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Articles

Is Skepticism Ridiculous?

Michael Philips asks whether anyone can really believe skeptical arguments.

Many philosophers argue passionately about questions that no one could possibly take seriously in daily life. Is there a world independent of my consciousness? Will causal relations that have held in the past continue to hold in the future? Are other people conscious? Are people responsible for what they do? Is movement possible? Some conclude that we have no rational justification to believe these things. Yet they go on acting just as they did before. They treat objects as if they exist when unperceived, they treat other people as if they really do have feelings, they expect the future to resemble the past, they hold others responsible for what they do and so forth. In short, they don’t put their money where their mouth is.

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