What is the Problem of skepticism by assuming the philosophical position of Empiricism?

Answer 1

Empiricism is the belief that all of our knowledge comes from experience of the world, but Descartes showed that we could doubt everything in our experience of the world. Several modern movies give pretty entertaining examples of this: The Matrix, Total Recall, The 13th Floor, etc… They are all variations of the philosophical idea of “brains in vats” – our experiences of the physical world could all be delusions. Descartes did not talk about “brains in vats” but his concept of the “evil genius” (a trickster with god-like powers) is essentially the same thing. This is essentially the problem of skepticism for empiricism. The traditional alternative to empiricism is rationalism, which is the idea that knowledge is based on structures of reality prior to experience of the world. Even a brain in a vat can know (have a true belief) that it is thinking, even if the world it believes to exist is a total illusion. Thus this belief does not depend on the reality of the world, and thus is immune to the sort of skepticism that plagues empiricism.

Answer 2

Peter, go have a beer.