Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 July 2009
The skeptic's view is unreasonable. This we know from the start. Why, then, does one examine it? The dogmatist's view represents the limit at which reason has not seriously commenced. The skeptic's view represents the limit beyond which our reasoning cannot go. Between these two views there is room enough for philosophy. The function of the skeptic's view is to pull us as far away from the limit of dogma toward itself; witness Descartes' First Meditation. So it is in our interest to present as powerfully as we can the case of the skeptic, to present his view as a challenge to every step and substep of the argument – in this case, an argument for a traditional theory of group rationality wherein reason is cast in the king's role. The case thus presented, we should know what challenges are to be met, and if we have met them; what problems are to be solved, and if we have solved them. One measure of our success, or near-success, must consist in showing how the view we offer is judicious, balanced, and plausible, while the skeptic's view is not.
I begin by outlining, in section I, the skeptic's notion of the Democratic Councils. Here I portray the essential tension between a scientist's scientific interests and his or her other interests, a tension in which, as the skeptic sees it, the latter interests should not yield to the former.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.