How Hard Are the Skeptical Paradoxes by Alex Byrne - Essay Example

In making his argument, Byrne suggests there are only two possible reactions to the question and uses much of Stroud’s work to make his point that the ‘ho-hum’ reaction to skeptical paradoxes is the only appropriate one. “It is argued – admittedly with the benefit of a century of hindsight – that each has a premise that is only superficially plausible.” In making his case, Byrne attempts to make the field of skepticism available to the common reader by illustrating how the debate is structured much like a game in which human knowledge of the external world is the prize.

In his article “The Problem of the External World,” Barry Stroud analyzes Descartes’ conclusion presented in his First Meditation in which “the philosophical problem of our knowledge of the external world gets posed.” Through his examination, Stroud attempts to illustrate why Descartes came to this conclusion by examining the argument presented within Descartes’ book and then attempts to explain “how it acquires that special character that makes an unsatisfactory negative answer inevitable.” As Stroud explains it, Descartes concludes that there can be no knowledge of the external world. We cannot gain knowledge through our senses because our senses are easily fooled. Descartes explains his reasoning for this conclusion by telling the story of how he is then sitting in front of a fire with a piece of paper in his hands. In questioning whether he is doing this, he remembers that he has had dreams in which he is doing exactly this same thing. Whether awake or dreaming, his senses are capable of giving him the same information, yet one state can be said to have a more ‘true’ element than the other. However, the fallibility of the senses in this example proves that we cannot trust the information we gain from the senses. Since all of our information about the external world comes to us through our senses, though, Descartes determines we cannot know anything about the external world.
The primary question, according to Stroud, is whether or not we need to know we are not dreaming to know something about the external world. If we need to know we are not dreaming, then Descartes is correct, because there is no way to confirm whether we’re awake or asleep. If it is not important, though, we may know something. In the end, then, Stroud concludes that we can know something about the external world because we know things when we are not dreaming that are incompatible with our knowing. Byrne has a hard time accepting the initial premise, though, that we are not dreaming based simply on the falsity of things that are incompatible with our knowing. “Why should we accept it? According to Stroud, it appears to be an instance of a more general principle that we accept in everyday life.” Read More