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The Death of Epistemology: A Premature Burial
Alan H . Goldman1981, Pacific Philosophical Quarterly
is alivc and well and living in Miami, among other places. This despite premature obituaries from Princeton, and derivatively from New Haven. Richard Rorty and Michael Williams, a student of Rorty, in books recently published,' argue that epistemology, as conceived at least since Descartes, is a useless enterprise doomed to failure because o f the incoherence o f its fundamental prob lem. Williams' book is the more accessible. In light of the boldness of its theses, I want in this paper to examine several arguments put forward by Williams in support of his conclusion. 1 want to see whether these arguments are sufficient for their lethal task; and whether what is offered in place o f the defunct discipline avoids the problems supposed insuperable for it, whether indeed what is offered is not simply a more vulnerable epistemological theory. Williams identifies epistemology with what is normally considered one type of epis temological theory: a foundational view of empirical knowledge which appeals to a certain class of perceptual beliefs as basic. He (emotively?) lables this form of epistemic system 'phenomenalism,' thus defining both too broadly and too narrowly for apparent rhetorical purposes. He views epistemological theories of this form as reactions to radical skeptical challenges taken seriously. Radical skepticism questions whether any of our beliefs can be rationally justified; it subjects all our beliefs at once to skeptical doubt. If this challenge is taken seriously, a foundationalist view, which seeks intrinsically credible or immediately or self-justified beliefs, in relation to which other empirical beliefs may be justified, is the natural response according to Williams. He argues that all attempts to provide answers to the radical skeptic are doomed to failure. He attacks both the notion of epistemological foundations and the attempt to move from these foundatons to the justification o f beliefs about physical objects. The moral he draws is that the skeptic is not to be taken seriously, indeed that his doubts are incoherent. A relaxed coherentist concept of justification then recommends itself, but not one to be confused with traditional epistemological theories as reactions to skeptical doubts. This paper will evaluate each of these steps in the argument.
