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In the preface to the first edition of the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant describes skeptics as "a kind of nomads who abhor all permanent cultivation of the soil," and who on occasion "shattered the civil unity" of rational dogmatism (Aix). Kant's dim view of skepticism as the adversary of rationalism is, I take it, one that is widely shared. There are, of course, many types of skeptical positions, but the common link between them is usually understood to rest on a suspicion about reason's ability to provide us with truths about the world — the skeptic, in short, is typically treated as the rationalist's enemy. This certainly seems true of the two main varieties of modern skepticism: Descartes claims to overcome the method of doubt by means of rational insight, while Hume retains a skeptical attitude precisely because reason cannot provide us with any grasp of matters of fact.

DOI: 10.1007/978-1-137-33475-6_12

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