Skepticism: The Ultimate Guide to Thinking More Critically and Intelligently

Chapter 1: Skepticism in Philosophy

Skepticism, also spelled scepticism, in Western philosophy, the mindset of questioning knowledge claims stated in various areas. Skeptics have challenged the adequacy or reliability of these claims by asking what concepts they are based upon or what they actually establish. They have doubted whether some of those claims truly are, as declared, or always true, and they have challenged the purported logical premises of accepted assumptions. In everyday life, practically everyone is skeptical about some knowledge claims; but philosophical skeptics have doubted the possibility of any knowledge beyond that of the contents of straight felt experience. The original Greek meaning of skeptikos was an inquirer, a person who was disappointed and still searching for truth.

From ancient times onward skeptics have developed arguments to weaken the contentions of dogmatic theorists, researchers, and theologians. The skeptical arguments and their work against different forms of dogmatism have played a crucial role in forming both the issues and the solutions offered in the course of Western philosophy. As age-old philosophy and science developed, doubts occurred about numerous basic, commonly accepted beliefs about the world. In ancient times, skeptics challenged the claims of Plato and Aristotle and their followers, as well as those of the Stoics; and at the time of the Renaissance comparable challenges were raised against the claims of Scholasticism and Calvinism. In the 17th century, skeptics assaulted Cartesianism (the system established by the French philosopher and mathematician René Descartes) together with other theories that attempted to validate the scientific revolution initiated by Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo. Somewhat later, a doubtful offensive was leveled against the Enlightenment theorist Immanuel Kant and then against the philosophical idealist Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and his followers. Each challenge caused new efforts to deal with the skeptical troubles. Skepticism, especially since the Knowledge, has come to mean shock-- mainly spiritual shock-- and the skeptic has typically been likened to the town atheist.

Senses And Applications

Skepticism developed with regard to different disciplines in which people claimed to have knowledge. It was questioned, for instance, whether one could acquire any certain knowledge in metaphysics (the philosophical study of the standard nature, structure, or aspects of reality) or in the sciences. In old times a primary form of skepticism was health skepticism, which questioned whether one could know with certainty either the causes or treatments of illnesses. In the area of principles, doubts were raised about accepting different mores and customs and about saying any unbiased basis for making judgments of value. Skeptics of religion have questioned the teachings of different customs. Particular approaches, like those of Kant and his Scottish contemporary David Hume, have seemed to show that no knowledge can be acquired past the world of experience and that one can't find the real causes of experienced phenomena. Any effort to do so, as Kant argued, leads to antinomies, or inconsistent knowledge claims. A dominant form of skepticism (the subject of this short article) concerns knowledge in general, questioning whether anything actually can be known with complete or sufficient certainty. This type is called epistemological skepticism.

The various kinds of epistemological skepticism can be separated in regard to the parts in which doubts are raised-- that is, whether the doubts are directed towards reason, toward the senses, or to knowledge of things-in-themselves (things as they truly are, rather than as they appear to human observers). Forms of skepticism can also be distinguished in regard to the inspiration of the skeptic-- whether he's difficult views for ideological reasons or for practical or practical ones in order to get certain psychological goals. Amongst the chief ideological intentions have been religious or antireligious concerns. Some skeptics have challenged knowledge claims so that they could be changed by religious claims that would have to be accepted on the basis of faith. Others have challenged spiritual knowledge claims so as to conquer some orthodoxy. Sort of skepticism can also be distinguished in terms of how restricted or how thoroughgoing they are-- whether they apply only to certain parts and to certain types of knowledge claims or whether they are more general and universal.

Ancient Skepticism

In the West, skeptical philosophical mindsets began to appear in age-old Greece about the fifth century BCE. The Eleatic philosophers (those connected with the Greek city of Elea in Italy) rejected the existence of plurality and change, envisaging reality as a static One, and they denied that reality could be described in regard to the classifications of normal experience. Yet, Heracleitus and his pupil Cratylus thought that the world was in such a state of flux that no long-term, unchangeable truth about it could be found; and Xenophanes, a wandering poet and philosopher, questioned whether people could differentiate true from incorrect knowledge.

A more industrialized form of skepticism appeared in some of the views attributed to Socrates and in the views of certain Sophists (itinerant and normally mercenary teachers of philosophy, rhetoric, and other subjects). Socrates, as represented in the early conversations of his pupil Plato, was always questioning the knowledge claims of others; in the Apology, he famously admits that all that he actually knows is that he knows nothing. Socrates' adversary, the Sophist Protagoras, contended that man is the procedure of all things, a thesis that has been taken to suggest a kind of skeptical relativism: no views are ultimately or objectively true, but each is solely a single person's viewpoint. Another Sophist, Gorgias, advanced the skeptical-nihilist thesis that absolutely nothing exists; and, if something did exist, it could not be understood; and, if it could be understood, it could not be communicated.

The putative dad of Greek skepticism, however, was Pyrrhon of Elis (c. 360-- c. 272 BCE), who carried out the unusual effort of attempting to live his skepticism. He stayed away from committing himself to any views about what the world was truly like and acted only according to appearances. In this way he sought joy, or at least mental peace.

The first school of skeptical philosophy developed in the Academy, the school established by Plato, in the 3rd century BCE and was therefore called Academic skepticism. Beginning with the skeptical doctrines of Socrates, its leaders, Arcesilaus and Carneades, set forth a