Department Colloquium: Grace Helton

"Skepticism & Solipsism"
 

Abstract: I argue that if you are the only sentient being in the universe, i.e., if metaphysical solipsism obtains, then a vast range of your beliefs will turn out to be false, including many of your beliefs about: political affairs, cultural traditions, religious practices, aesthetic objects and events, and social structures. Thus, solipsism can be used to argue for external world skepticism, the view that we don’t know much of anything about the world outside of our minds. Moreover, the strategies which philosophers have used to argue against skepticism do not obviously succeed against solipsism. So, there is reason to think that the best route to skepticism is via solipsism.

Grace Helton is a Postdoctoral Fellow at Princeton University.