Why Epistemological Nihilism is Untenable Epistemological nihilism is a brand of extreme skepticism which claims that there is absolutely no knowledge. Laying aside the contradiction is turning this idea into an ideology, I’d like to respond to typical proclamation of this faction. It goes something like this: there can be no true knowledge because the tool we use to gather knowledge – logic and rationality – cannot be proven to be correct. The simply assume that they are right and any attempt to prove their correctness would beg the question since it would use logic and rationality in its proof. Basically, if there is no independent source capable of verifying the truthfulness of our truth seeking instruments, they must be considered unable to accumulate any true knowledge. Criticisms of rationality such as these fall into a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of logic. Logic is simply the transformation of language propositions into mathematical propositions. For example, a proposition like “My hair is brown” would be expressed in logic simply as the proposition P, or in predicate logic as brown(hair). Each of these claims are equivalent to each other. So then, if logic is merely a representation of language, then the truthfulness of logic depends upon the truthfulness of language. Take again the example “My hair is brown.” How is this proposition determined to be true or false? We simple observe the external world and see if the proposition matches the actual world. In order to do this, we must know what exactly is meant by words such as “my,” “hair,” “is,” and “brown.” And how do we know if what we understand as “brown” is what brown actually is? The answer is so simple that it is often overlooked by the layman and always overlooked by the epistemological nihilist. The meanings of words are only a convention. Something is “brown” because we as a society have come to collective agreement that things which have such-and-such a look will be referred to as “brown.” Thus a statement like “My hair is brown” cannot possibly be false if the conventional meanings of each constituent part are known and they match the actual world. The very fact that these conventions are readily agreed upon speaks of the fact of a single common external world and gets us past any possible idealist claptrap. This is all there is to truthfulness. But, an objector may say, many of these supposed conventions are not completely agreed upon and the same proposition may take on more than one meaning. This is true, and it is the duty of rationalist to simplify and define each part of a proposition until it is clear to all parties which one meaning the proposition is to take. If one meaning cannot be agreed upon, there is a simple solution: just stipulate an original definition that everyone can agree on. It’s the action of taking on a moot point. Just say that this is what is meant, then what follows? Rules such as these illustrate the vast flexibility in language and logic which allows to arrive at conclusions and be confident of their truthfulness. Lastly, a similar vein of argument could be used to argue for the truthfulness of mathematics. Why does 1+1=2? Because of the conventional understood definitions of “1,” “2,” “+,” and “=.” These again merely represent agreed upon meanings of words used in normal language. If one knows the meanings of each of these symbols, the conclusion must follow because it is hidden in the antecedents to begin with. Different symbols could be used to show the exact same proposition if we wanted to. “1+1=2” could have turned out to be “2-2=9” if that is how the original convention had decided to represent the ideas that had in mind. As for logical truths such as: if P then Q. Q. Therefore P. These can be verified in the exact same way by looking to the actual world and verifying. After many verifications, we understand that the use of truth tables and proofs function in the same way as real world verification and the prior are chosen because they take up less time and effort. Skeptics then come in and see this process at the tail end and erroneously conclude that since logic covers all things, it can never be verified. Such a response only demonstrates a lack of understanding as to what is truth and how it is acquired.