summary of Robert G. Hudson’s article ‘The Empirical Basis to Skepticism’ in the Minerva internet Journal of Philosophy Volume 11 (2007)

summary of Robert G. Hudson’s article ‘The Empirical Basis to Skepticism’ in the Minerva internet Journal of Philosophy Volume 11 (2007)

Lecturer: Rev. Fr. Joseph Ekong, O.P., Phd

Thesis statement: Skepticism can be defended through an a priori or an empirical way. But empirical justification of skepticism is preferable. 

Thesis Development

Non-empirical approaches to skepticism usually take what Robert G. Hudson call the ‘consistency approach’. This approach sees skepticism as justified because its assertion, one might argue is consistent. The skeptical argument is this: we could be wildly hallucinating right now, there could be a malicious evil demon with god-like powers intent on deceiving us every step of the way, we could be wrong in all ways imaginable, therefore, we lack knowledge of the world. This argument is not very effective because the base logical possibility of such a scenario is not a very enticing philosophy. Lots of circumstances are logically possible – that I will live forever, that elephants will start growing wings, and so on, hence the consistency approach does not take us too far. Because of the apparent paucity of purely a priori, logical defenses of skepticism, Hudson plans here to defend the view that to support skepticism, the empirical approach needs to be considered.

The main Cartesian support for skepticism for instance, the dream argument is an empirical argument. It says that, since they are no (empirical) markers by which we can distinguish dreams from reality, it follows that we do not know we are experiencing reality. Similarly, David Hume’s argument for skepticism about the existence of objective causation is an empirical argument. It says that, in determining whether event A causes event B, we need to be able to determine whether every instance of A is followed by an instance of B; but, since in the usual case we lack access to such an enormous resource of data, we should be skeptical about the existence of causal link between A and B. Another approach to recognizing the empirical basis to skepticism is suggested by W.V.O Quine who noted that empirical science renders skeptical hypotheses (the belief in the existence of an evil genius bent on deceiving us) reasonable, given that the scientific image of the world is markedly different from the intuitively trustworthy, manifest image of the world. Tables appear solid but they are actually filled with space, objects looked coloured but colour is only a product of our minds. In other words, we learn through empirical inquiry.

If we suppose for instance that there were certain distinguishing sights or sounds exhibited only by dream experiences. The dream argument, by this very empirical fact, would lack support. The crux of the dream argument as well as the Humean argument is that we learn through experience that dreams are fundamentally indistinguishable from reality and that we can never know if all event B follow event A, respectively. Consider also a case where an empirically-grounded scientific advance leads scientists to re-affirm the common sense view of the world – scientists, let’s say, conclude that apparently solid objects are solid, coloured objects are coloured, and so on. In such a situation, Quine’s argument that scientific advance leads to a skeptical view would be turned back.

Since Hudson’s aim in this paper is to affirm the legitimacy of such an empirical approach to adjudicating skeptical hypotheses, he addresses various objections that might be advanced against such a strategy. The first objection concerns the problem of vicious circularity. In particular, if empirical data succeed at justifying the skeptical hypothesis, then how can such data be said to be adequately justified, given that the skeptical hypothesis is affirmed? For if skepticism is true, the empirical data supporting the skeptical hypothesis are undermined, which in turn undermines the support provided for the skeptical hypothesis. And from here we move in a circle because, if skepticism lacks support, we restore the justifiedness of its empirical support and so again justify skepticism. So, is such vicious circularity a serious problem for empirical justification of skepticism?

The first point to make here is that such a problem arises even If we provide an a priori justification for skepticism. For instance, if one argues that skepticism is justified because it is a consistent position, then of course the question arises whether we are justified in believing that skepticism is a consistent position to begin with. And again, if skepticism is true, we lose our justification for the claim that it is consistent, and so thereby lose our justification for skepticism. Once again, we move in a vicious circle.

Question

Can we now have any form of justification for skepticism, if skepticism has the effect of denuding its own justificatory support?

Robert Hudson addressed this question when he says that empirical proof involves the invocation of empirical claims in support of a hypothesis, where empirical claims are defined as claims prompted by and describing observational circumstances. This definition of an empirical claim, though accurate, is loose and only suggestive. Nonetheless, it contains a core truth, which is that an empirical claim need not be true in order for it to play a role in justification. To make the truth of observational claims a requirement of empirical justifiedness, would make empirical justifiedness a near impossibility, and would obstruct the part of science. This is because as we saw in Quine, the scientific image of the world differs markedly from the manifest image.

Concerning those who claim that the Cartesian dream argument is itself doubtful from a skeptical perspective, Hudson replied that even if there are markers distinguishing dreams from reality, we are unaware of them, and so we are no further along in establishing our claim to knowledge. The skeptic’s reply is an empirical argument – it rests in our lack of awareness of empirical markers distinguishing dreams from reality, leaving aside their existence.

Furthermore, one might argue that in the absence of relevant evidence, such as dreams, hallucinations, and the like, skeptical hypotheses are worse than weakened but plainly false. For, one might argue, the skeptical hypothesis essentially is the hypothesis that what we take for perception is hallucinatory (or is illusory, or is a dream, and so on), and so in a situation where there is a complete absence of hallucinations, any skeptical hypothesis that trades in hallucinatory episodes is not even possible. Here Hudson distinguished between metaphysical hallucination where all our sensory experiences are illusory in fundamental and striking ways, a state in which we are completely mistaken about the nature of the world displayed by ordinary experiences, a state deceptively generated by evil demons, vat scientists and the like. And by contrast, ordinary hallucination, which is induced as we know by the ingestion of various frungs, by excessive thirst and hunger, and so on. Given this distinction, where we are considering a circumstances where we never endured ordinary hallucinations, drawing the inference that skeptical hypotheses are false would be fallacious, for it is possible to be in a state of metaphysical hallucination while enduring no ordinary hallucination. Nevertheless, if we never suffered ordinary hallucination, it would not be a compelling thesis to say that we are metaphysically hallucinating. On the other hand however, it is not inconsistent to state that we are metaphysically hallucinating where we lack an empirical evidential basis.