Abstract
Skepticism about the external world is generally explained through the following sequence of arguments: (1) I know that I have hands only if I know that I am not a brain in a vat, (2) I do not know that I am not a brain in a vat, and (3) Therefore, I do not know that I have hands. This skeptical argument applies to all kinds of knowledge, and mostly, we lose to it. On the contrary, epistemic contextualism seeks to justify knowledge by avoiding skepticism, but does not quite succeed. This paper reveals that the actual problem with skepticism is hidden behind discussions about skeptical problems within the epistemological framework. I proceed as follows. In Section 1, I present the possibility that the epistemological debate over skepticism could form an endless chain. In Section 2, I point out that justification theories of knowledge may not converge. Both these problems suggest that an epistemological discussion about the skeptical problem is headed in the wrong direction. In Section 3, I argue that the matter of skepticism itself should be viewed from an ontological, instead of an epistemological, perspective. Finally, in Section 4, I clarify two points. First, skepticism presents an ontological doubt about the external worldʼs existence, when seen from the perspective of the "ineffable," that transcends the everyday world by extending thought. Second, skepticism is not a metaphysical theory that posits transcendent substance,but rather, it doubts our everyday "realistic belief" about: a) the external world existing independently of us, and b) our judgments and claims being true only when they are consistent with objective facts about that external world.
