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What is Skepticism?
- 1. What is Skepticism? A REALLY SHORT, UNAUTHORITATIVE GUIDE TO NOT KNOWING ANYTHING
- 2. Historical Picture of Skepticism Socrates “About myself I knew that I know nothing” Pyrrho “about each single thing that it no more is than is not or both is and is not or neither is nor is not” Kant “Experience without theory is blind, but theory without experience is mere intellectual play.”
- 3. Pyrrho of Elis Lived around 300 BCE Pyrrhonism Western Philosophy’s first formalized approach to Skepticism Acatalepsia withhold judgement on truth There’s always an alternative explanation. Not this Kind of Pyro
- 4. “ ” Neither our sense-perceptions nor our theories, tell us the truth or lie; so we certainly should not rely on them. Rather, we should be without views, uninclined toward this side or that, and unwavering in our refusal to choose, saying about every single one that it no more is than it is not or it both is and is not or it neither is nor is not. SOMETHING PYRRHO OF ELIS MAY HAVE SAID Audio from the podcast: Philosophize This! Episode 13 – The Hellenistic Age Pt. 4 http://philosophizethis.org/hellenistic-age-3-skepticism/
- 5. “ ” Ancient debates address questions that today we associate with epistemology and philosophy of language, as well as with theory of action, rather than specifically with the contemporary topic of skepticism. They focus on the nature of belief, the way in which belief figures in our mental lives, and the relationship of belief to speech and action. STANFORD ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PHILOSOPHY: ANCIENT SKEPTICISM HTTPS://PLATO.STANFORD.EDU/ENTRIES/SKEPTICISM-ANCIENT/
- 6. Comparison to Modern Skepticism Ancient Skepticism Belief Suspension of Judgement Criterion of Truth Appearances Investigation Modern Skepticism Knowledge Certainty Justified Belief Doubt
- 7. Knowledge as Justified True Belief Truth • One can only know things that are true. • Just because something is true, doesn’t mean that anyone knows it is true. • It’s metaphysical, not epistemological. Truth is a matter of how things are, not how they can be shown to be. Belief You can only know what you believe. You can know without believing. • You’re asked “What’s the capital city of Ohio?” on a test where you’re penalized for wrong answers. • You know that Columbus is the capital of Ohio — which is true. • You aren’t confident in your answer — you don’t believe. • You leave the question blank because, while you are know, you don’t believe. Justified • You can believe true things for the wrong reason • What is true is what can be shown • Repeatable, Demonstrable, Empirical
- 8. Practical Example Assent • There is an odd number of Jelly Beans • We live in the real world. • There is a god. Descent • There is an even number of Jelly Beans. • We live in the Matrix. • There is no god. Skeptic • I don’t know. • I don’t know. • I don’t know.
- 9. Philosophical Skepticism We should not believe things until there is sufficient evidence for them. A mechanism by which we can establish the truth of claims to the best of our ability. Scientific Skepticism https://youtu.be/m_tgO-xXrwI?t=1866
Editor's Notes
- Skepticism is a post-Socratic philosophy.
- Socrates:
- In the west, the first skeptic was Pyrrho. He lived in Elis Greece, around 360 BCE, and died around 270 BCE Post Socrates (469-399 BCE) Elements of Skepticism existed in Greek philosophy earlier, but Pyrrho was the first to formalize skeptic ideas into a school of philosophy. In spite of this, his influence on contemporary philosophers was minimal. He was essentially rediscovered in modern times.
- Transcript of Audio <http://philosophizethis.org/skeptics-episode-13-transcript/>: This is probably a good time to talk about the man who is widely considered the first skeptic in the history of the world, Pyrrho of Elis. I’m starting to notice a pattern here…if you’re a figurehead for a particular movement…if you’re one of the founding fathers of something and you lived during a time when historical details are scarce…you instantly inherit a sort of mystical, legendary status where stories are told about you exhibiting EXTREME behaviors in line with your movement. Pyrrho was really skeptical. He didn’t believe anything. There are stories of him getting surgery in 300 BC and despite being completely awake…he was unaffected. He lied in silence without so much as a twitch of his face as someone dug into his body…because he wasn’t under the delusion like everyone else that pain was a bad thing necessarily. There’s another story of his good friend falling into a hole and he’s unable to get out…Pyrrho comes across him…sees him in the hole…and just leaves him there. And his friend wasn’t even mad at him…he was just impressed…he deeply respected his ability to be so skeptical. There are stories of Pyrrho walking around with complete skepticism of everything around him…he was like an elderly woman…he would walk into people…in front of wagons…apparently his friends would have to save him from the brink of walking into his certain death all the time. And despite all these stories…he lived to the very old age of 90. Well these stories are obviously fiction, but they do illustrate an extreme version of Pyrrho’s line of skeptical thinking. It probably isn’t a shock that Pyrrho didn’t believe in writing things down either…so one of his lead disciples Timon wrote about his beliefs and a later philosopher talks about them here: “According to Timon, Pyrrho declared that things are equally indifferent, unmeasurable and inarbitrable. For this reason neither our sensations nor our opinions tell us truths or falsehoods. Therefore, for this reason we should not put our trust in them one bit, but we should be unopinionated, uncommitted and unwavering, saying concerning each individual thing that it no more is than is not, or it both is and is not, or it neither is nor is not. The outcome for those who actually adopt this attitude, says Timon, will be first speechlessness, and then freedom from disturbance”
- Source <https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/skepticism-ancient/> It is a core ancient intuition that, if we cannot identify an impression as true, we should hold back from making a truth-claim, from believing anything, on the basis of it. The skeptics and their opponents discuss how one recognizes a true impression as true. Is there anything about impressions of truths that marks them as true? Are there some evident things (some kind of impressions), which can be used as standards or criteria, so that nothing is to be accepted as true if it is not in agreement with these evident things?
- It’s not enough just to believe it—we don’t know the things we’re wrong about. Knowledge seems to be more like a way of getting at the truth. The analysis of knowledge concerns the attempt to articulate in what exactly this kind of “getting at the truth” consists. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/knowledge-analysis/#KnowJustTrueBeli Epistemology: the study of knowledge and justified belief. Empirical: based on, concerned with, or verifiable by observation or experience rather than theory or pure logic.
- Assent that we can have knowledge of EI-type propositions. Assent that we cannot have knowledge of EI-type propositions. (That is, deny that we can have knowledge of EI-type propositions.) Withhold assent to both the proposition that we can have knowledge of EI-type propositions and withhold assent to the proposition that we cannot have such knowledge.