Skepticism and Underdetermination

As noted earlier, the possibility of alternative hypotheses equally accounting for our sensory experiences is widely viewed as a source of skeptical doubt. In Chapter 5 we discussed one way of utilizing this insight drawing on the principle of closure to set up a (Cartesian) skeptical argument. In this chapter, I shall deal with another way of constructing such arguments that helps itself with, not the principle of closure but, the so-called underdetermination principles (Yalcin 1992; Brueckner 1994). To explain, I begin by distinguishing between knowledge and justification analogs of the principle of underdetermination. While acknowledging the plausibility of a restricted version of the knowledge version, it shall be argued that this has nothing to do with facts involving underdetermination. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.