The Critical Analysis of Davie's Interpretation of Putnam's Externalist Argument against Skepticism

Skepticism about the external world is a philosophical view that claims we can’t know anything about the external world. Some kinds of philosophical skepticism use skeptical hypothesis to prove that we cannot know anything about the external world. This view has its roots in the fact that we don’t know skeptical hypothesis is wrong. Putnam hold that accepting the semantical externalism refutes this kind of skepticism about the external world. Davies has an important interpretation of Putnam’s argument against the external world skepticism. In this paper, we have logically analyzed and evaluated Davies’ semantical externalism argument against skepticism concerning the external world. The conclusion is that Davies’s argument refutes an important kind of skeptical hypothesis. By using the other kinds of skeptical hypothesis, however, the skeptics can’t conclude that it is impossible to know anything about the external world.