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Samuel Badham
Prof. Anderson
Philosophy 100B
Writing Assignment #1
              Michael Slote in his piece, “The Existence of the External World”, makes an argument
against the skeptical “demon doubt” and for the existence of the external world. Slote’s argument
arrives at the conclusion that it is more plausible to believe that there is an external world than it
is to believe that a demon is deceiving us about all of our experiences and reality. Slote
accomplishes this by establishing the Principle of Unlimited Inquiry and then establishing four
additional valid premises. From this Slote deduces that it is scientifically unacceptable to accept
the demon doubt argument. Therefore Slote concludes that since it is scientifically reasonable not
accept the demon argument, through the same scientific methodology we can show that it is
reasonable to have a tentative belief in the external world because scientific principles have
yielded us experiences that should be considered valid. They should be considered valid because
we have come to realize these experiences through the same scientific methodology we came to
reject the demon doubt. Slote defends this “scientific” methodology as epistemological
reasonableness. Slote’s argument is that “scientists generally assume that their ways of and
standards for investigating phenomenon are rational (epistemically reasonable) ones; even if not
the only rational (epistemically reasonable) ones” (Slote, p. 53). Therefore explanations that are
scientifically reasonable should be accepted, it is epistemically reasonable and those beliefs and
explanations are rationally warranted or justified in being accepted.
              Now that we have introduced the groundwork for Slote’s argument we will put it into
standard form and then explain the given premises and conclusion. The paper will then conclude
with an analysis of Slote’s argument as to cogency. Since I find Slote’s argument to be
deductively valid I will be critically discussing the plausibility of the premises.
P1. Principle of Unlimited Inquiry: (a) It is scientifically unreasonable for someone to accept
what (he sees or has reason to believe) is for him at that that time an inquiry limiting explanation
of certain phenomenon, other things being equal. (b) That there is reason for such person to
reject such an explanation of the phenomenon in question in favor of a non inquiry limiting
explanation of certain phenomenon, if he can find one.
P2. Principle A- (a) One (reasonably) believes that P has in an extraordinarily complete way
made it seem or appear as if certain things, that in fact did not exist, did exist. (b) P’s prior
illusion making is revealed in some way and one begins to get putative explanatory information
about P’s motives and methods. (c) it is clear that revelation, or knowledge, of P’s prior illusion
making is necessary for P to be able to deceive one about his motives and methods.  (d) If there
is no way to independently verify that P is not trying to deceive one about his motives and
methods by means of the putative information one is getting from P. Then it is not rational or
reasonable for one to believe the putative explanatory information one gets about P’s motives
and methods because that information is unverifiable.
P.3 Principle B- It is scientifically unreasonable to hypothesize ( accept a hypothesis to the
effect) that something has acted or operated one way in the past but will act or operate in a
different way in the future, unless one has definite reason that justifies thinking this change will
occur. Therefore the idea that the demon would come out and tell us his motives is highly
implausible. And so the hypothesis in question can be ruled out as scientifically unacceptable.
P4. Principle C- It is scientifically unreasonable to hypothesize that something acts or operates in
one way if certain conditions or circumstances obtain and in another way if other conditions or
circumstances obtain, unless one has a definite reason that justifies belief in such difference. We
have no justification that the demon will act differently if he informs us of his presence. 
P5. Principle D- It is scientifically unreasonable to believe that a given phenomenon has no
explanation, unless one has very strong reasons for thinking so, and so unless other things are not
equal.
Pn: From these developed principals it follows that it is unreasonable and unacceptable, from a
scientific standpoint, to accept the explanation of our particular sense experiences that does not
posit an external world.
C: It is scientifically and by extension epistemically acceptable to deny the skeptical demon
hypothesis. 
              Having put forth in standard form the argument that Slote puts forth, I will now discuss
and analyze the premises and conclusions that are drawn from them. Again as mentioned before I
find the argument deductively valid so I will discuss critically the plausibility of the premises.
              Slote is arguing that even if it is impossible to obtain more and more warranted true
explanatory beliefs about ones experiences, as long as we don’t know for certain that this is so, it
is scientifically unreasonable to accept inquiry-limiting demon explanations for our experiences.
Even if we do not have the right to assume the possibility of more true warranted explanations
about our experiences; we can claim that we do not know for certain that such explanations are
impossible. Since we do not know for certain that such explanations of our experiences are
impossible, it is unreasonable to accept inquiry-limiting skeptical demon hypotheses. Because in
doing so we have every reason to believe that we may well be making it impossible, for us to
accomplish something.  
              Discussing the first premise, the PUI as Slote abbreviates it; its validity relies on rational
scientific thought. It is a rational principle of science. This stems from the fact that that science is
essentially involved in seeking the most complete possible explanation of why things are what
they are. Given this idea, the demon doubt hypotheses limit our inquiry into the explanation of
experiences and this runs against the PUI. The PUI is a rational, plausible, natural conclusion of
scientific progress. Slote discusses this with the idea of ‘elan vital or inexplicable phenomenon
are unreasonable from a scientific standpoint and by extension an epistemic one.
              The second premise, principle A, is plausible. It is plausible because it is reasonable to
think that any evidence provided by the demon for his motives and methods are verifiable and
therefore are unreasonable to believe. So if principle A is valid, this would make the demon
hypothesis again counter to the PUI because it limits the amount of information you can
accumulate because you can never verify that the demon is not producing it.
              The third premise, principle B, is plausible. There is no definite reason to think that such
change will occur in the demon, if he exists. If he has deceived us in the past, there is no reason
to think logically that he will continue not to do this. Or even if he was to begin to tell the truth
and reveal explanatory information about our experiences we could not believe them because we
have no reason to think he would have changed his ways and wasn’t lying to us. So even if he
did tell the truth and had changed, it would be unverifiable because we cannot see any good
reason for him to change his ways from the past. So the demon hypothesis can be ruled out again
as scientifically unacceptable.
              The fourth premise, principle C, relies on the same idea as principle B. That is that if
given circumstances are all the same, there is no reason to think that behavior would change
from past behavior if circumstances were the same. And even if circumstances were not the
same, we would be unable to verify that, and then even if the demon was telling us the truth we,
like in the case of principle B, would not be able to distinguish the truth because we could not
verify that the circumstances had changed which would denote a plausible change in behavior
which could denote an honest demon. So the demon hypothesis runs against the PUI again
because it limits our inquiry and is thus scientifically unreasonable to believe.
              The fifth premise, principle D, is again plausible by scientific logic. Scientists never
assume that there is no explanation for a phenomenon unless they have very definite and over
powering reasons to do so. This is just rational, anyone who undertakes a project X in order to
discover its cause will naturally assume that there is a cause Y. It is impossible to know if there is
a cause or not, so the demon doubt saying there is no cause is automatically ruling out the
possibility of there being some cause Y. This makes it scientifically unreasonable to accept the
demon hypotheses.
              Thus given the premises, PUI and the four principles, Slote proves sufficient doubt on
the scientific acceptability of the demon doubt hypothesis. Because the argument points toward
the demon hypotheses as being inquiry limiting and therefore against the PUI, it reasons that it is
not scientifically reasonable to accept that hypothesis. And since scientific knowledge is, in
absence of other sorts of epistemic reasons to the contrary, epistemically reasonable, it follows
that it is not epistemically reasonable to accept the demon doubt hypothesis as true. Slote then
argues as his final conclusion that it would seem that we can make use of principles of scientific
thought, not only to show the scientific reasonableness of belief in an external world, but also to
show that such belief is rational in general.
              By using our scientific methodology we can yield explanations about our experiences in
the world. This is not to say that we are justified in believing these experiences are true, but we
don’t know that the experiences are necessarily false. Because of this openness of this answer,
and given the PUI, it is scientifically more plausible to assume that there is a physical world with
explanations than to accept the scientifically implausible idea of the demon doubt. It is more
scientifically reasonable to accept a world in which things could be true or false rather than a
world in which are experiences are false, which limits our inquiry, which violates the PUI.
Therefore, scientifically, and thus epistemically, it proves more plausible to accept an external
world in which there is the possibility of being right and wrong, than it is to accept a hypothesis
in which everything about the external world is false, as in the demon doubt. 

Bibliography
Slote, Michael. The Existence of the External World . n.d.