Cybernetic Epistemology and Skepticism
Cybernetic Epistemology and Skepticism

Summary/Abstract: I have recently introduced cybernetic epistemology, according to which knowledge is practice. In this article, I will show how it can respond to skeptical challenges. I begin by making four arguments to refute global (Cartesian) skepticism. First, Dewey’s operational definition of experience annihilates the subject–object dichotomy. Second, global (Cartesian) skeptical scenarios do not make sense in terms of Peirce’s pragmatic maxim. Third, because meaningful doubt requires positive grounds, we cannot logically doubt everything at once. Fourth, we have habits, and the establishment of habits is possible only if a mind-independent reality, to which they adapt, exists. I will then refute four particular skeptical theses that arise from (1) the problem of induction, (2) the appearance–reality distinction, (3) the thesis of the theory-ladenness of observation and (4) restriction to a point of view. (1) Peirce’s belief–doubt model of inquiry shows how to readapt belief (habit) if the laws of nature happen to change. (2) The distinction between appearance and reality is only relative: the only difference is how minutely the facts of the matter have been studied. (3) I will generalize the theory-ladenness thesis into the thesis of the potential practice-ladenness of experience, which turns the objection into a description of how we access nature via practice. (4) If knowledge is practice, it is necessarily local, which prompts the criticism of restriction of knowledge to an “epistemic niche”; but the “niche” can be expanded, at least in principle, technically to any location; thereby knowledge potentially achieves “objectivity” and universality. I will also make a brief comparison between cybernetic epistemology and scientific realism that paves the way for further inquiry.

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