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go about translating a language of which we have no knowledge at all. Donald Davidson later builds on this idea in “Radical Interpretation,” found in Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation (Oxford University Press, 2001). If you’re really dedicated you should read Philosophical Investigations by Ludwig Wittgenstein (Prentice Hall, 1958). Wittgenstein argues that the meanings of words are determined by how we use them, and that ultimately there can be no explicit definitions given for any word.

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I would like to thank Ruth Tallman for her helpful comments on this chapter.

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Episode 1001, originally aired October 17th, 2005.

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Adam Sternbergh, “Stephen Colbert Has America by the Ballots,” New York Magazine (16th October, 2006).

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Nathan Rabin, “Interviews: Stephen Colbert,” (January 26th, 2006) A.V. Club, The Onion, http://www.avclub.com/content/node/44705. Accessed 1st December, 2008.

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“Re-Improved Colbert transcript,” Daily Kos, http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/4/30/1441/59811. Accessed 1st December, 2008.

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Episode 2074, originally aired June 14th, 2006.

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Nathan Rabin, “Interviews: Stephen Colbert,” (January 26th, 2006) A.V. Club, The Onion, http://www.avclub.com/content/node/44705. Accessed 1st December, 2008.

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Episode 4060, originally aired May 5th, 2008.

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Episode 1001, originally aired October 17th, 2005.

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Harry Frankfurt, On Bullshit (Princeton University Press, 2005), p. 61.

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NBC News, Meet the Press, 16th March, 2003.

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Tim King, “Statement on Iraq Made by Cheney in 1994 Making the News,” (August 15th, 2007) Salem-News.com, http://www.salem-news.com/articles/august152007/cheney_1994_81507.php

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Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein, Plato and a Platypus Walk Into a Bar: Understanding Philosophy Through Jokes (Abrams, 2007), p. 51.

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See Chapter 6 in this volume, for an example of how some philosophers don’t think truthiness is all bad.

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Episode 4066, originally aired May 14th, 2008.

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R.J. Hankinson, The Sceptics (Routledge, 1995), p. 13.

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Episode 2161, originally aired December 20th, 2006.

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Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Scepticism (Cambridge University Press, 2000), Sections 1.12 and 1.22.

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Sextus Empiricus, Section 3.32.

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Michel Montaigne. An Apology for Raymond Sebond (Penguin, 1987), p. 74.

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For more on The Matrix and the argument from ignorance, see David Mitsuo Nixon, “The Matrix Possibility,” in The Matrix and Philosophy: Welcome to the Desert of the Real (Open Court, 2002), pp. 28-40.

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Note that my interpretation of Indian skepticism may be more controversial than my take on Pyrrhonism and Modern skepticism. Many contemporary scholars wouldn’t call Nagarjuna a skeptic, but rather a mystic, nihilist, deconstructionist, or anti-realist. However, the few scholars who notice Jayarasi at all generally do agree he is some kind of skeptic. My gut tells me Nagarjuna and Jayarasi are similar enough to warrant being called “Indian skeptics.”

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Pyrrho, the founder of Pyrrhonism, apparently traveled to India with Alexander the Great and some scholars hypothesize that there were actual historical interactions between Greek and Indian skeptics. Appropriately enough, we don’t really know if such interactions took place, but there may have been East-West skeptics’ meetings thousands of years ago.

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This is an approximation of an argument that appears in Nagarjuna’s text, Overturning the Objections, verses 46-50. This work has been translated in Thomas F. Wood, Nagarjunian Disputations: A Philosophical Journey through an Indian Looking-Glass (University of Hawaii Press, 1994), pp. 307-322.

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The text is translated in Eli Franco, Perception, Knowledge and Disbelief: A Study of Jayarasi’s Scepticism, Second Edition (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1994), p. 44.

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Episode 3038, originally aired March 20th, 2007.

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Episode 2096, originally aired July 31st, 2006.

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Episode 1001, originally aired October 17th, 2005.

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Episode 1001, originally aired October 17th, 2005.