Questions Feb 4

Post your essays, comments, discussion questions in the comments section below. Remember to include your section # please. (And note, there are lots of legacy comments from last semester. Your new comments will appear at the bottom. Click on "load more" if you don't see yours.)

I'll pose a few questions pertaining to the assigned reading before each class, and encourage all of you to add yours as well. Respond with a comment to any or all that you find engaging, in class we'll decide together what we want to talk about.  

Let me also alleviate any concern any of you may have about the volume of material we're collectively generating. I don't want anyone to feel overwhelmed, or obligated to read everything that's posted. Just take what you want or need, leave the rest. 

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* Th 4 Skepticism-LH 3, FL 5-6, HWT 4-5. 

LISTEN-Logic, cherries, boxes, pragmatists... (up@dawn)

LISTEN-Moving forward (but CORRECTION re: William Blake--Bull Durham, not Field of Dreams)... LISTEN-More "How the World Thinks" 

• Is it advisable, or even possible, to go through life without firm opinions? (LH  p.15)
• Should you always mistrust your senses, if they've occasionally misled you? (LH p. 16)
• Do you think it plausible that Pyrrho's skepticism might have been influenced by the philosophy he may have encountered as a young man in India? (LH p.18)
• Is it a promising strategy for happiness to "free yourself for desires and not care how things turn out"? (LH p.19)
• Pyrrhonic skepticism is clearly extreme, but what do you think of moderate skepticism? (LH p.20)

• What do you think of Anne Hutchinson's theology (LH 32) and her confident certainty? (LH 34)
• Why didn't America have figures to rival Shakespeare, Galileo, Bacon et al in the 1600s? (LH 36)
• Why didn't the Age of Reason take, in America? (LH 39)
• What do you think of Cotton Mather's "evidence"? (LH 40)
• Why did so many Americans believe in witches? (LH 41)
• What do you think of Andersen's assessment of the enduring influence of American protestantism? (LH 42)

• "The stress on logic has been the most distinctive feature of Western philosophy... Aristotle first set out the basic principles" (HWT 54) -- Do you think it's important to be "logical," or rational, in constructing your worldview? Do you try to avoid holding logically inconsistent or incompatible beliefs?
• Is our culture too "dualistic," allowing only for "true or false, winner and loser"? 59
• "We are intuitive, emotional and heavily influenced by others and our environment" (68)... so, can we be rational?
• "The human mind works without supernatural assistance" (70) -- Does secular reason, built on logic and curiosity, suffice for human conduct and aspiration?
• Would a "theory of everything" reveal, as Stephen Hawking said, "the mind of God"?  (71) Or might it reveal the irrelevance of a god to explicate the workings of the physical universe as we know it?
• "Science... is not a teacher of morals," William Jennings Bryan complained at the Scopes "Monkey Trial" (78)... But should we all take scientific conclusions into account, in articulating our moral views?

A contemporary of Aristotle, Pyrrho followed Alexander to the East and was exposed to the thinkers of India. Returning to Greece he established the earliest Greek form of scepticism and founded a school of thought that would come to be called Pyrrhonism. When faced by a dilemma, the Pyrrhonist rejects taking a side - finding peace in non-commitment.

Podcast: Scepticism - In Our Time (BBC)

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Scepticism, the idea that it may be impossible to know anything with complete certainty. Scepticism was first outlined by ancient Greek philosophers: Socrates is reported to have said that the only thing he knew for certain was that he knew nothing. Later, Scepticism was taught at the Academy founded by Plato, and learnt by students who included the Roman statesman Cicero. The central ideas of Scepticism were taken up by later philosophers and came to the fore during the Renaissance, when thinkers including Rene Descartes and Michel de Montaigne took up its challenge. A central plank of the philosophical system of David Hume, Scepticism had a powerful influence on the religious and scientific debates of the Enlightenment. With: Peter Millican Professor of Philosophy at Hertford College, Oxford Melissa Lane Professor of Politics at Princeton University Jill Kraye Professor of the History of Renaissance Philosophy and Librarian at the Warburg Institute, University of London. 

Captain Metaphysics and the Extreme Skeptic

Permanent Link to this Comic: http://existentialcomics.com/comic/143

A Brief History of Philosophical Skepticism

  

Why be skeptical?
“Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.” Voltaire

“I mean, you could claim that anything's real if the only basis for believing in it is that nobody's proved it doesn't exist!” 
― J.K. Rowling

“Blind belief in authority is the greatest enemy of truth.” 
― Albert Einstein

“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” 
― Carl Sagan

“I know of no society in human history that ever suffered because its people became too desirous of evidence in support of their core beliefs.” 
― Sam Harris

“In our reasonings concerning matter of fact, there are all imaginable degrees of assurance, from the highest certainty to the lowest species of moral evidence. A wise man, therefore, proportions his belief to the evidence.” 
― David Hume

“I have always felt that doubt was the beginning of wisdom, and the fear of God was the end of wisdom.” 
― Clarence Darrow

"The truly civilized man is always skeptical and tolerant, in this field as in all others. His culture is based on "I am not too sure.” 
― H.L. Mencken

Summer '18-MALA 6040, Evolution in America - we had a field trip to Dayton TN, for the annual Scopes Trial re-enactment (as discussed in FL 18)...

Ancient Skepticism, from Philosophy Without Any Gaps...

Pyrrho & Ancient Skepticism discussed in Bertrand Russell's History of Western Philosophy...

  

Dream of Reason on Pyrrho-"Two centuries after Pyrrho's death, one of his defenders tossed aside these tales and claimed that 'although he practised philosophy on the principles of suspension of judgement, he did not act carelessly in  the details of everyday life.' This must be right. He may have been magnificently imperturbable... But he was surely not an idiot. He apparently lived to be nearly ninety..." 337

"What use is knowledge if, for its sake, we lose the calm and repose which we should enjoy without it and if it makes our condition worse than that of Pyrrho's pig?" Montaigne on Pyrrho's Pig, in Consolations of Philosophy... 120

skepticism

Belief that some or all human knowledge is impossible. Since even our best methods for learning about the world sometimes fall short of perfect certainty, skeptics argue, it is better to suspend belief than to rely on the dubitable products of reason. Classical skeptics include Pyrrhoand Sextus Empiricus. In the modern era, Montaigne, Bayle, and Hume all advocated some form of skeptical philosophy. Fallibilism is a more moderate response to the lack of certainty.

Pyrrho of Elis (365-270 BCE)

Greek philosopher who originated classical skepticism. Since there are plausible arguments for both sides of any issue, Pyrrho argued, the only rational practice is to suspend all judgment, abandon worries of every kind {Gk. αταραξια [ataraxia]}, and live comfortably in an appreciation of the appearances. His teachings were preserved and amplified by his pupil Timon of Philius.

Recommended Reading: Edwyn Bevan, Stoics and Skeptics (Ares, 1980) and Richard Bett, Pyrrho, His Antecedents, and His Legacy (Oxford, 2000).

Also see SEP, IEP, EB, and ELC.

Sextus Empiricus (c. 200)

Ancient skeptic who defended the practical viability of Pyrrhonism as the only way of life that results in genuine αταραξια [ataraxia] in Pyrrhonian Hypotyposeis (Outlines of Pyrrhonism). The translation into Latin of Sextus's comprehensive criticisms of ancient schools of thought in Adversos Mathematicos (Against the Dogmatists) provided an important resource for the development of modern skepticism during the sixteenth century.

Recommended Reading: The Original Sceptics: A Controversy, ed. by Myles Burnyeat and Michael Frede (Hackett, 1997); Tad Brennan, Ethics and Epistemology in Sextus Empircus(Garland, 1999); and Luciano Floridi, Sextus Empiricus: The Transmission and Recovery of Pyrrhonism (Oxford, 2001).

Also see SEP, EB, and ELC.

Ancient Skepticism (SEP)

The Greek word skepsis means investigation. By calling themselves skeptics, the ancient skeptics thus describe themselves as investigators. They also call themselves ‘those who suspend’ (ephektikoi), thereby signaling that their investigations lead them to suspension of judgment. They do not put forward theories, and they do not deny that knowledge can be found. At its core, ancient skepticism is a way of life devoted to inquiry. Also, it is as much concerned with belief as with knowledge. As long as knowledge has not been attained, the skeptics aim not to affirm anything. This gives rise to their most controversial ambition: a life without belief.

Ancient skepticism is, for the most part, a phenomenon of Post-Classical, Hellenistic philosophy. The Academic and Pyrrhonian skeptical movements begin roughly in the third century BCE, and end with Sextus Empiricus in the second century CE.... (continues)

==
Bertrand Russell: Popular Cynicism did not teach abstinence from the good things of this world, but only a certain indifference to them. In the case of a borrower, this might take the form of minimizing the obligation to the lender. One can see how the word "cynic" acquired its every-day meaning. What was best in the Cynic doctrine passed over into Stoicism, which was an altogether more complete and rounded philosophy. Scepticism, as a doctrine of the schools, was first proclaimed by Pyrrho, who was in Alexander's army, and campaigned with it as far as India. It seems that this gave him a sufficient taste of travel, and. that he spent the rest of his life in his native city, Elis, where he died in 275 B.C. There was not much that was new in his doctrine, beyond a certain systematizing and formalizing of older doubts. Scepticism with regard to the senses had troubled Greek philosophers from a very early stage; the only exceptions were those who, like Parmenides and Plato, denied the cognitive value of perception, and made their denial into an opportunity for an intellectual dogmatism. The Sophists, notably Protagoras and Gorgias, had been led by the ambiguities and. apparent contradictions of sense-perception to a subjectivism not unlike Hume's. Pyrrho seems (for he very wisely wrote no books) to have added moral and logical scepticism to scepticism as to the senses. He is said to have maintained that there could never be any rational ground for preferring one course of action to another. In practice, this meant that one conformed to the customs of whatever country one inhabited. A modern disciple would go to church on Sundays and. perform the correct genuflexions, but without any of the religious beliefs that are supposed to inspire these actions. Ancient Sceptics went through the whole pagan ritual, and were even sometimes priests; their Scepticism assured them that this behaviour could not be proved wrong, and their common sense (which survived their philosophy) assured them that it was convenient. Scepticism naturally made an appeal to many unphilosophic minds. People observed the diversity of schools and the acerbity of their disputes, and decided that all alike were pretending to knowledge which ____________________ * The Hellenistic Age ( Cambridge, 1923), p. 86. -233- was in fact unattainable. Scepticism was a lazy man's consolation, since it showed the ignorant to be as wise as the reputed men of learning. To men who, by temperament, required a gospel, it might seem unsatisfying, but like every doctrine of the Hellenistic period it recommended itself as an antidote to worry. Why trouble about the future? It is wholly uncertain. You may as well enjoy the present; "What's to come is still unsure." For these reasons, Scepticism enjoyed a considerable popular success. It should be observed that Scepticism as a philosophy is not merely doubt, but what may be called dogmatic doubt. The man of science says "I think it is so-and-so, but I am not sure." The man of intellectual curiosity says "I don't know how it is, but I hope to find out." The philosophical Sceptic says "nobody knows, and nobody ever can know." It is this element of dogmatism that makes the system vulnerable. Sceptics, of course, deny that they assert the impossibility of knowledge dogmatically, but their denials are not very convincing. Pyrrho's disciple Timon, however, advanced some intellectual arguments which, from the standpoint of Greek logic, were very hard to answer. The only logic admitted by the Greeks was deductive, and all deduction had to start, like Euclid, from general principles regarded as self-evident. Timon denied the possibility of finding such principles. Everything, therefore, will have to be proved by means of something else, and all argument will be either circular or an endless chain hanging from nothing. In either case nothing can be proved. This argument, as we can see, cut at the root of the Aristotelian philosophy which dominated the Middle Ages. Some forms of Scepticism which, in our own day, are advocated by men who are by no means wholly sceptical, had not occurred to the Sceptics of antiquity. They did not doubt phenomena, or question propositions which, in their opinion, only expressed what we know directly concerning phenomena. Most of Timon's work is lost, but two surviving fragments will illustrate this point. One says "The phenomenon is always valid." The other says: "That honey is sweet I refuse to assert; that it appears sweet, I fully grant." * A modern Sceptic would point out that the phenomenon merely occurs, and is not either valid or invalid; what is valid or invalid must be a state- ____________________ * Quoted by Edwyn Bevan, Stoics and Sceptics, p. 126. -234- ment, and no statement can be so closely linked to the phenomenon as to be incapable of falsehood. For the same reason, he would say that the statement "honey appears sweet" is only highly probable, not absolutely certain. In some respects, the doctrine of Timon was very similar... History of Western Philosophy

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An old post:

Today in CoPhi it's skeptics. Or sceptics, if you prefer the British spelling. Or you can follow their lead and refuse to commit. "Don't commit, and you won't be disappointed."

I haven't generally found that to be a reliable guidepost in life, instead taking my cue from the lesson James's "first act of free will" (previously noted) seems to me to teach: don't just sit there, stand and select a destination. And get going. As my old pal the Carolina prof says, do something-even if it's wrong. And as James also said, "our errors surely are not such awfully solemn things." Lighten up.  Pick a path. Move. (My friend's colleague David Henderson gave a first-rate presentation at the conference, btw, on not reducing wilderness and the national park system to an American thing but seeing wilderness as a call to cosmopolitanism.)

But that's my therapy, it may not be yours. Some of us really do prefer sitting on a fence, avoiding firm opinions, keeping all accounts open. And there's no doubt, a healthy dose of skepticism is good for you. But how much is too much? 

My answer is implied by the bumper sticker message on my bulletin board: "even fatalists look both ways before crossing the street." If you stop looking, you're either too skeptical or not skeptical enough. Probably a lunatic, too. Or the ruler of the universe. "I say what it occurs to me to say when I think I hear people say things. More I cannot say." [see below*]

Point is, we need beliefs to motivate action lest we sit and starve like Buridan's ass, or cross paths with a cart and get flattened. Prudence demands commitment. Commitment is no guarantee against error and disappointment, but indifference and non-commitment typically leave us stuck in the middle of the road or drop us off the cliff.

That wasn't Pyrrho's perspective, jay- and cliff-walker though he was. Fortunately for him, he seems always to have had friends steering him from the edge. His prescription - but is a skeptic allowed to prescribe? - was to free yourself from desires, don't care how things will turn out, persuade yourself that nothing ultimately matters, and you'll eventually shuck all worry. Or not. If we all were Pyrrho "there wouldn't be anyone left to protect the Pyrrhonic Sceptics from themselves." Prudence wins again.

Prudence and moderation. "The point of moderate philosophical scepticism is to get closer to the truth," or further at least from falsehood and bullshit. Easier said than done, in these alt-fact days of doublespeak. "All the great philosophers have been [moderate] sceptics," have sought truth and spurned lies, have deployed their baloney detectors and upheld the bar of objective evidence. Sincerity alone won't cut it.

The contemporary proliferation of bullshit also has deeper sources, in various forms of skepticism which deny that we can have any reliable access to an objective reality and which therefore reject the possibility of knowing how things truly are. These anti-realist doctrines undermine confidence in the value of disinterested efforts to determine what is true and what is false, and even in the intelligibility of the notion of objective inquiry... Facts about ourselves are not peculiarly solid and resistant to skeptical dissolution. Our natures are, indeed, elusively insubstantial-notoriously less stable and less inherent than the natures of other things. And insofar as this is the case, sincerity itself is bullshit.

So, be a skeptic. But to paraphrase David Hume and Jon Batiste, stay human. ("Be a philosopher, but amidst your philosophy be still a man.")

Read Skeptic magazine, which in a recent issue doubts the possibility of eternal youth and features the parodic perspective of Mr. Deity. Skeptic's editor Michael Shermer says “Smart people believe weird things because they are skilled at defending beliefs they arrived at for non-smart reasons.” And, “I’m a skeptic not because I do not want to believe, but because I want to know.”

Pyrrho must not have been that crazy, to have lived to nearly ninety. "He did not act carelessly in the details of everyday life," said a defender, he just suspended judgment as to their ultimate import in the larger truths of things. Or maybe he just wanted to protect his batting average, so to speak. If you never swing, you'll never miss. But you'll still strike out if you take too many.

David Hume, again. He was a skeptic but he didn't let that interfere with living. He ventured opinions but couched them in philosophic humility. He knew we couldn't all be Pyrrho, for "all action would immediately cease" and "the necessities of nature" would "put an end to [our] miserable existence." Miserable? He must have been having a bad day. Generally he was of great cheer and humane disposition.

So let's not throw in the sponge on humanity just yet. What a strange expression, "throwing in the sponge"-it comes from the Roman Skeptic Sextus Empiricus, who told a story about a painter who stopped trying so hard to paint the perfect representation of a horse's mouth and discovered that sometimes it's best to just let fly. Fling your sponge, let it land where it may. Okay, if you're just painting. If you're living a life, though, maybe just a bit less skepticism is prudent.

Is it possible to go through life questioning and doubting everything, committing always to nothing, and holding no firm opinions? Is it desirable or useful to try doing so? And do you know anyone who doesn't look both ways before crossing the street?

*Pyrrho reminds me of the Ruler of the Universe

...who is really more Pyrrhonist Skeptic than solipsist, I think.

RULER OF THE UNIVERSE AS SOLIPSIST:
Excerpts from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Radio Scripts

MAN:   Pussy pussy pussy . . . coochicoochicoochi . . . pussy want his fish? Nice piece of fish . . . pussy want it? Pussy not eat his fish, pussy get thin and waste away, I think. I imagine this is what will happen, but how can I tell? I think it's better if I don't get involved. I think fish is nice, but then I think that rain is wet so who am I to judge? Ah, you're eating it.

I like it when I see you eat the fish, because in my mind you will waste away if you don't.

Fish come from far away, or so I'm told. Or so I imagine I'm told. When the men come, or when in my mind the men come in their six black shiny ships do they come in your mind too? What do you see, pussy? And when I hear their questions, all their many questions do you hear questions? Perhaps you just think they're singing songs to you. Perhaps they are singing songs to you and I just think they're asking me questions. Do you think they came today? I do. There's mud on the floor, cigarettes and whisky on my table, fish in your plate and a memory of them in my mind. And look what else they've left me. Crosswords, dictionaries and a calculator. I think I must be right in thinking they ask me questions. To come all that way and leave all these things just for the privilege of singing songs to you would be very strange behaviour. Or so it seems to me. Who can tell, who can tell.

. . . .

MAN:   I think I saw another ship in the sky today. A big white one. I've never seen a big white one. Only six small black ones. Perhaps six small black ones can look like one big white one. Perhaps I would like a glass of whisky. Yes, that seems more likely.

. . . .

Perhaps some different people are coming to see me.

. . . .

MAN:     Hello?

FORD PREFECT:    Er, excuse me, do you rule the Universe?

MAN:     I try not to. Are you wet?

FORD:    Wet! Well, doesn't it look as if we're wet?

MAN:    That's how it looks to me, but how you feel about it might be a different matter. If you find warmth makes you feel dry you'd better come in.

. . . .

ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX:  Er, man, like what's your name?

MAN:       I don't know. Why, do you think I ought to have one? It seems odd to give a bundle of vague sensory perceptions a name.

ZARNIWOOP:  Listen. We must ask you some questions.

MAN:    All right. You can sing to my cat if you like.

ARTHUR DENT:  Would he like that?

MAN:   You'd better ask him that.

ZARNIWOOP:  How long have you been ruling the Universe?

MAN:   Ah, this is a question about the past is it?

ZARNIWOOP:  Yes.

MAN:    How can I tell that the past isn't a fiction designed to account for the discrepancy between my immediate physical sensations and my state of mind?

ZARNIWOOP:  Do you answer all questions like this?

MAN:    I say what it occurs to me to say when I think I hear people say things. More I cannot say.

. . . .

ZARNIWOOP:     No. Listen. People come to you, yes?

MAN:  I think so.

ZARNIWOOP:    And they ask you to take decisions—about wars, about economies, about people, about everything going on out there in the Universe?

MAN:    I only decide about my Universe. My Universe is what happens to my eyes and ears. Anything else is surmise and hearsay. For all I know, these people may not exist. You may not exist. I say what it occurs to me to say.

ZARNIWOOP:  But don't you see? What you decide affects the fate of millions of people.

MAN:    I don't know them, I've never met them. They only exist in words I think I hear. The men who come say to me, say, so and so wants to declare what we call a war. These are the facts, what do you think? And I say. Sometimes it's a smaller thing. . . .

. . . .

MAN:    But it's folly to say you know what is happening to other people. Only they know. If they exist.

ZARNIWOOP:  Do you think they do?

MAN:    I have no opinion. How can I have?

ZARNIWOOP:  I have.

MAN:   So you say—or so I hear you say.

. . . .

ZARNIWOOP:  But don't you see that people live or die on your word?

MAN:    It's nothing to do with me, I am not involved with people. The Lord knows I am not a cruel man.

ZARNIWOOP:    Ah! You say . . . the Lord! You believe in . . .

MAN:    My cat. I call him the Lord. I am kind to him.

ZARNIWOOP:  All right. How do you know he exists? How do you know he knows you to be kind, or enjoys what you think of as your kindness?

MAN:    I don't. I have no idea. It merely pleases me to behave in a certain way to what appears to be a cat. What else do you do? Please I am tired.

. . . .

---

Note: This philosophical dialogue is excerpted from the final scene of the original radio series The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.  This sequence can also be found in chapter 29 of the novel The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, with more narrative description and slightly expanded dialogue.

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Here's something completely different: a cartoon view of Aristophanes' fable in Plato's Symposium:

Skeptic Magazine... Skeptic magazine examines extraordinary claims, promotes science and reason, and serves as an educational tool for those seeking a sound scientific viewpoint.

eSkeptic-

“I have made a ceaseless effort not to ridicule, not to bewail, not to scorn human actions, but to understand them.” Spinoza, quoted by Michael Shermer

2010-01-01 | Skepticism, yes, egomania and arrogance, no. As Descartes, hero of scientists and skeptics everywhere, said, skepticism, like charity, begins at home more »

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2014-01-14 | Erez Aiden slaloms between the sciences and the humanities, accumulating patents, publications, and skepticism as he goes more »

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2010-01-01 | Martin Gardner, mathematical gamester and champion of science and skepticism, is dead at the age of 95 more »

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2015-01-22 | Science once had moral authority. But today, with scientism resurgent, skepticism reigns. The cost is paid by all of us more »

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2014-09-05 | The return of Luddism. Awash in techno-giddiness and gadget infatuation, skepticism is useful, essential, and in short supply more »

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2012-08-17 | Doubt is crucial to intellectual life. But a malign and exaggerated skepticism has undermined science. What's to blame, gullibility or greed? more »

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2017-01-11 | Written with seen-it-all skepticism and pseudo-philosophical detachment, the feuilletonwas part journalism, part prose poem. The reaction to the new form? Utter contempt more »

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2018-03-12 | Skepticism toward intellectual authority runs deep in America. It's a healthy instinct, until it's not. Tom Nichols is worried about the death of expertise more »

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2014-11-05 | Here's the story we know: Scientific skepticism eroded religious faith. But the line between religion and science was not so bright more »

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2010-01-01 | Penn and Tellerâ?'s act has no showgirls, fireworks, or tigers. It is suffused with a kind of irony, skepticism, and beauty seldom seen in Las Vegas more »

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2013-03-28 | The question of monsters is credulity versus skepticism: Science puts to rest tales of Minotaur and Medusa. And yet we want to believe. Why? more »

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2010-01-01 | Did the Trojan War really happen? If so, did it flare at the archeological site that some scholars call Troy? Skepticism is slowly giving way more »

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2011-01-01 | When the Civil War began, the literati - Whitman, Emerson, Dickinson, Melville - erupted in support of the Union cause. But patriotic fervor soon gave way to skepticism, confusion, and moral ambivalence more »

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2016-08-31 | The replication crisis in psychology is rooted in bad incentives: skepticism isn't rewarded, unexpected findings are. But coverage of the crisis is susceptible to its own bad incentives more »

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2010-01-01 | Our melting brains. From the pencil to the typewriter to the computer, every change in media has been met with fear, skepticism and a longing to save the old ways more »

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2016-06-30 | Anti-vaxxing, flat-Earthism, climate-change skepticism — the marketplace of ideasdoesn’t work. You can try to kill zombie ideas, but they just won’t die more »

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2016-09-03 | Philip K. Dick made skepticism an art form. His inability to separate reality from fiction, and his certainty that everyone was out to get him, was the wellspring of his work more »

LISTEN:: Scepticism (PB)... Skeptics (rec.10/1/18)