1 Skepticism and Circular Arguments Daniel M. Johnson (Pre-print draft; published in International Journal for the Study of Skepticism 3:4 (2013), 253- 270) Abstract Perhaps the most popular and historically important way of responding to skepticism is by an appeal to non-inferential justification. A problem with this sort of response is that while it may constitute a response to skepticism, it does not constitute a response to the skeptic. At some point, the anti-skeptic must simply fall silent, resigned to the fact that his or her non-inferential justification for the belief challenged by the skeptic is not communicable. I want to point out a possible solution to this problem. I will argue that, in certain circumstances, it is possible to adduce circular arguments which are nevertheless rationally persuasive, and that the anti-skeptic may employ these arguments in lieu of simply falling silent when a non-inferentially justified belief is challenged. The almost universal assumption among philosophers that epistemically circular arguments are rationally useless is mistaken, and this fact can be utilized by the clever anti-skeptic. 1. Introduction Perhaps the most popular and historically important way of responding to skepticism is by an appeal to non-inferential justification. Such an appeal figures most prominently in the foundationalist reply to the Pyrrhonian skeptic’s regress problem, but it is also important in a number of different kinds of responses to Cartesian-style skepticism based on radical skeptical scenarios. This sort of response argues that reason-giving must stop somewhere, and that the fact that it stops need not threaten knowledge or justification. So, according to this view, the fact that the subject cannot give an argument in response to the skeptic either to show the Cartesian skeptic that the radical skeptical hypothesis is false or to show the Pyrrhonian skeptic that the