SKEPTICIZAM I SEMANTIČKI EKSTERNALIZAM
SCEPTICISM AND SEMANTIC EXTERNALISM

Summary/Abstract: In this paper, I analyze the anti-skeptical strategy based on Putnam’s semantic externalism, and developed by, among others, Brueckner and Forbes. Popularity of this strategy is stifled by its seeming reliance on question-begging arguments. My aim is to show that these arguments do not, in fact, beg the question. I do that by emphasizing independent theoretical backing of semantic externalism and disquotational principle that the premises of semantic versions of the relevant arguments rely on. In order to shed light both on the sources of the impression that something is wrong with this anti-skeptical strategy, and on the reasons why this impression is ultimately misleading, I derive implications of soundness of the relevant arguments for our understanding of, previously unacknowledged, relationship between skeptical hypotheses and the language used to formulate them. Among these implications is a very significant fact that the way our language relates to reality, if the thesis of semantic externalism is correct, effectively blocks a certain type of very popular global skeptical strategies by depriving the skeptic of conceptual resources needed for formulating the scenarios appropriate for his aims.

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