First Paper Comments

Hello!   Overall, I was pleased with the papers.  However, there were a couple of common paper mistakes.


The most common was the mischaracterization of skepticism.  Specifically, many mischaracterized the kind of skepticism that is an appropriate response to the problem of the criterion.  The skepticism which is an appropriate response to the problem of the criterion is second-order skepticism, which is the view that we cannot have a theory of knowledge or knowledge about knowledge!  This type of skepticism does not entail skepticism about all knowledge.

Another common mistake was in discussing the no-false premise solution as a response to the Gettier problem.  This is the view that that the real problem in the Gettier cases is that the justified and true beliefs are being based on false premises.  They say that we can only get knowledge when we reason through true premises.    There are two reasons to reject the no-false premise solution: First, it does not eliminate all Gettier cases.  Second, it excludes some cases of actual knowledge.  In short, the view is both too restrictive and too lenient.  


Also, I don't want everyone to think that Empricism like John Locke's is the only kind of methodism.  There are other views that first determine a method for finding knowledge before determining the criteria for knowledge.