
Contents
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6.1 Doubting Doubt 6.1 Doubting Doubt
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6.2 Knowledge without Certainty 6.2 Knowledge without Certainty
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6.3 Zetetic Abduction and Prediction: Inference beyond Pattern Recognition 6.3 Zetetic Abduction and Prediction: Inference beyond Pattern Recognition
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6.4 Conclusion: From Skeptical Dogmatism to Emancipatory Zeteticism 6.4 Conclusion: From Skeptical Dogmatism to Emancipatory Zeteticism
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6: Zetetic Knowledge
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Published:May 2021
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Abstract
Postmodernism is regularly associated with universalized forms of cynicism and doubt. But this chapter argues that there is an alternative to corrosive forms of skepticism. We can get there by becoming skeptical of skepticism. Skepticism inevitably harbors residual epistemological commitments; its very doubt is propelled by attachments to lost certainties and its own doxa and dogmas. When skepticism commits to purifying itself, learning to doubt its own propelling beliefs, then it ceases to be skepticism. Deepening, rather than retreating, from skepticism shows us how we can be skeptical of skepticism, thus leading toward an adjustment of our standard of knowledge. The other side of skepticism is an orientation toward knowledge called “Zeteticism” to which it adds a theory about how inference should function in the Human Sciences. To do so, the chapter defends a particular pragmatist variant of abduction, or inference to the best explanation. Combined with abduction, metamodern Zeteticism helps us to understand, concretely, how we should structure our thought, how we should evaluate evidence from our senses, how we should formulate generalizations and theories, and what status they should have once they have been produced. This epistemology will work in practice to produce humble, pragmatic, situated knowledge.
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