Table of Contents

Preface
Introduction

Part I: The Dream Argument
1. Descartes on dreaming
2. Stroud on dreaming
3. Stroud vs. Austin

Part II: The Argument from Illusion
1. The argument
2. Shortcomings of the argument
3. Why is the argument so appealing?
4. From the argument to skepticism
5. Back to dreaming

Part III: The Cure and Beyond
1. Moore
2. Wittgenstein
3. Beyond

Appendix A: The infinite regress of justifications
Appendix B: The closure argument
Bibliography
Index

About the Author

Penelope Maddy received her BA in Mathematics from UC Berkeley and her PhD from Princeton. Since then, she has held positions at the University of Notre Dame, the University of Illinois at Chicago, and since 1987 at the University of California at Irvine. Since 1998, her appointment has been in Irvine's Department of Logic and Philosophy of Science, of which she was the founding chair. She is the author of Realism in Mathematics,
Naturalism in Mathematics (Lakatos Award 2002), Second Philosophy, Defending the Axioms, and The Logical Must.

Reviews

"To write a book for non-philosophers about what it is exactly that philosophers do, is by no means easy. Still, Maddy has succeeded very well with this book. It is very well written and not at all difficult to understand for a non-philosophical audience. It is an invitation to the reader to delve deeper into the fascinating world of philosophy and metaphilosophy." -- Jan Arreman, Philosophy in Review
"What Do Philosophers Do? Skepticism and the Practice of Philosophy is an incredibly original and thought-provoking book. It is also an extremely ambitious piece of work, since it knits together two of the hardest topics in philosophy- i.e. skepticism and meta-philosophy. And it does so admirably, with a clear and approachable style." --Annalisa Coliva, International Journal for the Study of Skepticism
"This is an outstanding book. It offers an extremely attractive response to standard forms of external world skepticism, and rich and illuminating readings of J.L. Austin, G.E. Moore, and Wittgenstein. The prose is clear and sparkling, the argumentation careful and compelling, and the discussion highly sophisticated without ever getting bogged down in unnecessary detail. It offers a clarion call to a certain way of approaching our subject, an approach that is
both distinctive and yet deeply familiar: a return to the convictions and subtleties of real life." -- Adam Leite, Indiana University, Bloomington