Meaning and conversational impropriety in sceptical contexts
Meaning and conversational impropriety in sceptical contexts
According to “disjunctivist neo-Mooreanism”—a position Duncan Pritchard develops in a recent book—it is possible to know the denials of radical sceptical hypotheses, even though it is conversationally inappropriate to claim such knowledge. In a recent paper, on the other hand, Pritchard expounds an “überhinge” strategy, according to which one cannot know the denials of sceptical hypotheses, as “hinge propositions” are necessarily groundless. The present article argues that neither strategy is entirely successful. For if a proposition can be known, it can also be claimed to be known. If the latter is not possible, this is not because certain propositions are either “intrinsically” conversationally inappropriate (as Pritchard claims in his book) or else “rationally groundless” (as Pritchard claims in his paper), but rather that we are dealing with something that merely presents us with the appearance of being an epistemic claim.
431-448
Schönbaumsfeld, Genia
586652b5-20da-47cf-9719-4fc587dfa4e8
July 2016
Schönbaumsfeld, Genia
586652b5-20da-47cf-9719-4fc587dfa4e8
Schönbaumsfeld, Genia
(2016)
Meaning and conversational impropriety in sceptical contexts.
Metaphilosophy, 47 (3), .
(doi:10.1111/meta.12186).
Abstract
According to “disjunctivist neo-Mooreanism”—a position Duncan Pritchard develops in a recent book—it is possible to know the denials of radical sceptical hypotheses, even though it is conversationally inappropriate to claim such knowledge. In a recent paper, on the other hand, Pritchard expounds an “überhinge” strategy, according to which one cannot know the denials of sceptical hypotheses, as “hinge propositions” are necessarily groundless. The present article argues that neither strategy is entirely successful. For if a proposition can be known, it can also be claimed to be known. If the latter is not possible, this is not because certain propositions are either “intrinsically” conversationally inappropriate (as Pritchard claims in his book) or else “rationally groundless” (as Pritchard claims in his paper), but rather that we are dealing with something that merely presents us with the appearance of being an epistemic claim.
Text
Meaning and Conversational Impropriety in Sceptical Contexts
- Accepted Manuscript
More information
Accepted/In Press date: 8 April 2016
e-pub ahead of print date: 8 July 2016
Published date: July 2016
Organisations:
Philosophy
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 398240
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/398240
ISSN: 0026-1068
PURE UUID: 723c03d1-4fb6-4a50-87d9-afe4b19b04cc
Catalogue record
Date deposited: 21 Jul 2016 11:07
Last modified: 15 Mar 2024 05:45
Export record
Altmetrics
Download statistics
Downloads from ePrints over the past year. Other digital versions may also be available to download e.g. from the publisher's website.
View more statistics