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Philosophical Studies (2006) 131:525--557 Springer 2006 DOI 10.1007/s11098-004-7487-9
ROGER WHITE
PROBLEMS FOR DOGMATISM
ABSTRACT. I argue that its appearing to you that P does not provide justication for believing that P unless you have independent justication for the denial of skeptical alternatives -- hypotheses incompatible with P but such that if they were true, it would still appear to you that P. Thus I challenge the popular view of dogmatism, according to which for some contents P, you need only lack reason to suspect that skeptical alternatives are true, in order for an experience as of P to justify belief that P. I pursue three lines of objection to dogmatism, having to do with probabilistic reasoning, considerations of future or hypothetically available justication, and epistemic circularity. I briey sketch a fall-back position which avoids the problems raised.
1. EXPERIENCE AND JUSTIFICATION
Looking at the end of my arms, there appear to be some hands. Am I thereby justied in believing that these are hands? That depends. We can imagine possible scenarios in which it falsely appears to me that I have hands. Perhaps Im a handless brain-in-a-vat articially being fed experiences as of a couple of hands before me. Or perhaps my hands have been amputated and replaced by plastic replicas of hands. To the extent that I have reason to suppose that one of these alternative explanations of my experiences is correct, my perceptual justication for supposing that I have hands is undermined. But just what is required for me to be justied in believing that these are hands? In particular, must I also be justied in believing that I am not a handless brain-in-a-vat, do not have fake-hands, am not the victim of a hand-image inducing demon, and so on?
This last question, which will be the focus of this paper, should be claried in two respects. First, I can hardly be expected to survey all the possible ways that I might be subject to a visual
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ROGER WHITE
illusion as of hands, and explicitly form justied beliefs that these do not obtain. But there is an important sense in which one can have justication for a proposition P without explicitly believing P or even considering it. I have justication for...