The Chanllenge To Epistemological Justification From Agrippa’s Skepticism

Since Gettier issues his challenge to the ternary analysis of knowledge,how to modify the ternary structure becomes an important issues of contemporary epistemology.The solutions mainly focus on the modification of epistemological justification.Among them,the theory of internalism hopes to defend the ternary analysis of knowledge by suggesting that justification is the necessary condition of knowledge.However,Agrippa’s skepticism argues that epistemological justification is impossible,because it is either a dogmatism or an infinite retreat or a circular argument.But in this paper,we suggest that there are two presuppositions in Agrippa’s skepticism: the first is that all beliefs can only be justified by those presuppositions;The second is that justification is infallible.If one doesn’t accept these two presuppositions,he can avoid the Agrippa’ skepticism.So if one don’t want to accept the Agrippa’ skepticism,he had better to reject these two presuppositions.Agrippa’s skeptical challenge to internalism theory of justification is radical,although internalism has attempted to resolve it.Because foundationalism and coherentism included in internalism are corresponding to "dogmatism" and "circular" respectively,the natural reason is that the explanation of justification of internalism is just the two presuppositions of Agrippa’ skeptical argument in some sense.Coherentism accepts both presuppositions of argument of the Agrippa’ skepticism.Foundationalism requires that beliefs have to be justified by other beliefs,and justification cannot be wrong.So even we concede circular reasoning is valid,coherentism cannot avoid Agrippa’s skepticism.Foundationalism rejects the first presupposition of Agrippa’s skepticism,and it accepts the second presupposition.It means that foundationalism accepts there are some beliefs which need not be justified by other beliefs.However,foundationalism suggests that justification is falliable,so it not only can’t avoid agrippa’s skepticism but also will fall into a deeper level of skepticism in metaphysics.The reason why internalism accepts the presupposition of Agrippa’ skeptical argument is that internalism suggests that "reason" is the only explanation of justification.And this inappropriate explanation is caused by Gettier.However,the problem of describing the theory of justification which consists of “reason” and “cause” is related to the understanding of how to understand “causation”.My thesis is not going to describe a theory of causation,but we will still summarize the theory of causation in metaphysics in last chapter.