Skepticism and the Acquisition of "knowledge"

Shaun Nichols (University of Arizona), Shaun Nichols (Cornell University)

Do you know you’re not being massively deceived by an evil demon?  That’s a familiar skeptical challenge.  Less familiar is this question: How do you have a conception of knowledge on which the evil demon constitutes a prima facie challenge? Why do people respond so quickly to outlandish skeptical scenarios involving sorcerers and mad scientists?  Recently several philosophers have suggested that our responses to skeptical scenarios can be explained in terms of heuristics and biases.  We offer an alternative explanation, based in learning theory. We argue that, given the evidence available to the learner, it would be rational for the learner to infer an infallibilist conception of knowledge.