Ungers Argument for Skepticism Revisited

Igor Douven
Institute of Philosophy, University of Leuven
Diederik Olders
Department of Philosophy, Erasmus University Rotterdam
Abstract
In his [1974/2000], Unger presents an argument for skepticism that signicantly
diers from the more traditional arguments for skepticism. The argument is
based on two premises, to wit, that knowledge would entitle the knower to abso-
lute certainty, and that an attitude of absolute certainty is always inadmissible
froman epistemic viewpoint. The present paper scrutinizes the arguments Unger
provides in support of these premises and shows that none of them is tenable. It
thus concludes that Ungers argument for skepticism fails to threaten the possi-
bility of knowledge.
Unger [1974/2000] presents an argument for skepticismwhich he understands as
the thesis that no one ever knows anythingthat signicantly diers from the more
traditional arguments for skepticism. In particular it does not proceed by sketching
some scenario that is, or at least is alleged to be, wholly distinct, but nonetheless
evidentially indistinguishable, from the world as we believe it to be, nor by providing
some other putative reason for believing that we are not in the position to obtain
justication with respect to any proposition.
1
Instead, the argument seeks to show
that knowledge licenses absolute certainty, an attitude whichthe argument further
claimsis always inadmissible from an epistemic viewpoint. More exactly, the argu-
ment runs as follows:
2
(1) For all persons S and propositions , if S knows that , then it is all right for
S to be absolutely certain of (42).
(2) For no person S is there a proposition such that it is all right for S to be
absolutely certain of (43).
(3) Therefore, for no person S is there a proposition such that S knows that .
While Unger does not say much about the phrase it is all right, it is clear enough
that by it he means to indicate something like permission on the basis of some theory
of rationality or justication.
1
See Williams [1999] for a survey of the standard skeptical arguments. Technically speaking these
arguments dier fromUngers in that, in contrast to the latter, they all are or involve underdetermination
arguments; for more on this see Douven [2008a] and references given there.
2
All unadorned page references are to Unger [1974/2000].
1
The argument is patently valid. So there had better be something wrong with
either of the premises lest we are committed to a conclusion that at least as a matter
of psychological fact most (if not all) of us are incapable of accepting. Although some
time has lapsed since it rst appeared, we believe that Ungers paper still merits
attention because, rstly, in the meantime the paper has attained the status of a
classic in the eld of epistemology,
3
and secondly and more importantly, there are
major aws in the arguments Unger oers in support of (1) and (2) that have gone
unnoticed in the literature. In the following, we scrutinize these arguments and show
why they are wanting.
1. Ungers Argument for the First Premise. While Unger devotes the entire second
section of his paper to a defense of (1), he only directly argues for it in the rst
paragraph of that section. In the longer, second paragraph he tries to provide indirect
support for (1) by arguing for (1

):
(1

) For all persons S and propositions , if S knows that , then S is absolutely

certain of .
(In the third paragraph, he emphasizes that he is concerned with the common, ev-
eryday notion of knowledge, and in the fourth and nal one he presents a kind of
summaryneither is relevant to our present purposes.) The upshot, we claim, is
unconvincing.
We rst consider the purported direct support for (1) that is supposed to come
from an example in which, Unger imagines, we take a given person to be certain of
something and then ask him, How can you be certain of that? Says Unger (43):
In asking this question, we manage to imply that it might not be all right for him
to be certain and imply, further, that this is because he might not really know the
thing. If the man could show that he does know, then we should withdraw the
question and, perhaps, even apologize for implying what we did by raising it.
We manage to imply as much, because, Unger thinks, we all accept the idea that, at
least generally, if one does know then it is all right for one to be certain of itbut if
one doesnt then it isnt (ibid.). AndUnger concludes this part of the argument
[t]his suggests that there is some analytic connection between knowing, on the one
hand, and on the other, its being all right to be certain (ibid.).
There is considerable vagueness in this argument (suggests, some analytic con-
nection). However, let us not speculate about, for instance, how exactly the one idea
might suggest the other, but instead focus our attention on the arguments main sup-
position, the supposition about what exactly is implied by asking someone how she
can be certain of somethingnamely, that it might not be all right for her to be certain
of the thing because she might not know the thing. To see why this supposition is
doubtful, rst note that in order to explain the kind of behavior Unger points to in the
passage just cited, it is enough to make the rather minimal assumption that what is
implied by asking that question is that we doubt the persons grounds of justication
for what we believe she is certain of, perhaps because we believe justication for it is
3
Witness, among others, the fact that it has been anthologized several times, for instance, in Goodman
and Snyder (eds.) [1993], Williams (ed.) [1993], and Sosa and Kim (eds.) [2000].
2
hard or impossible to obtain in general, or because we doubt that this particular per-
son is or ever was in the right position to obtain justication for it. For if the person
is able to show that she knows, and hence does have justication, that should indeed
make us withdraw our questionand perhaps apologize for having had, or having
expressed, doubts concerning her epistemic position. True, that this is implied by
raising the question does not preclude that more is implied by it. But if we can ex-
plain the phenomenon Unger points to by the minimal assumption we proposed, then
it would be bad methodological practice to make stronger assumptions (unless Unger
could muster linguistic data that do require such stronger assumptions).
Let us turn, then, to his indirect argument for (1), via (1

). According to Unger,
any support for (1

) also supports (1) because The very particular idea that knowing
entails its being all right to be certain is suggested . . . by the fact that knowing entails,
at least, that one is certain (43). And he thinks the truth of (1

) is evident from the

(alleged) fact that people sense an inconsistency in sentences such as He really knew
that it was raining, but he wasnt absolutely certain that it was and He knew it, but
he didnt knowit for certain (ibid.), for that seems most easily explained by supposing
that knowledge is incompatible with uncertainty. But there are things to contest here,
mostly in relation to the putative argumentative link between (1) and (1

), but also in
relation to the support that is alleged to exist for (1

).
Starting with the latter, it is worth citing what DeRose [1991:597] says in relation
to Moores paradox: I dont have a special feeling for inconsistencies; I can sense
some kind of clash, but cannot distinguish my sensing of an inconsistency from my
sensing of whatever it is thats wrong with the Moorean sentence. We believe that
this applies also to such sentences as She knows it, but she does not know it for
certain. Although anyone would admit that such sentences sound odd, it is far from
clear that they sound inconsistent. And if it is only their oddness that we are to
explain, then maybe that can be done without supposing an incompatibility between
knowledge and uncertainty. For instance, no one doubts that knowledge entails being
at least close to certain. Of course, that is consistent with assuming that the amount
of uncertainty knowledge permits is so minute that it is not worth mentioning even if
it exists. That might explain why we never hear sentences of the type Unger adduces
in support of (1

). As is argued in Douven [2006, Sect. 5], that by itself is already

enough to explain their odd-soundingness, for odd-soundingness may be strictly a
matter of lack of exposure.
4
In short, there appear to be plausible explanations for
the phenomenon other than in terms of an incompatibility between knowledge and
uncertainty.
In fact, there is a type of linguistic evidence, entirely neglected by Unger, that
prima facie even seems to undermine (1

). As Harman [1986:71f] points out, we of-

ten say such things as that we know we are going to meet a friend tomorrow, even
though we also know that there is a tiny chance that in the interim something will
happen that will prevent us frommeeting our friend. Or to use an example fromVogel
[1990:15f], we typically take ourselves to know where our car is parked, even though
4
Here it is important to make a type/token distinction. For it might be said that there are many things
we never or hardly ever hear that when we do hear them still do not sound odd in the way, for instance,
He knew it, but he wasnt absolutely certain of it does. Perhaps you have never before encountered
the sentence Mark Smith has a crush on Peggy Johnson and still not nd the sentence odd. However,
the point is that we are quite accustomed to hearing instances of the schema S has a crush on S

, but
that instances of S knew that , but S was not absolutely certain of are rarely, if ever, encountered
in practice.
3
we also know that there is a slight statistical probability that it has been stolen and
is no longer located where we parked it. Unfortunately, however, we cannot simply
conclude fromsuch examples that people think knowledge does not require certainty.
Douven [2007] argues, drawing on recent work in pragmatics, that when we say, for
example, that we know we will meet a friend tomorrow, we are, appearances to the
contrary notwithstanding, not really claiming to know that we will meet a friend to-
morrow. Rather, we are claiming to know that we will meet a friend tomorrow, unless
something out of the ordinary happens, where for broadly Gricean reasons the qual-
ication is typically left implicit. If this is correct, then from the said linguistic data
nothing follows about peoples intuitions regarding the relationship between knowl-
edge and certainty. Needless to say, however, the burden is not on the nonskeptical
philosopher to marshal linguistic evidence against (1

); it is on Unger to marshal lin-

guistic evidence, or any other type of support, for itand that he has not done.
As for the rst point, the one concerning the putative argumentative link between
(1) and (1

), why should support for (1

) carry over to (1)? Apparently, Unger thinks

this is self-evident, for he doesnt make any eort to explain it. However, we nd
it hard to discern what the supposed relation of support between the two premises
could be based on. That (having the property of) knowing a given proposition entails
having some other property surely does not suggest that knowing that proposition
entails that it is all right, epistemically speaking, to have the other property: S knows
that (and S is an ordinary mortal) entails S might forget , yet by no reason-
able criterion could this be said to suggest that if a person knows something it is
(epistemically) all right that she might forget it. If Ungers argument for (1) via (1

)
is meant to proceed on the basis of some dierent principle, he should make this
public. Meanwhile, we think it safe to assume that no principle exists that could do
the requisite linking.
5
To end this section, we consider a possible escape route for Unger. It follows from
the foregoing that even granting Unger that he has succeeded in establishing (1

), he
still has not made a case for (1). And (1

) and (2) evidently do not yield the skeptical

conclusion (3).
6
However, Unger could still reach that conclusion, provided he is able
to make a case for the following thesis:
(1

) For all persons S and propositions , if S is absolutely certain of , then it is

all right for S to be absolutely certain of ,
for from (1

), (1

), and (2), the conclusion (3) does follow.

The prospects for such a case are dim, though. Arguably, no reasonable theory
of epistemic prudence or rationality could countenance a persons being absolutely
certain of something merely on the grounds that she is absolutely certain of the thing.
But we need not even delve into the issue of epistemic rationality here to see
that (1

) is problematic, for if premise (2) of Ungers argument holds, then from (1

)
5
Black [1974] contains a rather dierent critique of (1). He claims that if Unger is right about (1

), then
he cannot be right about (1). His point is that if knowing entails certainty, then it makes no sense to say
that, on condition that one knows something, it is all right to be certain of the thing. But this is wrong,
we think. Readingas we said we plausibly shouldit is all right as it is epistemically rational, there
would for instance seemnothing untoward in saying If S knows that , then it is all right for S to believe
that , even though knowledge entails belief; on the contrary, on a standard conception of knowledge
the foregoing would be a conceptual truth.
6
Together (1

) and (2) do yield the conclusion that, for all persons S and all propositions , it is not
all right for S to know that . But while this conclusion is stunning in its own right, it is not skepticism:
a person may know that even if it is not all right for her to know that .
4
follows the claim, by contraposition, that no person is absolutely certain about any-
thing, and it would seem that this is an empirical claim which it will take scant em-
pirical investigation to refute.
Surprisingly, however, Unger would deny that the claim that no one is absolutely
certain about anything is false. According to him, certainty is an absolute term,
meaning that As a matter of logical necessity, if someone is certain of something,
then there never is anything of which he is more certain (Unger [1971:212]).
7
Because
of this, Unger believes it is doubtful that anyone ever is certain of anything. Even if
people feel certain of something, he thinks it somewhat rash for us actually to believe
that they are all so certain (op. cit., 213). If it should indeed be the case that no one
ever is certain of anything, (1

) would, of course, even be trivially true. But this way

of arguing is problematic.
First, neither Unger nor anyone else can reasonably deny that many people, or even
most of us, claim to be certain of at least some propositions. In order to maintain
that these people are not really certain of what they claim to be certain of, Unger
must hold that they are mistaken about the semantics of the word certain, or in any
event have a tendency of misapplying it. As we just saw, however, Unger attempts to
buttress (1) by adducing certain linguistic evidence crucially involving the use of the
word certain. And if we are mistaken about the semantics of that word, or tend to
misapply it, it is quite unclear what value evidence concerning our use of the word
has (other, perhaps, than as a further indication of our being mistaken). It would
be an infelicitous philosophical practice to point to linguistic evidence concerning
some word when it supports a thesis one wishes to maintain, and, at the same time,
appeal to an error theory, or otherwise, to help explain away other linguistic evidence
involving the same word when it seems to undermine the same thesis or some of ones
other theses, at least without giving a principled and legitimate reason for doing so.
Second, if it is denied that anyone is ever certain of anything, then, given (1

),
which we are granting for the nonce, premise (2) becomes superuous: (1

) and the
claim that no one is ever certain immediately yield the conclusion that no one ever
knows anything. To be sure, Unger does argue for skepticism along these lines in his
previously mentioned [1971] paper. But the argument he oers in the [1974/2000]
paper discussed here clearly is meant to be a dierent argument for skepticism.
2. Ungers Argument for the Second Premise. Ungers argument for (2) is that ones
being certain about a given matter entails ones being dogmatic about it in the sense
that no new information, evidence or experience which one might ever have will
be seriously considered by one to be at all relevant to any possible change in ones
thinking in the matter (44); and dogmatism is an epistemic attitude to be avoided at
all costs, or so Unger thinks. More explicitly, he argues as follows:
(i) For all persons S and propositions , if S is certain of , then S is dogmatic
about (44).
(ii) For no person S is there a proposition such that it is all right for S to be
dogmatic about (47).
7
So, the absolutely which in Ungers paper often precedes the word certain is not meant to indicate
a maximal degree of certainty but is rather to remind us of the (alleged) fact that certainty does not allow
of degrees.
5
(iii) Therefore, for no person S is there a proposition such that it is all right for S
to be certain of .
This argument, too, is valid.
8
But is it sound? We shall consider the premises in
reverse order.
It is easily imaginable how back in the 1970s, when Ungers paper appeared, it
must have seemed something of a truism that dogmatism is wrong. And to be called
a dogmatist still may not count as a recommendation.
9
But as philosophers we ought
to be interested solely in what is true, not in what sounds fashionable or counts as a
recommendation. So, is premise (ii) true?
To answer this question, and to assess properly Ungers argument for (ii), it is
important to be clear what exactly is implied by the premise. A rst thing to notice in
this connection is that being undogmatic, keeping an open mind, can hardly be con-
sidered a goal in itself (whether epistemic or otherwise). It could be a good epistemic
strategy, though, if it served our epistemic goal. Does it do so? Most authors think
that our epistemic goal is to be understood in terms of achieving true beliefs and
avoiding false ones, and endorse something like Alstons [1985:59] proposal accord-
ing to which we ought to aim at [amassing] a large body of beliefs with a favorable
truthfalsity ratio.
10
It is well conceivable that keeping an open mind is helpful in
attaining this aim. For instance, in those cases where we are wrongly convinced of
some falsehood, attending to contrary evidence could make us give up our false be-
lief, and thereby eect a somewhat more favorable truthfalsity ratio in our beliefs;
were we dogmatic, on the other hand, we would stick with the false belief forever,
which, we may assume, would work out less favorably for our truthfalsity ratio.
11
Let us grant that keeping an open mind indeed serves our epistemic goal and thus
is a good epistemic strategy, and that dogmatism poses an obstacle to realizing our
8
To see this, it may be helpful to put the argument in a more formal fashion. Let P() mean that it
is all right that , D
S
() that person S is dogmatic about , and C
S
() that S is certain about .
Then the argument for the second premise can be formalized thus:
(i) For all persons S and propositions :

C
S
() D
S
()

.
(ii) For no person S is there a proposition such that P

D
S
()

.
(iii) For no person S is there a proposition such that P

C
S
()

.
To see that this is valid, reason semantically as follows: According to (i), in all logically possible worlds it
holds that, if a person is certain about something, she is dogmatic about it. According to (ii), there is no
deontically ideal world in which someone is dogmatic about something. Hence, there is no deontically
ideal world in which someone is certain about something, which is what (iii) expresses. This argument
assumes that the deontically ideal worlds are among the ones that are possible according to whatever
logic governs the necessity operator, but, while not entirely trivial, this assumption seems innocuous
here. (Note that, for the argument to go through, the necessity operator in the formalization of premise (i)
is compulsory. But given that Unger frequently rephrases indicative conditionals in terms of entailment
for an instance, see the rst quote in the fourth paragraph of section 1 of the present paper in which he
rephrases premise (1) in those termsour formalization of (i) should accord with authorial intentions.)
9
Though see Armstrong [2006] for a recent quite friendly appraisal of an at least moderate form of
dogmatism.
10
See, e.g., Rescher [1973:21], Lehrer [1974:202], BonJour [1985:8], Foley [1992:183], Sartwell [1992],
and Douven [2008b]. Alston [2005:29] qualies his earlier proposal by adding that the beliefs we should
try to amass ought to be ones that are of interest to us. The qualication seems important and plausible,
but it does not aect our argument against Unger in any essential way.
11
It might be that, through a lucky coincidence, a false belief sets us on a track which will eventually
lead us to adopt many truths and no or hardly any (further) falsehoods. But since we are arguing against
Unger, it wont do any harm to grant him as much as possible on this point.
6
epistemic goal, or at any rate is of no help in realizing it, and thus is a bad epistemic
strategy.
That still does not commit us to (ii), however. For (ii) claims that it is all right
for us to be dogmatic with respect to no proposition whatsoever. And this does not
follow from the fact (presuming it is a fact) that keeping an open mind generally is a
good epistemic strategy and dogmatismgenerally a bad one. For exampleand in the
context of Ungers argument this question is of particular interesteven if keeping an
open mind generally is a good epistemic strategy, might being dogmatic about what
one knows not still be a good epistemic strategy, too? The two are evidently compat-
ible, just as a mathematician may do good to be generally doubtful about her rst
hunches as to whether a certain proposition is provable but to trust them fully when
she is considering propositions in her own eld of expertise (say, dierential geome-
try). And indeed, if one knows that , then being open to the possibility that one is
wrong about might, given some misleading evidence, bring one to disbelieve , or
to adopt an agnostic attitude towards ; in either case one is distancing oneself from
the epistemic goal as just circumscribed. Also, time saved by not paying attention to
possible evidence against what one knows could be spent on projects which will help
one to approach the epistemic goal in other ways (e.g., it could be spent on search-
ing for evidence for truths one does not yet believe). Hence it seems that from the
perspective of our epistemic goal, there could be nothing wrong with being dogmatic
about propositions we know; on the contrary, it seems recommendable.
One might object here that we may not, or not always, be in the position to know
what we know, and thus not be in the position to know what we should, or at least
could, be dogmatic about. This objection would be misconceived, however, because
the point is that, from the perspective of our epistemic goal, it would be good, or in
any event not bad, to be dogmatic about what we know, whether or not we know or
can know which propositions we could or should be dogmatic about. It is one thing
whether being dogmatic about what we know would be a good epistemic strategy, but
it is another whether we know, or even can know, how that strategy is to be imple-
mented. This is merely to reiterate in slightly dierent terms a familiar externalist
point. As externalists have long argued, it is a good epistemic strategy to use a given
rule if that rule is reliable, regardless of whether we know or can know that the rule
is reliable (see, e.g., Goldman [1986]).
These considerations help us to address Ungers argument for premise (ii). He
claims that for any proposition one might take oneself to know, one can imagine
possible experiences that would make it intuitively reasonable to doubt at least to
some extent the proposition. For example, one might hear a voice in ones head telling
one that one is a brain in a vat and that one is going to have such-and-such rather
bizarre experiences in the next instantswhich, miraculously, one then eectively
does have (49). That would make it reasonable to doubt at least somewhat that one is
an embodied brain, Unger thinks. However, to be dogmatic vis--vis the proposition
that one is an embodied brain is to disregard such experiences. Thus dogmatism is
an inadmissable attitude.
Our response to this may be easy to predict. Perhaps it can be reasonable if a
person comes to doubt that she is an embodied brain following experiences of the
above kind. But supposing she truly believes that she is an embodied brain, then,
7
since reasonably doubting a proposition seems incompatible with believing it,
12
from
the perspective of our epistemic goal it would still be best were she to stick to her be-
lief. Consider an analogy. It can be quite reasonable to believe a consistent liar who is
exceedingly skilled at deceiving people; reasonable here means something like that
it is easily understandable how a person could come to believe such a liar, or that we
can easily imagine ourselves to do the same in similar circumstances. Nevertheless,
if we are bent on realizing our epistemic goal, then presumably believing a consistent
liar is a bad thing to do. Thus, never believe a consistent liar seems a good epis-
temic strategy, even though some failures to follow it can be quite reasonable (in the
aforementioned sense). Equally, to be dogmatic vis--vis things one knows or truly
believes may be a good epistemic strategy even though we cannot reasonably be ex-
pected to followit unexceptionably. One may thus well share Ungers intuitions about
the imagined experiences and what would be a reasonable response to them without
necessarily having to grant that dogmatism with respect to (say) the proposition that
one is an embodied brain is an epistemically inadmissable attitude.
13
We turn to premise (i) now, which prima facie seems no less problematic than
premise (ii). After all, cant one be certain of a proposition at one point in time,
only to become uncertain of it at a later point in time, for instance because of new
evidence one obtains, or because one has had second thoughts about the reasoning
on which one had become certain of the proposition, or because doubts have arisen
about the trustworthiness of ones informant? In addition to this one may wonder
why we couldnt be certain of a proposition and still consider experience or infor-
mation as being relevant to its truth or falsity.
14
In fact, it appears so platitudinous
to assert that being certain of something does not commit or compel one to being
certain of it forever after, that some very strong philosophical argument would be
required to convince us of the opposite. And Unger has disappointingly little to oer
in this regard. In arguing for (i), he falls back on his point that certain is among
the absolute adjectives, which he contrasts with relative adjectives, that is, adjectives
denoting matters of degree. According to him, a necessary condition for the correct
application of an absolute adjective is, at least generally, that certain things denoted
by relative adjectives be entirely absent (47). One thing that (he contends) must be
entirely absent for someone to be properly called certain of something is any open-
ness on the part of the man to consider new experience or information as seriously
relevant to the truth . . . of the thing (ibid.; italics omitted). But even granting what
is required for an absolute adjective to apply correctly, it would be question-begging
12
The relevant notion of belief here is that of categorical belief. Given a graded notion of belief, as
supposed by Bayesian epistemology for instance (see belowin the text), one could believe a proposition
to some degreeand reasonably doubt itto some degreeat the same time.
13
Another response to Ungers argument would be to note that his point is that it would not be all right
to disregard the kind of experiences he described should they occur to one, but that nothing he says
implies or even suggests that it would not be all right to discount the possibility that such experiences
will ever occur to one. Grant him that if we should reckon with that possibility, then it would be bad
to be dogmatic, because that might make us disregard certain experiences that, pretheoretically, should
be given their due. It would then still seem that if the possibility is merely an academic one, the risk we
incur by being dogmatic is one we can rightfully dispense with. And since Ungers examples of sequences
of experiences that are supposed to make it reasonable to doubt certain given propositions are all of a
quite bizarre, or at least fantastical, sort, we nd nothing in Ungers paper that could convince us that
the said possibility is of a more than merely academic variety.
14
See for criticisms of premise (i) along these lines, Dicker [1974] and Carrier [1983].
8
to assume, without further argument, that this kind of openness is, or even must be,
absent in the case of certainty. Yet this is what Unger does.
But some might want to note that premise (i) is tenable, at least against a certain,
not at all uncommon, type of opponent. For on the currently popular Bayesian epis-
temology it does hold true that certainty implies dogmatism in the intended sense.
On this epistemology, to be certain of a proposition means to assign probability 1
to it. And if a Bayesian agent does assign probability 1 to a proposition, then, given
that she updates her beliefs by means of Bayes rule, she will assign probability 1 to
that proposition ever after.
15,16
In other terms, becoming certain about a proposition
compels the Bayesian to be certain about it forevermore. As to the question why she
couldnt regard evidence as being relevant to a proposition she is certain of, it is im-
portant to note that according to the Bayesian is evidentially relevant to precisely
if Pr( | ) Pr(). So if Pr() = 1, then there can be no proposition evidentially
relevant to , for it is a simple consequence of the probability calculus that, in that
case, Pr( | ) = 1, too, for all propositions (or, if Pr() = 0, Pr( | ) is un-
dened, in which case it does not hold that Pr( | ) Pr() either).
17
Thus if, as
a Bayesian, one is certain about a given proposition, one cannot consider any infor-
mation as being possibly relevant to the truth or falsity of that proposition, simply
because, for purely mathematical reasons, there cannot exist such information.
However, the foregoing is unavailing in making Ungers argument for skepticism
have force at least against one type of philosopher. For Bayesianism is not an episte-
mology in the traditional sense of the word and, in particular, is not concerned with
knowledge, or the possibility thereof, but rather with coherent degrees of belief. As
a result, no skeptical argument is capable of jeopardizing this position.
We conclude that Unger has succeeded in making plausible neither premise (1)
nor premise (2). So at present there is no reason to believe that his argument for
skepticism really poses a threat to the possibility of knowledge.
18
References
Alston, W. [1985] Concepts of Epistemic Justication, Monist 68:5789.
Alston, W. [2005] Beyond Justication, Ithaca NY: Cornell University Press.
Armstrong, D. [2006] The Scope and Limits of Human Knowledge, Australasian
Journal of Philosophy 84:159166.
15
Someone updates by means of Bayes rule precisely if she sets her new probability for after she
has come to know , often written as Pr

(), equal to her earlier conditional probability for given

, or Pr( | ), for all propositions and (provided Pr() 0; otherwise Pr( | ) is undened).
The following way of rewriting Pr( | ) makes it particularly easy to see that if Pr() equals 1, then
so does Pr

():
Pr( | ) =
Pr()
Pr()
=
Pr() Pr( | )
Pr()
=
Pr() Pr( | )
Pr() Pr( | ) +Pr() Pr( | )
=
Pr()
Pr() +
Pr(|)
Pr(|)
Pr()
.
For if Pr() = 1, and hence Pr() = 0, the last fraction reduces to Pr()/ Pr().
16
It is worth mentioning that Williamson [1998] and Douven [1999] present probabilistic update rules
that allow an agent to assign a probability less than 1 to propositions to which she earlier assigned
probability 1. But neither of these rules is part of standard Bayesian epistemology.
17
See note 15 for an explanation.
18
We are grateful to an anonymous referee for helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper.
9
Black, M. [1974] An Immoderate Skepticism, Philosophical Exchange 1:157159.
BonJour, L. [1985] The Structure of Empirical Knowledge, Cambridge MA: Harvard
University Press.
Carrier, L. S. [1983] Scepticism Disarmed, Canadian Journal of Philosophy 13:107
114.
DeRose, K. [1991] Epistemic Possibilities, Philosophical Review 100:581605.
Dicker, G. [1974] Certainty without Dogmatism, Philosophical Exchange 1:161170.
Douven, I. [1999] Inference to the Best Explanation Made Coherent, Philosophy of
Science (Proceedings) 66:S424S435.
Douven, I. [2006] Assertion, Knowledge, and Rational Credibility, Philosophical Re-
view 115:449485.
Douven, I. [2007] A Pragmatic Dissolution of Harmans Paradox, Philosophy and
Phenomenological Research 74:326345.
Douven, I. [2008a] Underdetermination, in S. Psillos and M. Curd (eds.) The Rout-
ledge Companion to the Philosophy of Science, London: Routledge, in press.
Douven, I. [2008b] The Lottery Paradox and Our Epistemic Goal, Pacic Philosophi-
cal Quarterly, in press.
Foley, R. [1992] Being Knowingly Incoherent, Nos 26:181203.
Goldman, A. I. [1986] Epistemology and Cognition, Cambridge MA: Harvard Univer-
sity Press.
Goodman, M. and R. Snyder (eds.) [1993] Contemporary Readings in Epistemology,
Englewood Clis, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Harman, G. [1986] Change in View, Cambridge MA: MIT Press.
Lehrer, K. [1974] Knowledge, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Rescher, N. [1973] The Coherence Theory of Truth, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Teller, P. [1973] Conditionalization and Observation, Synthese 26:218258.
Unger, P. [1974/2000] An Argument for Skepticism, in E. Sosa and J. Kim (eds.)
Epistemology: An Anthology, Oxford: Blackwell, 2000, pp. 4252. (Originally
published in Philosophical Exchange 1:131155; all page references are to the
reprint.)
Unger, P. [1975] Ignorance: A Case for Scepticism, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
van Fraassen, B. C. [1989] Laws and Symmetry, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Vogel, J. [1990] Are There Counterexamples to the Closure Principle? in M. D. Roth
and G. Ross (eds.) Doubting: Contemporary Perspectives on Skepticism, Dor-
drecht: Kluwer, pp. 1327.
Williams, M. (ed.) [1993] Scepticism (The International Research Library of Philoso-
phy, Vol. 5), Aldershot: Dartmouth Publishing Company.
Williams, M. [1999] Skepticism, in J. Greco and E. Sosa (eds.) The Blackwell Guide to
Epistemology, Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 3569.
Williamson, T. [1998] Conditionalizing on Knowledge, British Journal for the Phi-
losophy of Science, 49:89121.
10