Yet Chisholm is not content to let the skeptics be. He points out that skeptics choose skepticism over particularism, so whatever means they use to make that choice is implicitly being assumed true in order to justify skepticism, thus they are really methodists, and thus particularists, in disguise who happen to have chosen a criterion of truth that claims nothing is true.
Scepticism doesn’t have to be a positive claim...It can be a set of negative claims. Along the lines of falsificationism, whereby can disprove things but not prove them.
The assumption that a negative claim (and whatever it is that such a skeptic means by a negative claim) can be made must itself be assumed, hence not a special case.
But what does “disproof” mean here. How does the evidence evaluation process work? Is that itself evidence? There’s some embodied process of generating disproof that must itself be assumed to be right. If it was itself disproved, how could such a skeptic be sure the disproof was correct since they’re depending on the process by which they disprove thing to disprove disproof?
My answer is that they end up right back stuck in the problem of the criterion, or they end up as approximately a Platonic idealist.
Contentiousness is irrelevant to the line of argumentation I’m making (based on Chisholm). No matter how obvious something is, it’s still an assumption if not justified.
Scepticism doesn’t have to be a positive claim...It can be a set of negative claims. Along the lines of falsificationism, whereby can disprove things but not prove them.
The assumption that a negative claim (and whatever it is that such a skeptic means by a negative claim) can be made must itself be assumed, hence not a special case.
You can show that disproof is possible by offering disproofs: that’s evidence, not assumption.
But what does “disproof” mean here. How does the evidence evaluation process work? Is that itself evidence? There’s some embodied process of generating disproof that must itself be assumed to be right. If it was itself disproved, how could such a skeptic be sure the disproof was correct since they’re depending on the process by which they disprove thing to disprove disproof?
My answer is that they end up right back stuck in the problem of the criterion, or they end up as approximately a Platonic idealist.
You still need some assumptions, like contradictions indicating falsehood, but that’s not very contentious.
Contentiousness is irrelevant to the line of argumentation I’m making (based on Chisholm). No matter how obvious something is, it’s still an assumption if not justified.