The Skeptical Paradox

Abstract

In modern times, more precisely after the Cartesian revolution, some authors, still concerned with the problem of skeptical self-reference, explored the cogito in order to verify whether the skeptic had been refuted by Descartes. The question to be verified was the following: when establishing the cogito, would it be possible to subject it, once again, to doubt? The problem and the answer to the problem seem to have generated a paradox, which I will call here the “skeptical paradox”. The problem exposed here is in the foundation of reason and, in the absence of it, the skeptic's alternative is in the use of reason in a pragmatic or instrumental way. However, I argue that when the skeptic dialogues against her opponent, she needs to consent to the same reason, whether of instrumental status or admitted as the basis of knowledge. Otherwise, she cannot hope to find any other conception of truth, at the risk of not knowing what she is looking for.