Research Group
in Analytic Philosophy

Abstract

We take up what is involved in the responsible formation of our beliefs, including the beliefs of ethics and politics crucial for a proper democracy. Already in Greek antiquity, skeptics wielded troubling arguments to the effect that it is hopeless, that we have no chance of attaining such beliefs. We here first glance at the response to such philosophical skepticism that Peter Strawson endorses in alleged agreement with David Hume and Ludwig Wittgenstein. Although I will briefly register some doubts about that response, I still find Strawson’s treatment of “framework commitments” to be insightful and to fit well with recent virtue epistemology.