Introduction

Abstract

There are two common responses to skepticism, the epistemological claim that knowledge is at least non-existent and perhaps also unachievable, and both are to be avoided. So I argue here. The first response is to succumb to it, trying then to find some adequate basis for life that foregoes presumptions of knowledge. The second response is dismissive, viewing it as an overwrought, hyperbolic response to human limitations, so wrongheaded that nothing beyond a laconic response is needed before returning to important philosophical tasks. This chapter will contend that the first response is much too often premature, and the second response is much too often cavalier.