Strategies of Understanding Skepticism in Contemporary Analytic Epistemology

The paper presents a review of the most significant reference points in the discourse around skepticism within contemporary analytic epistemology. The text examines the primary strategies for understanding and overcoming skepticism that are central to this discourse. The first section addresses the ‘classical’ definition of skepticism, which is based on so-called ‘radical skeptical arguments’, such as the ‘brain in a vat’ and ‘evil demon’ scenarios. Furthermore, it identifies the distinctive features of understanding of this form of skepticism within the analytic tradition, notably the anti-realist pathos attributed to radical skepticism. The second section considers the most substantial anti-skeptical strategies aimed against radical skeptical arguments: the safety and sensitivity conditions, contextualism, pragmatism, hinge epistemology, and disjunctivism. The respective strengths and weaknesses of these approaches are highlighted. The third section outlines approaches that entail a rejection of anti-realism in skepticism, shifting the focus towards a critique of one’s cognitive powers. In other words, it analyses theories reassessing the essence of skepticism, including: infallibilism, fallibilism, pragmatist skepticism, and skepticism as intellectual vice. Potential counter-arguments to these skeptical conceptions are also considered. The article culminates in what is, to date, the most comprehensive review of the contemporary analytic discourse on skepticism available in the Russian language. The work includes an extensive bibliography and may serve as a ‘map’ to navigate researchers within the field of problems and issues related to skeptical arguments. Finally, the conclusion underscores the tendency for the focus of research on skepticism to shift towards practical epistemology. It also notes the general, unabating interest among philosophers in the problems of skepticism.