The significance of scepticism

Barry Stroud

pp. 277-297

in: Peter Bieri, Rolf-Peter Horstmann, Lorenz Krüger (eds), Transcendental arguments and science, Berlin, Springer, 1979

Abstract

One of the topics announced for this symposium is the contrast between two different approaches or tendencies in philosophical studies of the foundations of science. On the one hand there are those who would abandon the quest for a general justification of empirical knowledge in favour of a purely naturalistic study of the procedures actually employed by scientists and other knowing subjects. On the other hand there are those who take seriously the challenge of philosophical scepticism and, seeing that it cannot be met by a straightforward Cartesian or "foundationalist" theory of knowledge, resort to so-called "transcendental arguments' to show that certain concepts or principles enjoy a privileged status in our thought because without them no human knowledge or experience would be possible at all.