Locke's reply to the skeptic

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Given his representationalism how can Locke claim we have sensitive knowledge of the external world? We can see the skeptic as asking two different questions: how we can know the existence of external things, or more specifically how we can know inferentially of the existence of external things. Locke's account of sensitive knowledge, a form of non-inferential knowledge, answers the first question. All we can achieve by inference is highly probable judgment. Because Locke's theory of knowledge includes both first order psychological and second order normative conditions, sensitive knowledge can be non-inferential and less certain than intuitive and demonstrative knowledge.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)389-420
Number of pages32
JournalPacific Philosophical Quarterly
Volume94
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - Sep 2013

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Philosophy

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Locke's reply to the skeptic'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this