Skepticism points out a justification gap between experience and theory i.e. our sensory experiences don’t logically or necessarily justify the broader claims we make about the world.
Example:
- Humean-skepticism-about-the-external-world and Russell-answer-to-Humean-skepticism = we believe in physical objects existing independently of perception, but all we experience are perceptions with no direct evidence of the objects themselves
- induction and Foster-proposed-solution-to-the-problem-of-induction= we believe the future will resemble the past, but all our evidence concerns the past not the future.
Theories to bridge the gap
- Rationalism = the mind is supplied with certain innate ideas and principles of reasoning that allows us to amplify upon the evidence provided by sensory experience. Therefore, the gap between experience and theory is bridged by those innate principles. Forms of rationalism were quite common in the 17th- and 18th-century philosophy, but have now been replaced by advances in empiricism.
- inference-to-the-best-explanation (IBE) = Russell uses IBE to account for our knowledge of material objects, while Foster relies on it to explain how we can justify our knowledge of general laws and predictions
- logical-empiricism