
simple like this: S believes at t1 that p is true, and no longer believes at t2 that p
is true, nor that not-p is true. Your description leaves out the most important
phenomenological feature. Instead, things are like this: at t1, S was sincerely
202 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

interested in whether p is true, but at t2, S is already not in the least interested
in whether p is true. Suspending his belief p can only result in cognitive peace
for S if the philosophical problem at issue has already lost all its significance
for S, and so S no longer cares if p is true or false. And this is apathy. And
in my opinion, apathy is undesirable. It is a bad thing if someone becomes
indifferent and irresponsive to the philosophical questions that have so far
been important (or even had existential stake) to him. In my eyes, this is
nothing else but cognitive deterioration to an alarming extent.
Let me take another approach. I agree with you that the equilibrist cannot
give a piece of philosophical advice with epistemic responsibility to someone
who turns to him with some substantive factual philosophical problem. For if
he does that, then—like we saw earlier in the case of Alex and Sammy—he will
actually mislead them. But now, let me ask you a question. As a meta-skeptic,
would you dare to give Alex the following piece of advice with epistemic and
at once moral responsibility: “To hell with the mind-body problem, don’t deal
with it at all, eradicate all your cognitive needs, because no matter what your
conclusions are, you’ll bound to be irrational to believe in them, as you arrive
at them using philosophy’s inadequate and unsuitable truth-seeking tools!”?
Or, would you dare to give Sammy this piece of advice with epistemic and
at once moral responsibility: “Don’t deal with the questions whether there
is a God or there is eternal damnation, eradicate your elemental desire to
know these things, because no matter how far you can go using philosophy’s
inadequate and unsuitable truth-seeking tools, you cannot rationally believe
in them!”? Generally speaking, the question is this: “Would you dare to give
with epistemic and at once moral responsibility to anyone the piece of advice to
follow you and become a meta-skeptic, in the light of the fact that cognitive
peace from suspending our philosophical beliefs can only be attained at the
cost of sinking into total uninterestedness and apathy?”

Meta-skeptic: Take care, Sophie, because you won’t get anywhere in the end if you
choose to go down this road!

Sophie: I’m afraid you’re right on that point. But now it’s time I moved on to my
second objection, so let’s have a closer look at it.
A Pyrrhonian skeptic doesn’t take a stance on the question whether
any successful philosophical arguments will be formulated in the future—
whether philosophers will be able to solve philosophical problems.
Although he suspends his philosophical beliefs, he “continues to search”
(PH I 3)—just in case. This “just in case” is in the spirit of Pyrrhonism: a
Pyrrhonist doesn’t take a stance on “things unclear,” including “the thing
unclear” concerning what the future holds—he leaves this question open.
You stand on the opposite side. According to you, the right and wise thing
 Meta-skepticism 203

for us to do is give up philosophical truth-seeking for good, due to its

hopelessness.
Now, in view of the hopelessness of the whole enterprise, it would only
be responsible for you to expect philosophers to suspend their philosophical
beliefs and forever give up on seeking philosophical truths in either of the
following two cases. Either you should be able to compellingly justify the
thesis that philosophical problems are in principle unsolvable for beings with
epistemic equipment such as ours, or you should be able to compellingly
justify that we’re so far away from solving philosophical problems that
humanity would certainly become extinct before any of them would be
solved. And, if you don’t mind my saying so, I have trouble believing that you
could have a compelling justifications for either of these views.
Whether we should or should not give up on philosophical truth-seeking
is hardly an insignificant issue. Thus, the question arises, and it arises in a
very acute form indeed: what is the basis for your belief that philosophers
won’t solve philosophical problems in the future either? What arguments do
you have against the claim that philosophy (or what will be called philosophy)
will acquire some new and effective truth-seeking and justificatory tools
in the future, which will help future philosophers in finding solutions to
philosophical problems?

Meta-skeptic: True, I don’t have any compelling arguments, but I have quite a
good inductive reason to think so.
Don’t ignore the time factor! If an epistemic enterprise is young (a few
years or decades old), then, indeed, the fact that it has not yet solved any
problems doesn’t mean that it is inadequate and unsuitable for accomplishing
its mission in the first place. But philosophy isn’t a freshman—it is a
2,500-year-old epistemic enterprise. Of course, this isn’t decisive in and of
itself, but if we add that the new philosophical problems are continuous with
the old ones—that is, philosophers have been concerned for centuries with
problems that are similar in relevant ways—, then our conclusion has a fairly
large inductive basis. A considerable amount of time has passed since a few
people first devoted themselves to solving philosophical problems, and yet
the philosophers haven’t managed to come up with a single solution to any of
them to the present day—in addition, there is not even the slightest indication
that a solution to any of the substantive factual philosophical problems would
be in the offing.
Now, given what I just said, let me answer your question: I cannot rule out
the possibility that philosophers will solve certain substantive philosophical
problems in the future, just as I obviously cannot rule out the possibility that
a brandy-making apparatus has been orbiting for millions of years around
204 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

the planet that is farthest away from Earth. Although I cannot rule out these
possibilities, I don’t think I should seriously consider them, as they have
nothing at all going for them.
I admit it would be a cute strategy if, experimenting with the “rejuvenation”
of philosophy, you would say:

Given that philosophy (and, primarily, analytic philosophy within that)

has only been going on for sixty–eighty years in the way it should (that is,
at an industrial level and as a quasi-normal science) and given that all the
historical antecedents that had happened before those sixty–eighty years
are mere footnotes, the lack of solutions to philosophical problems isn’t a
clear sign of philosophy’s epistemic failure.

However, this attempt at rejuvenation seems to be an ad hoc maneuver—

and in fact it is extremely partial and exclusive, and is based on unjustifiable
ideas. The philosophy of the past sixty–eighty years (thanks to the work
of thousands of philosophers) has been quite successful in formulating
philosophical problems more and more precisely and developing different
philosophical theories in their strongest possible form, as well as in coming
up with newer and newer proposals for solutions to various philosophical
problems, instead of presenting the seeds of at least a single genuine solution
to any of philosophy’s problems.

Sophie: There you go. My second concern is precisely related to the line of
argument you’ve just presented. For, in fact, you cannot know how the solution
to philosophical problems progresses; and you’re not justified to claim that
there isn’t even the slightest indication that the solutions to philosophical
problems would already be in the offing.
In order to appeal to induction rightly, you should be able to show
that your inductive basis is large enough indeed. Let’s take the problem of
universals—one of the oldest philosophical conundrums. For this problem,
the inductive basis is its unresolvedness projected on the time interval from
its very first formulation to the present (spanning 2,500 years). But how
large is this inductive basis? In my opinion, you cannot know how large it
is. To determine that, you should know a number of factors of which you
cannot have the faintest idea. It is also conceivable that (given the epistemic
equipment of the human race) mankind would take 100,000 years to solve
the problem of universals, and in this case, the past 2,500 years—contrary
to what you say—is very little; one could say that its unresolvedness thus far
is just an infantile disorder of philosophy. But it is just as easily conceivable
that we’re only a hundred years away from the solution.
 Meta-skepticism 205

In a word, you cannot know whether (given our epistemic equipment)

philosophical problems are solvable at all, and you cannot know how much
time it would take to solve them insofar as they are solvable. And, given that
no substantive philosophical problems have been solved so far, you cannot
even estimate where we are now on the road to the solution of philosophical
problems—provided we are already on that road at all. Consequently, you
are not justified in believing that your inference has an appropriately large
inductive basis. I’d like to bring to your notice how Chinese Prime Minister
Zhou Enlai reputedly answered a question about the influence of the French
Revolution: “Too early to say.”

Meta-skeptic: Let’s suppose you have convinced me. But what follows from that?

Sophie: Much the same as from my previous objection, namely, that meta-
skepticism is an epistemically and morally irresponsible metaphilosophical
vision. For think about it sincerely. You expect philosophers to suspend
their substantive factual philosophical beliefs, and give up on seeking the
corresponding truths at issue; however, you cannot even estimate where we
are now on the road to the solution of philosophical problems, hence you
have no grounds to say that we’re too far from it. So, your expectation about
philosophers is nothing short of irresponsible—for if we’re just (let’s suppose)
fifty years away from solving the problem of universals, for instance, then it
is precisely your expectation that prevents them from achieving the solution.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying for a moment that our hope of ever
solving philosophical problems is justified. Nor am I saying—as we cannot
know whether we can solve them, and provided we can, we cannot know
when we can solve them—that our epistemic duty is to hope for it; to stick
to our philosophical beliefs and continue with our philosophical truth-
seeking activity (see e.g., Matheson 2015). Furthermore, I strongly disagree
with reasoning like the following: “Let’s not suspend our truth-seeking
philosophical activity because we’ll be very sorry to see somebody else in our
place solving this or that philosophical problem in the future,” or “We mustn’t
suspend our philosophical beliefs because we’ll be very happy if it turns
out in the future that it is precisely our beliefs that have proved to be true.”
All I’m saying is this: you act irresponsibly when you expect philosophers
to suspend their philosophical beliefs. As we know woefully little about
the future, hopelessness is just as unjustified as hopefulness. And it’s hard
to see otherwise: you are just as biased in your gloomy pessimism as your
opponents in their hopeful optimism.
With all this, I want to say that the situation is worse than you believe it to
be: actually, our ignorance is so great that we don’t even know the extent of our
206 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

ignorance—for we cannot give a reliable estimate of its extent. (Here, Sophie

argues similarly to Nicholas Rescher [2006: 96–107].)

­Meta-skeptic: So you’re saying that I would do the right thing by suspending my

philosophical belief that philosophers must suspend their substantive factual
philosophical beliefs? That is to say, if I were a meta-meta-skeptic?

Sophie: I believe so. But the reason is not that we could stick to our beliefs with
epistemic responsibility. Clearly, it is not because that. Rather, the expression
“meta-meta-skepticism” refers to the following. On facing the failure of the
earlier three reactions (especially equilibrism) to philosophy’s epistemic
failure, the moment may easily come when it strongly appears to us that this
accumulated (double-level) failure points in the direction of commitment to
meta-skepticism. Since there is nothing else left to do, we have to give up on
philosophical truth-seeking—we have to let our philosophical beliefs wither.
However, while doing so, we finally realize that we cannot even be meta-
skeptics with epistemic responsibility, and so, indirectly, that—no matter how
we struggle—we have been unable to reassuringly account for the epistemic
status of our substantive factual philosophical beliefs.
Part Three
208
 ­7

Breakdown

It is time to take stock of my accomplishments at the end of the dialectical

path which I undertook to introduce. What I’m about to say will be strongly
confession-like—I’m afraid it must be this way.

1 The case of early Plato

The participants of Plato’s early dialogues make attempts to define certain

concepts (such as “courage,” “friendship,” “virtue,” “justice,” “wisdom,” etc.), and
are always forced to realize in the end that their enterprise has failed. Here are
Socrates’ accounts of their failures:

If I had shown in this conversation that I had a knowledge which Nicias and
Laches have not, then I admit that you would be right in inviting me to perform
this duty; but as we are all in the same perplexity, why should one of us be
preferred to another? I certainly think that no one should […]
(Laches 200e–201a)

Then, my boys, we have again fallen into the old discarded error; […] But that
too was a position of ours which, as you will remember, has been already refuted
by ourselves […] Then what is to be done? Or rather is there anything to be done?
I can only, like the wise men who argue in courts, sum up the arguments: — If
neither the beloved, nor the lover, nor the like, nor the unlike, nor the good, nor
the congenial, nor any other of whom we spoke — for there were such a number
of them that I cannot remember all — if none of these are friends, I know not
what remains to be said […] how ridiculous that you two boys, and I, an old boy,
who would fain be one of you, should imagine ourselves to be friends — this is
what the by- standers will go away and say — and as yet we have not been able
to discover what is a friend!
(Lysis 222d–223b)
210 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

But now I have been utterly defeated, and have failed to discover what that is
to which the imposer of names gave this name of temperance or wisdom. And
yet many more admissions were made by us than could be fairly granted; for we
admitted that there was a science of science, although the argument said No,
and protested against us; and we admitted further, that this science knew the
works of the other sciences (although this too was denied by the argument),
because we wanted to show that the wise man had knowledge of what he knew
and did not know; also we nobly disregarded, and never even considered, the
impossibility of a man knowing in a sort of way that which he does not know at
all; for our assumption was, that he knows that which he does not know; than
which nothing, as I think, can be more irrational.
(Charmides 175b–175d)

Here is yet another example. In Hippias Minor, Socrates sums up the result of
their joint investigation as follows: “Then, Hippias, he who voluntarily does
wrong and disgraceful things, if there be such a man, will be the good man”
(376b). And he goes on to add:

Nor can I agree with myself, Hippias; and yet that seems to be the conclusion
which, as far as we can see at present, must follow from our argument. As I was
saying before, I am all abroad, and being in perplexity am always changing my
opinion. Now, that I or any ordinary man should wander in perplexity is not
surprising; but if you wise men also wander, and we cannot come to you and
rest from our wandering, the matter begins to be serious both to us and to you.
(376c)

The reason I’m bringing up the aporetic ending of Plato’s early dialogues (see
also: Euthyphro 15c–16a; Hippias Major 303d–304e; Protagoras 361a–361e)
is that I feel as if I had been dropped into the world of these dialogues. My
experience is eerily similar to Plato’s at the dawn of philosophy. Just as Socrates
and his interlocutors conclude that they’ve come up against aporias in the end, I
also conclude that I’ve come up against an aporia—my intellect has broken down.

2 A footnote to Plato

My starting point was that the followers of philosophy’s epistemic tradition made
attempts to assert compellingly justified substantive philosophical truths and to
solve philosophical problems, but their enterprise has failed. The community of
 Breakdown 211

philosophers doesn’t have substantive philosophical knowledge. For this reason,

all philosophers have an epistemic and moral duty to react to philosophy’s
epistemic failure, and insofar as they have any substantive philosophical beliefs,
to try to account for their epistemic status. They have to face the disheartening
thought that “If philosophy is a failed epistemic enterprise, then my philosophical
beliefs are the beliefs of a member of a failed epistemic enterprise,” and they
must ask themselves the question: “What should I do with my philosophical
beliefs in the light of philosophy’s epistemic failure?”
How can they answer this question? Apart from dreaming about philosophy’s
future success, I think there are four possibilities that exhaust the scope of
their responses. (1) “I can believe in the truth of my substantive philosophical
theses—I can justify them with knock-down arguments.” (2) “I can believe in the
truth of my substantive philosophical theses—although I cannot justify them
with knock-down arguments.” (3) “I cannot believe in the truth of my substantive
philosophical theses—I have to suspend my beliefs.” (4) “I cannot believe in the
truth of my substantive philosophical theses—they are meaningless.”
I’ve analyzed these answers as metaphilosophical visions in detail. I think
that I’ve successfully expounded all of them in their considered, consistent, and
vivid forms. And what was the upshot of it all? It was that I cannot identify with
any of them with a clear intellectual conscience. And this being so, it means
that I cannot give a reassuring account of the epistemic status of my substantive
philosophical beliefs. I cannot stick to them with epistemic responsibility, but I
cannot, either, suspend them and consider them meaningless—I’ve run out of
options. Like the participants of Plato’s early dialogues, I’ve come up against an
aporia—my intellect has broken down.

3 The experience of breakdown

Like the followers of the epistemic tradition, I’d like to know the right answers to
certain philosophical questions. I’d like to know the corresponding substantive
truths. What’s more, there are some philosophical questions I’d very much like to
know the right answers to—questions in which I have an existential stake.
I have philosophical beliefs concerning all philosophical questions that
interest me. Besides, I have more or less worked out philosophical arguments for
them. If you were to ask me why I believe in the truth of this or that philosophical
thesis, view, or theory, I could give grounds for it by adducing philosophical
considerations.
212 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

However, I don’t think that my philosophical arguments have compelling

force. Like the “human-faced” equilibrists, I consider my philosophical views
as elaborate versions of my fundamental pre-philosophical convictions.
But unlike them, I don’t think that their equilibrium with my fundamental
pre-philosophical convictions and my ability to show that no knock-down
objections can be brought up against them would be an appropriate justification
for my philosophical views. What’s worse, I cannot dispel the thought that
my fundamental pre-philosophical convictions are determined by factors that
don’t track the truth. For these reasons, I feel that the intellectual maintenance
of my views isn’t enough to entitle me to sustain my considered philosophical
beliefs—I cannot take epistemic responsibility for the truth of my philosophical
views. So, instead of reaching my destination and being able to seriously and
sincerely believe in the truth of my philosophical views—instead of being
able to seriously and sincerely believe that I’ve come to possess philosophical
truths—I have philosophical beliefs that are pervaded with tormenting
uncertainty.
But this is not the whole picture. I can only interpret the fact of permanent
disagreement in all areas of philosophy in the way the meta-skeptic does.
This is that philosophy’s truth-seeking tools are inadequate and unsuitable for
establishing truths—philosophy’s justificatory tools are inadequate and unsuitable
for the compelling justification of substantive factual philosophical views. Now,
since (1) I’d like to avoid forming false beliefs concerning philosophical questions
that are important to me at all costs, and since (2) I think that I have no good
epistemic reasons to stick to the truth of my substantive factual philosophical
beliefs, I feel that the right thing to do would be to suspend my philosophical
beliefs at issue—independently of my unwillingness to consider the argument
for meta-skepticism as having compelling force.
Nevertheless, in spite of there being strong epistemic reasons to suspend
my philosophical beliefs, I am unable to do it. And in spite of thinking that
I’m unable to use philosophy’s truth-seeking tools to find substantive factual
philosophical beliefs for whose truth I could take epistemic responsibility, I am
unable to give up on seeking philosophical truths and to continue taking stands
on philosophical issues that are important to me. So, instead of reaching my
destination and being able to suspend my philosophical beliefs with a clear
conscience, I continue to have philosophical beliefs that are—look, I’ve come
full circle here—pervaded with tormenting uncertainty.
But this is still not the whole picture. As it seems that I have not succeeded
in recovering from my chronic epistemic schizophrenia, which is undoubtedly
 Breakdown 213

a nasty and painful state to be in, I must confess that I long for cognitive peace.
I long for the above-described and experienced tension to go away.
Let’s suppose there is a time-honored drug that causes its users to change
their beliefs about their philosophical beliefs. From the moment when this drug
kicks in, it would gradually increase its users’ trust in the truth of their beliefs—
until it would become complete beyond a point. They would experience the
formation of massive certainty—it would seem to them out of the question that
their beliefs may turn out false. Needless to say, after taking this pill, they would
forget taking it right away.
However ashamed I am to admit it, I would be strongly tempted to seize this
opportunity. I would be insincere to myself if I denied it: since I’m longing to live
in my philosophical cave knowing for sure that things are as I believe them to be,
I would be inclined to take this drug.
Well, but …, no matter how strong my longing for cognitive peace is …,
as I conjure up those philosophers who are certain of the truth of their beliefs
despite the permanent dissensus in all fields of philosophy …, I slowly realize
that I wouldn’t like to become like them.
I don’t want to become a man who’s firmly convinced that his arguments
for his beliefs are compelling—they have no weak spots, and they lead to truth
with irresistible force. For it would mean that I would consider those who
think differently from me my epistemic inferiors—irrational figures who don’t
understand my arguments and so are unable to realize that those arguments force
truth into the open. Nor do I want to become a man who is firmly convinced
that he has come into possession of such a special experience, private evidence
which shows him the truth. For it would mean that ultimately, I blindly trust
that the “inner voices” which “assure me” of the truth of my beliefs and/or “give
me guidance” through my making philosophical arguments are perfectly reliable
and are not bias factors; moreover, that I can judge in full confidence that the
“inner voices speaking” to my interlocutors (supposing they can hear anything)
are misleading—they lead them to falsities. And, finally, nor do I want to become
a man who is firmly convinced of his own excellence—of his being someone who
regularly holds true propositions to be true and regularly holds false ones to be
false. For it would mean that my certainty stems merely from my considering
myself as someone who is the favorite of some “higher power” (God, nature,
chance, genetic lottery … I don’t have the faintest idea what it could be) in the
epistemic sense (not seeing why and how), and for whom (not seeing why and
how) the nature of reality “gives its blessing” to every step in his philosophical
arguments.
214 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

In a word, no matter how it would work, I would feel it to be wrong (in fact,
extremely wrong) to take the drug. As it happens, now I think that I could resist
the temptation. At the same time, I also think that later in life, there would be
some moments when I would sorely regret my decision and curse myself for not
having been able to overcome my qualms.
Alternatively, let’s suppose there is a drug whose effect (like cases of
phenomenal sorites) would be the gradual and imperceptible fading away of
my philosophical beliefs and the slow disappearance of my cognitive need for
taking stands in the philosophical questions which I now consider important.
Needless to say, after taking this pill, I would forget taking it right away, and
would wake up in the morning as a full-fledged meta-skeptic who has achieved
what he aimed for.
Once again, I would lie if I said I wouldn’t be tempted to seize this
opportunity. I fancy that it would be an intoxicating feeling to be set free from
the compulsion of philosophical truth-seeking. The reason is that—unless
someone is not certain that the way things stand is the way he thinks them
to be—this compulsion is primarily (or rather, exclusively) a damnation,
because it is inevitably accompanied by constant and tormenting cognitive
uncertainty.
Well, but …, no matter how strong my longing for cognitive peace is …, I
don’t want to become like the meta-skeptic who has achieved what he aimed
for through suspending his philosophical beliefs. He’s a man whose need for
philosophical truth-seeking has been eradicated once and for all, who has
become indifferent to all philosophical problems (especially those in which
he had an existential stake), and who is unimpressed by those philosophical
questions the answers to which he had earlier longed to know. In short, he’s a
man who has sunk into intellectual apathy. As it happens, now I think I could
resist the temptation to take the pill. At the same time, I’m certain that in the
future I would often feel that this was a grave mistake and that—motivated by
my qualms—I made a silly and self-destructive decision.
So what is the phenomenology of my breakdown experience like? “At first
go,” I can describe it like this: on the one hand, I’m inexorably motivated to
give answers to philosophical questions that are important to me. On the other
hand, however circumspect I am in doing my best to appropriately justify my
philosophical beliefs, I cannot seriously and sincerely commit myself to the
truth of propositions that I obtained using philosophy’s truth-seeking tools. “At
second go,” it would look like this: on the one hand, I would do almost anything to
get rid of my epistemic schizophrenia and achieve the desired state of cognitive
 Breakdown 215

peace. On the other hand, I think that my epistemic schizophrenia could only go
away and I could only achieve the desired cognitive peace if I became a kind of
man that I don’t feel it is right to become.

­4 No belief, no cry

According to some philosophers, there is a way out. Here’s their proposal:

The situation doesn’t look so rosy indeed—still, the confession you’ve just made
is a “little bit” melodramatic. Instead of monitoring your own soul and troubling
yourself about the tensions you claim to feel, and instead of posing as someone
cast into the depths of the hopelessness of making the right choice (as sung by
Kierkegaard), don’t be lazy and make a quick cost-benefit calculation.

We understand that you cannot give a reassuring account of your philosophical

beliefs in light of philosophy’s epistemic failure. Your misgivings seem well-
founded indeed—we cannot put a finger on any point in your phenomenological
account of the experience of breakdown which we could consider as
unreasoned, ungrounded, or exaggerative. At the same time, we suppose that
you love philosophy. You like thinking about philosophical problems, construct
arguments for and against philosophical views, and debate over philosophical
issues with others. That is, you would prefer to continue doing philosophy if
there is a way.

Now, you should see that the only way out for you is what the “no belief, no
cry” version of equilibrism offers. In the spirit of this vision, you may continue
to participate in the work of the community of philosophers, which is exciting
and rich in intellectual challenges. And the only price you must pay in exchange
for this benefit is that you set aside your philosophical beliefs while doing
philosophy.

You have a choice: either you get bogged down in the experience of breakdown,
or you move forward and commit yourself to the “no belief, no cry” version of
equilibrism.

I’m not saying that it would be easy to make this decision, but I think I cannot
and would not like to pay the cost of commitment to the “no belief, no cry”
version of equilibrism. My first reason is that I, for the life of me, cannot abstract
from the circumstance that I believe in the truth of such and such philosophical
216 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

propositions, and that I have a personal stake in such and such beliefs of mine.
My second reason is that in my eyes, there is no special value in our getting an
ever-clearer picture of how we can consistently think about various philosophical
problems in an increasingly sophisticated way, thanks to doing philosophy, if we
actually don’t and wouldn’t like to believe in the truth of any philosophical thesis,
view, or theory. My third reason is that I can hardly consider doing philosophy
with a complete neglect of philosophical beliefs other than a mere intellectual
game—a game which doesn’t have any value except for the participants’ pleasure
caused by intellectual challenges.
I may see it wrongly, and actually, there’s more to it. It may be that my
reluctance is idiosyncratic and I feel this vision to be a superficial and
unprincipled opportunism because of my personal or epistemic character. It
may be that what others see as “epistemic Eden” is a horrible dystopia for me.
And it is not impossible either (what’s more, even probable) that the ethos of
philosophy, as it is done in the contemporary academic ghetto, precisely supports
the metaphilosophical vision of the “no belief, no cry” equilibrism—and it is just
that I’m a stubbornly untimely man.
If that’s the case, although it is bad for me to think about it and even worse
to imagine it, after my death, I should be placed in the murky basement of a
building to be demolished, inside a translucent formaline vat, having a small
copper plate at the bottom of it with the indistinct inscription: “Ecce hominem
who frustrated himself with his inability to account for the epistemic status of
his philosophical beliefs, but to his own detriment, he did not realize that his
qualms and doubts were behind the times.”

5 Beyond the breakdown

What is beyond the experience of breakdown? Obviously, nothing. The experience

of breakdown is just the experience of “This ends here.”
Nevertheless, you may think that an important part is still missing from my
confession. You may argue like this:

I understand that the experience of breakdown is the experience of “This

ends here.” But, the experience of breakdown doesn’t last forever—like every
experience, it has a temporal beginning and an end. So, after experiencing
breakdown, you must react to the experience of breakdown itself. You cannot
avoid repeatedly asking and answering the question: “What should I do with my
 Breakdown 217

philosophical beliefs?” There is a future past the breakdown—and you must say
something about this future as well.

­ ou’ve earlier said that you’re unable to give up on philosophical truth-seeking.

Y
You’ve admitted that you’re driven and animated by the unconditioned motivation
(may I say, the Kantian das Unbedingte) to take sides on those philosophical
issues that are important to you. True enough, you’d take a risk in doing so, but
even this risk would be better than to resign yourself to having come up against
an aporia and not doing anything after the breakdown of your reason.

Indeed, life will go on after the experience of breakdown. At the same time,
I think, the experience of breakdown or of “This ends here” isn’t something
that one could well react to. Thus, whatever I can say about the future
has no special significance. For after the experience of breakdown, the
repeated questions “Should I now take a risk or not?”; “What should I do
with my substantive philosophical beliefs?”; and “How should I handle the
unconditioned motivation that still animates me?” seem inconsequential and
insubstantial to me.
Let me explain why. Although this kind of breakdown of the intellect—so
to speak—is a conscious experience with “discomforting” phenomenological
features, it is a rather clear moment at that. During the experience of breakdown,
I realize why I cannot identify in good intellectual conscience with any of the
reactions given to philosophy’s epistemic failure. This is when it dawns on me
why I’m unable to commit myself to any metaphilosophical vision. During the
experience of breakdown, I see, more clearly than ever, the nature of my inability
to answer the main question of my essay “What should I do with my philosophical
beliefs in the light of philosophy’s epistemic failure?” And, provided that my
qualms about various metaphilosophical visions don’t stem from self-deception,
perhaps I understand it in its entirety.
All this means that no matter how I answer your questions, all the
considerations I could bring up in support of my answers would be cancelled
out by other considerations that are just as strong as the ones adduced by me,
as I have already realized it during the experience of breakdown. No matter
how I “choose,” the epistemic position with which I could take sides would
inevitably be worse than the one I was in during the experience of breakdown.
And since everything relevant has already been said including the experience of
breakdown, I would simply come full circle again and again. That’s why I feel
that the questions you put to me after the experience of “This ends here” are all
inconsequential and insubstantial.
218 The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge

Let me approach it differently. In my essay, Sophie has impersonated my

daemon. She wasn’t constructive, and never gave positive advice. Her activity
was confined to warning me about what I must not believe and why I must not
believe it. So, I cast her as somebody in a rhetorical-dialectical role similar to the
one Socrates attributed to his daemon: “It is a voice, and whenever it speaks it
turns me away from something I am about to do, but never encourages me to do
anything” (Plato Apology 31d).
Now imagine that Sophie sees the following. There’s an essay on the ethics of
philosophical beliefs whose author encounters the “moment of truth” when he
experiences the breakdown of his intellect; when it becomes clear to him why
he is unable to reassuringly account for the epistemic status of his philosophical
beliefs. Then, Sophie sees that after the experience of “This ends here,”
absorbedly and in the deepest of his thoughts, the author of this essay mulls over
the question: “All right, but in what spirit should I do philosophy in the future?”
Do you think that Sophie could see the newly arisen zeal of the author of this
essay with anything but irony? What I have in mind is not necessarily incisive,
raw, passionless, and distancing irony, but—if there’s such a thing—irony with a
tinge of pity and compassion, which is, at bottom, still irony.
To conclude my essay a bit pathetically but perhaps without a kind of
encroaching pathos, I would like to say that I could see myself only with irony
if I forgot the painful inconsequentiality and insubstantiality of the future-
directed questions and caught myself thinking about “survival strategies” after
the experience of “This ends here.”
 B
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 Index

Allaire, E.B. 62 conceptual vs. factual philosophical

Almeida, M.J. 123 problems 130–34
Alston, W.P. 162, 173 conciliationism 54, 165
Anselm of Canterbury 39 cost-benefit equations 2, 37, 60, 127, 215
apathy 4, 201–2, 214 Crane, T. 51–2, 61
aporia 6, 210–11, 217 Crisp, T.M. 62
Aristotle 12–3, 56, 61
Armour-Garb, B. 14 Dennett, D. 128
Armstrong, D.M. 61, 65 Derrida, J. 12
Ayer, A.J. 60 Descartes, R. 12, 19–20, 34–5, 40, 47,
65–9, 72–4, 100–1, 117–18
Balaguer, M. 59 Dietrich, E. 56–7, 60–3, 75
Ballantyne, N. 25–6, 54 disagreement/dissensus in philosophy
Barbone, S. 17 1–3, 43–55, 64, 75–6, 97, 111–12, 117,
Barnett, Z. 149, 156 161, 165–67, 181, 196–97, 212–13
Beebee, H. 121, 149–50 doxastic deontology 172–74, 189, 196–97
beliefs vs. acceptances 149–51 Dummett, M. 16
Bell, D. 31 duty (epistemic) 7, 22–3, 75–6, 113, 125,
Berkeley, G. 12, 15, 51, 62 129, 135–37, 154, 159, 162, 164, 167,
Bernáth, L. 115, 171 172, 174–75, 177–79, 181, 185–86,
bias (or bias factors) 7, 139–41, 145, 148, 188–89, 192–93, 205, 211
171, 205, 213
Bourget, D. 55 Elga, A. 54
breakdown 8, 209–18 Elgin, C. 38
Brennan, J. 110, 165, 182–83 emotional problems 82, 89
Bruce, M. 17 Engel, P. 150
Buddha 193–94 entitlement to believe 4, 142, 149, 162–63,
165–67, 171–73, 177–78, 186, 188, 212
certainty 106–7, 109, 111, 113, 166, 194, Epictetus 81
198–99, 213 Epicurus 22
Chalmers, D. 20–1, 55, 64 epistemic attractiveness 58, 73–4, 114
charlatanism 96–7 epistemic blindness 112, 114–17, 127, 188,
Chisholm, R.M. 60 195, 199
Christensen, D. 54 epistemic inferiors 3, 108, 110, 112–14,
Clarke, R. 60 116, 127, 143, 213
Clifford’s ghost 143, 145–46, 201 epistemic modesty 195, 199
cognitive need 96, 126, 200–2, 214 epistemic narcissism 115, 186, 199
cognitive peace (or peace of mind) 5, 81, epistemic peers 6–7, 54, 108, 110, 112,
89–90, 96, 148, 152, 154, 192, 195–99, 165
201–2, 213–15 epistemic schizophrenia 142–45, 148,
Cohen, J.L. 150 152–53, 188, 195, 201–12, 214–15
conceptual engineering 5, 69, 72 epistemic self-confidence 113, 115–17, 141
228 Index

epistemic status of beliefs 2–3, 5–6, 8, 54, Horgan, T. 53

75–6, 97, 104, 106, 111, 143, 165, 176, Horwich, P. 92
183–84, 191–92, 194, 206, 211, 216, Huemer, M. 54, 147
218 Hume, D. 12, 19, 101
epistemic superiors 3, 115–16, 141, 190 Huoranszki, F. 60
epistemic values 12, 36, 38–9 Husserl, E. 12, 32–6, 86, 102–5
epistemically privileged position/status 3,
107–9, 112–15, 146, 192, 194 “I’m the only one” philosophers/view
epistemology of disagreement 53–5, 165 99–100, 104–6, 111–12, 114, 116–18,
equilibrium/equilibria 4, 76, 119–25, 127, 143, 167, 174, 184, 188, 192, 195,
127–28, 134–39, 141–42, 146, 150–53, 199
155–56, 164, 171–72, 174, 188, 192, insincerity 112, 134, 139, 141, 156–57,
212 173, 178, 213
equilibrism 119–58, 164, 171–72, 184, 206, introspection 18–9, 32, 89, 181
215–16 intuitions 110–11, 113–14, 116, 119, 144,
excellence 97, 213 151, 153, 171
irony 89, 115, 148, 218
fanaticism 97, 115–16, 167, 199
Feldman, R. 54 Jackson, F. 62, 65–6, 72–4
Fichte, J.G. 12, 123 Jacobs, J.D. 124
Fischer, E. 81 Jonge, C.D. 82
Fischer, J.M. 58 justification (“egocentric”) 125, 135, 137,
flash 141, 193–94, 200 142, 149, 164, 172
Forrai, G. 172 justification (externalist) 29–31, 44, 48,
Frances, B. 54 160
Frankfurt, H.G. 59 justification (internalist) 28–9, 31, 36, 48
Franklin, C.E. 59 justification (phenomenological) 31–6
free will 1, 49, 57–60, 72, 123, 143,
150–51, 174–76 Kahane, G. 24
Frege, G. 14 Kane, R.H. 59
Kant, I. 12, 19, 101–2, 104–5, 181, 217
Gallois, A. 153 Kelly, T. 54
Ginet, C. 59 Kenny, A. 86
God 1, 15, 18, 28, 30, 39, 123, 130–31, Kierkegaard, S. 12, 215
133–34, 138, 140, 147, 151, 157, 166, King, N.L. 55
179, 202, 213 knock-down argument (def.) 17
Goldhill, O. 128 Kripke, S. 91
Goldman, A. 29 Kvanvig, J. 37–8
Goldstein, R. 63
Goodman, N. 16 Leibniz, G.W. 2, 12, 63, 66, 69, 72, 128
Greco, D. 54 Lewis, D. 15, 47, 61–2, 66, 110, 119–21,
Gutting, G. 120, 122, 127–28, 156 123, 125, 127, 143–46, 148–49,
152–53
Hacker, P.M.S. 88 Loar, B. 73
Hadot, P. 12, 82 Locke, J. 12, 61–2
Hawking, S. 127 Lockie, R. 22
Hedden, B. 54 logical space 5, 37, 64–5, 120, 126, 128,
Hegel, G.W.F. 12, 168, 174 152, 155
Heidegger, M. 12, 37, 51–2 Lowe, J.E. 59
Honderich, T. 58 Lynch, M.P. 13
 Index 229

MacBride, F. 156, 170 Priest, G. 14

Malebranche, N. 12, 66 private evidence 146–48, 201, 213
Marcus Aurelius 81 Pritchard, D. 37–8
Marx, K. 12 progress in philosophy 46, 55–75, 95, 126
Matheson, J. 54, 205 Putnam, H. 16, 40, 66
matter of chance 145, 192, 194 Pyrrhonian skepticism 195–99, 202
McGinn, C. 49, 170
Mele, A.R. 58–9 Quine, W.v.O. 68, 70–1
Melnyk, A. 73
meta-meta-skepticism 8, 206 rational beliefs (definition and types)
metaphilosophical vision 6, 65, 121–22, 159–61
126, 129, 152, 154, 168, 186, 205, 216–17 Rea, M.C. 62
meta-skepticism 8, 76–7, 119, 129, 159–206 reliability or truth-conduciveness 29–30,
Mill, S.T. 181 44, 136, 144, 148, 160–61, 166, 172,
mind-body problem 60–1, 63, 65, 67–9, 190, 192, 194
72–4, 83, 138–41, 155–56, 158, 202 Rescher, N. 206
Mlodinov, L. 127 responsibility (epistemic) 4–8, 130,
Moore, G.E. 60 137–42, 148, 202, 206, 211–12
responsibility (moral) 1, 49, 57–60, 124,
“no belief, no cry” equilibrism 152–56, 202
215–16 Ribeiro, B. 168
Nozick, R. 17, 59 Rorty, R. 12, 89

O’Connor, T. 60 Sainsbury, R.M. 15

Sartre, J.P. 180–81
Papineau, D. 73 Scanlon, T.M. 59
Parmenides 12 Schafer, K. 54
Pereboom, D. 58 Schelling, F.W.J. 12
permissivism 54, 112, 128 Schlick, M. 103–4, 106
philosophical arguments (infallible) 19–21 Schopenhauer, A. 116
philosophical arguments (modest Searle, J.R. 51–52
transcendental) 21–4 self-deception 5, 187, 191–92, 194,
philosophical arguments (with empirically 217
justified premises) 25–7 self-defeat 4, 90–1, 95–7, 163–64, 181–85,
philosophical knowledge 12, 30, 38, 44, 196–97
56, 71, 75–6, 119, 121, 127, 142, 166, self-reflection 77, 109–11, 113–16, 140,
168, 211 143, 189–95, 199–201
philosophical understanding 36–9 seriously and sincerely believing 4, 6–7,
philosophy (epistemic tradition) 11–2, 130, 137, 139, 141–42, 147, 149, 151,
14–6, 18–9, 21, 26–7, 29–31, 36–9, 41, 174, 212, 214
43, 46, 55, 64–5, 75–6, 82, 100, 104–6, Sextus Empiricus 81, 195
108, 119, 121, 125–27, 129, 141–42, Sider, T. 15
164, 188, 210–11 Seneca 81
Pink, T. 59 skepticism (see meta-skepticism)
Pitt, D. 52 Smith, A.M. 59
Plato 12, 15, 40–1, 65, 140, 209–11, 218 Socrates 41, 190, 195, 209–10, 218
pre-philosophical convictions 4, 8, 76, Spinoza, B. 12, 25, 66, 105
110, 114, 122–26, 134–42, 144, 146, steadfast view 54, 112, 128, 165
148, 153, 157–58, 164, 171–72, 174, sticking to beliefs 142, 185, 187, 191–94,
188, 192, 194, 212 200
230 Index

Stoljar, D. 65–75 truth-seeking and justificatory tools of

suspension of beliefs 3–4, 8, 54, 76–7, 96, philosophy 3, 7, 76, 160, 166, 169–70,
119, 121, 129, 141–42, 145–46, 159, 174, 177, 182–83, 185, 203
161–67, 173–74, 177–82, 185–89,
192–93, 195–203, 205–6, 211–12, uncertainty 5, 141, 152, 212, 214
214
Swinburne, R. 39 van Fraassen, B. 149–50
van Inwagen, P. 25, 45, 61–3, 143–46, 201
therapy 4, 77, 81–82, 89–93, 189, Vargas, M. 59
197
Thomas Aquinas 12, 39 Wedgwood, R. 54
Tienson, J. 53 Wegner, D.M. 58
Timpe, K. 124 White, R. 54
Tőzsér, J. 115, 171 Whiteman, G. 82
trust in the truth of p 7, 137, 139, 141, Wiggins, D. 65
147–48, 213 Wittgenstein, L. 82–97, 118, 134, 183–84
truth (truisms about truth) 13–6 Wright, C. 13
truth (non-substantive philosophical truths)
1, 37, 57, 64, 71, 75, 127, 161, 177 Zagzebski, L. 38
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