Philosophically Accommodating Accounts

Abstract

Abstract This chapter discusses two important theories in epistemology. The first is global skepticism and the second is Relevant Alternative Theory. These approaches can be adapted to help account for our skeptical intuitions. Global skepticism can easily explain our skeptical inclinations, but it has trouble explaining ordinary knowledge reports. Relevant Alternative Theory is importantly incomplete since it needs to be supplemented with a proper theory of what counts as “eliminating” an alternative. The chapter suggests that adopting a sensitivity principle may help. The chapter also argues that the approaches which try to determine what counts as a relevant alternative approach can be suitably modified to explain what it means to take a possibility of doubt seriously in our skeptical model. This is done by modifying a presuppositional approach to relevant alternatives defended by Michael Blome-Tillmann.