Prototype-Based Judgements and Skepticism about Rationality in Naturalized Epistemology

Abstract

Modern epistemology was born in the old days of Descartes and Locke from an implicit acceptance of the main thesis of Pyrrhonic skepticism. Some skeptic philosophers from the New Academy attempted to reach the state of ataraxia as a moral aim. That state of mind putatively would be caused by the suspension of the judgement epoche about things or causes beyond the appearance (phainomenon) ¹ as it was given. Later in the Modern Age, going beyond the ancient practical ends, Cartesian and other contemporary philosophers took for granted the impossibility of knowing something beyond the given, hence they agreed to a large extent on the skeptical means of argument. Just as the ancient Pyrrhonists, the Cartesian philosophers allowed the given to become the only grounds for the justification of beliefs. But the grounded skepticism of such philosophers did not preclude that, even though the existence of an external world could not be proved, human reason would still be able to sustain a dynamic of belief strong enough to defend a distinction between doxa and episteme. The “given” was the stuff this distinction was made of.