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For several decades, renewed interest in the connection between perception and knowledge has sustained a robust debate over external world skepticism (EWS). Recently, however, a growing consensus claims the skeptical challenge has been substantially met, and that realism in some robust form has emerged a clear victor. I invite us to rethink this consensus in a two-part response. The first forges a temporary alliance with skepticism against prominent forms of contemporary realism. That these fail to rebuff ews bolsters Barry Stroud's call for a new paradigm of objectivity. In the second part I sketch such a paradigm based upon a transactional interpretation of John Dewey's pragmatism, and indicate its resilience to skeptical attacks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines philosopher John Dewey's theory of the pattern of inquiry, the notion of the movement of experience in its reconstructive transition. Dewey's argument that having or enjoying of primary experience is interrupted by confusion or doubt marking the onset of a problematic situation; Postulate of immediate empiricism; Alternative view to Dewey's theory on primary experience.