iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

This means, more or less, that they cancel each other out, leaving Sanches with no knowledge at all. He has to suspend judgment on his claims to knowledge *and* his claim to know nothing. But since Sanches is a global skeptic, this is what he wanted in the first place--global suspension.

110

I show it works like this--if we accept the underdetermination principle on knowledge (see below), then an argument for global skepticism gets us into a situation where p: "I don't know anything" and q: "I know p" underdetermine each other.

Underdetermination: If p and q are incompatible and S lacks a rational basis for preferring p over q, then S does not know that p.

100

Pretty weird! Sanches admits that he's contradicting himself, but claims that if you understand just *how* he's contradicting himself, you'll be convinced of skepticism! How's that supposed to work?

100

But Francisco Sanches, a 16th century global skeptic, takes a different tack. He begins his aptly titled "That Nothing is Known" with the following saucy passage:

I do not know even this one thing, namely that I know nothing. I infer, however, that this is [true] both of myself and of others. Let this proposition be my battle colour—it commands my allegiance—‘Nothing is known’ If I come to know how to establish this, I shall be justified in drawing the conclusion that nothing is known; whereas if I do not know how to establish it, then all the more so—for that was what I claimed. But you will say, ‘If you know how to establish it, the opposite follows [contrariū sequetur], for you already know something.’ I, however, had already drawn the contrary conclusion before you objected [At ego cōtra prius conclusi, quam tu argueres]. Now I begin to upset the argument: it already follows from this that nothing is known [Ex hoc ipso iam sequitur, nil sciri]. Perhaps you have failed to grasp my meaning and are calling me ignorant, or a quibbler. You have told the truth; but I have a better right to say this of you, since you have failed to understand. So we are both ignorant. This being so, you have unwittingly arrived at the conclusion I was looking for. If you have understood the ambiguity of the inference [ambiguitatem consequentiae], you have clearly perceived that nothing is known; if not, then ponder, make a distinction, and untie this knot for me. Sharpen your wits; I am following you closely. (Sanches 1988, trans. Thomson. 1 with modifications)

131

The self-contradiction objection to skepticism goes like this: if you can prove that you don't know anything, don't you know just that? Most skeptics get around this by claiming they don't give proofs in the normal, dogmatic sense, instead convincing you in a way that doesn't involve truth claims.

100

another new paper!!! "The Ambiguous Inference: Sanches’ Refutation of the Self-Contradiction Objection to Global Skepticism" is forthcoming in Philosophical Quarterly! Thread below for details...

1123

Most commentators think Maimon's quid facti depends on his hyper-rationalist commitments, but I argue that this isn't true. I formulate a version of the quid facti that should concern any transcendental argument.

140

So the difference stems from two different aspects of one and the same legal phenomenon, but the outcomes end up looking pretty different! I end the paper with a discussion of the Maimonian quid facti's prospects as a standalone skeptical challenge

The reasons he thinks this are pretty simple: non-a priori explanations (like Humean ones) give perfectly workable explanations of all the phenomena Kant thinks are a priori! Given this, it's unclear to Maimon why we should think that the claims are genuinely a priori at all

In fact, I show that Maimon thinks that, in the case of empirical cognition, such claims are *not* made, and this is the core of his quid facti objection

For Maimon, though, this aspect becomes incredibly important in the transcendental context: if we're trying to justify a priori claims, it's not always possible if such claims are being made.

Second, though, there was the question of whether a claim was made at all. In the legal context, this point is mostly moot--if you're in a lawsuit, the claim has obviously been made.

First, there was figuring out how exactly what happened happened—and this is how Kant understands the question. For transcendental claims, he thinks this is interesting but ultimately unimportant—a psychological process with little bearing on whether or not those claims are true

I start with the legal context of the quid facti, as part of the "deduktionschriften" that Kant based his deduction on. In those documents, the quid facti involved the "facts of the case," but I show that that task was broken up into a few different sub-tasks in practice

130

Scholars have mainly come at the quid facti from either the Kant or Maimon side, but I try to figure out how the two of them could understand the same question so differently

Maimon says that the "quid facti" is the most important skeptical challenge to Kant's system, but Kant talks about the quid facti too, and he doesn't care about it at all! What gives?

evan @beingandslime.bsky.social · 26/08/2025

NEW PAPER ALERT! "Quid Facti Between Kant and Maimon" is forthcoming in Kant-Studien! 🧵

1162

as an optimist, I believe that it is genuinely possible for one of the more skilled psychologists in the profession to explain what the question "is virtue worth pursuing?" means

061

evan @beingandslime.bsky.social · 28/07/2025

of course i'm an expressivist. my statements always express my beliefs

070

Reposted by evan

George Webster @georgewebster.bsky.social · 25/07/2025

A watershed moment: my first citation!! 🎉🎉🎉 #philsky #philsci

A Google Scholar landing page, with notification of a paper’s first citation.

3291

evan @beingandslime.bsky.social · 25/07/2025

your paper is great, and I'm very glad it exists to make clear what would otherwise be a very tangled discussion around deleuze's naturalism! was thrilled to discover it

030

deleuze goes the opposite way. first he defines what it means to have a "problem" & "question," & then "knowledge" is downstream: just a "settled solution" to a problem. a cogent & underappreciated account that happens to largely parallel normative epistemology's direction today

2100

deleuze's issue is that epistemology defines knowledge first & takes every other part of the process to be a deficient reflection of that ultimate state. which may sound familiar if you're aware of the zetetic turn in analytic epistemology... deleuze wants to talk inquiring!

180

it's not a major point of emphasis for him, but it's not right to read a lack of focus as hostility. concentrating on D&R, I draw out a deleuzian theory of knowledge from deleuze's own brief remarks on the subject.

170

if you're at all familiar with english secondary lit on deleuze, you might find the idea of a deleuzian epistemology kind of surprising. deleuzians are always saying stuff like "deleuze hates epistemology" and "deleuze is opposed to knowledge." but I don't think that's true!

1100