Lately I’ve been reading Outline of Pyrrhonism by Sextus Empiricus. Sextus collects the arguments for Skepticism as practiced by ancient Greek and Roman philosophers. Since the notion of “skepticism” seems to play some small role here, I thought it would be fun to take a look at what Sextus means by it.
Sextus situates skepticism as the only reasonable response to “dogmatism”. The dogmatists he has in mind are Platonism, Stoicism, Epicureanism, and Aristotelianism (“the Peripatetics”).
He observes, firstly, that the dogmatists all contradict one another — if Stoicism is right, then Epicureanism must be false; if Epicureanism is right, then Aristotelianism must be wrong, etc. What are we to do when dogmatism contradicts dogmatism?
Sextus then observes that none of these positions is “self-evident”, because all of them requires “going beyond the appearances” by making claims about what is “nonevident”. In order to do make claims about what is nonevident, the dogmatist must always either make a circular argument that assumes what they purport to establish or commit themselves to an infinite regress. On this basis he concludes that it is not reasonable to make claims about reality one way or the other. Instead the Skeptic endeavors to live only according to the appearances, and be guided only by what is immediately evident to the senses.
A nice corollary of Sextus’s arguments is that one cannot be a naturalist and a skeptic, since the naturalist does make positive claims about the nature of reality. Naturalism and theism effectively cancel each other out.
The dialectic between dogmatism and skepticism stretches out across the whole history of philosophy. The re-discovery of Stoicism and Epicureanism during the Renaissance re-activated the ancient quarrels between competing dogmatisms (though with a different political dimension, since by this time Aristotelianism had become, thanks to Aquinas and subsequent theologians, the official doctrine of the Catholic Church, which its entrenched power structure). So the quarrel between competing dogmatisms had a political dimension that it seemed to have lacked in antiquity. The revival of Skepticism, most notably (to my mind) with Montaigne, then leads to renewed efforts to establish dogmatism by refuting Skepticism. (This did not prevent some philosophers from attempting to integrate Christianity and skepticism, as Pierre Gassendi did.)
Descartes was, as we know, the most famous (or infamous) of attempts to refute skepticism. But as was pointed out even then, Descartes’ arguments do not avoid circularity. (I believe it was Antonin Artaud who first made this point in first, in his Objections to the Meditations. Descartes’ Reply is, to put it mildly, not convincing.)
The inconsistencies within Cartesian dogmatism led to multiple and contradicting attempts to repair it: Spinoza, Leibniz, Malebranche, and Berkeley being the attempts that have since made it into the Canon (largely because they were all men). At the same time, Pierre Bayle is collecting the new Skepticism into what amounted to a new version of Outlines of Pyrrhonism for the modern era. Following on the heels of all of them, it fell to Hume in his Treatise on Human Nature to demolish all permutations of modern dogmatism by destroying their basis in Cartesianism.
Since then, the dialectic runs back and forth between competing dogmatisms and between dogmatism and skepticism. Kant was perhaps the first philosopher to even attempt a genuine via media between dogmatism and skepticism, but the fatal problems with Kant’s solution are well-known to most casual students of philosophy.
To this day it remains unclear whether there is a via media between dogmatism and skepticism. Some philosophers, including myself, think that the historical arc of pragmatism that runs from Hegel through Peirce and Dewey to Sellars should be understood as precisely an alternative to both dogmatism and skepticism. Others, of course, are not convinced. And so we have the persistence of both multiple forms of dogmatism — naturalism and theism alike — as well as new forms of skepticism.
Can a naturalist be a skeptic? Is skepticism more reasonable than any competing dogmatism? Is skepticism a viable philosophy as a way of life? Is pragmatism a dialectically stable alternative to dogmatism and to skepticism, or must it collapse into one or the other?
Kantian Naturalist,
It’s Arnauld, I believe. (Antoine)
Absolutely. It’s a very widely held position, actually.
I popped FMM out of “ignore” to say I that I agree with this post. The Carnapian dream of purely syntactic argumentation about this stuff is, well, a dream.
One other thing I wanted to mention was my surprise that FMM didn’t point out Sextus’ dependence on “the given” here (something which keiths does as well).
+1
+1
There are bound to be “prolonged difficulties” when a dogmatist like you either can’t understand objections or won’t admit mistakes or both.
Kantian Naturalist:
Which works as a way of living (rather than as a claim or argument) much of the time, not because of the success of any particular argument for the reliability of the senses or the appearances they divulge, but because the senses – although obviously fallible – possess “good enough” reliability conferred upon them across the history of evolution.
It worked before anyone first reflected on the fact that it works. I guess this could be called the “historically contingent given.”
Yes, you are correct.
I think I see where you’re coming from here. It’s a difficult point to articulate precisely. Put in extremely broad brush-strokes, Sextus Empiricus and Carnap (also, for that matter, Hume and C. I. Lewis) make the same mistake of thinking that one can do epistemology without doing metaphysics. It’s a difficult point to really ground adequately.
One way of doing so, perhaps, is to reflect on the process of language acquisition. (This was Sellars’s strategy.)
The basic idea that Sellars exploits is that the process of acquiring any linguistic system at all — and not committing the mistake that Wittgenstein attributes to Augustine, of pretending that one has a language prior to having a language — requires that oneself actually be an embodied-and-embedded cognitive system is causally interacting with both mind-independent objects to which both oneself and others have cognitive (perceptual and conceptual) access and that is also causally interacting (though not just causally interacting) with other embodied-and-embedded subjects with whom one shares the world.
That is to say: if our conceptual framework is learned and not innate, then we must be committed to a version of transcendental realism that is — however modest — nevertheless incompatible with Pyrrhonian or Humean skeptical empiricism.
Assuming you meant KN and not FMM here . . . 🙂
But yes. And to continue my thought above, this is why, although Sellars’s criticism of the given is usually understood as an attack on the empiricist given — the thought that bare sense-impressions can have epistemic authority — it’s also (and in a somewhat deeper sense) an attack on the rationalist given as well — the thought that one can intuit the structure of the world (as in Aristotle or Kripke) or for that matter the thought that one can immediately intuit the structure of the mind itself (as in Kant or Husserl).
Yes, right. Sorry about that.
The problem here is whether any metaphysics can successfully meet the challenge of the Dilemma of the Criterion. I stated it above but not under that term.
The Dilemma is this: for any judgment, whether true or false, about the nature of ultimate reality, there must be some criterion for how we are to distinguish between truth and falsity. But if the criterion itself is true or false, then we must ground that criterion in some further criterion. In order to establish the truth of the criterion, we are led to either presuppose the truth of the judgments that are authorized by that criterion (circularity) or to posit an infinite series of authority-conferring criteria (regress). But neither the circularity nor the regress can establish the authority of our judgments, which means that none of judgments about reality are rationally warranted.
At any rate, that’s the core argument that Sextus makes in his criticism of dogmatism.
I think the right way of putting the problem here is, “if we cannot even coherently conceive of the real as distinct from the appearances, then what happens to the appearance/reality distinction? Can we even talk about “the appearances” if we cannot also talk about “the real”?”
As far as I can tell, Sextus’ response would be to say, “in distinguishing between the appearances and the real, I’m only using the language of the dogmatists themselves. So when I talk about “the appearances” I’m doing so ironically.”
A non-ironic way of putting the point would be to say that the Skeptic is guided only by way is immediately experienced, and does not introduce any posits that are invoked to explain what is experienced — neither the atoms and void of the Epicureans nor the form/matter of the Aristotelians or the providentially guided pneuma of the Stoics.
The Skeptics, like other schools of Hellenistic thought, were primarily concerned with achieving ataxaria or tranquilitas: liberation from desire. The Skeptical solution to this problem lay in the idea that we live in perpetual anxiety because we yearn to know ultimate truth but we are confronted with too many competing options. Once we realize that we cannot know ultimate truth, then we will cease to be tormented by our ignorance of it. We will no longer be plagued by desires, since what we desire is what is not immediately experienced — if it were, then we would not desire it, since the desire would be immediately satisfied.
Though the Stoics and Epicureans also taught liberation from desire as the final goal of philosophy, in their approaches the goal is attained by understanding the ultimate nature of reality and living based on that understanding. The Skeptics taught liberation from all desire by first overcoming the desire for understanding itself.
I don’t actually see a dilemma there.
Or, to say it differently, the “dilemma” is due to presupposing that truth and logic can settle all questions.
In practice, we choose our criteria pragmatically. And, if we later decide that there were better criteria — well, that’s the basis for a paradigm shift there, as we switch criteria.
Our criteria for dealing with nature are pragmatic. The criteria that we choose are neither true nor false — they are merely useful. Incidentally, that’s why I say that scientific theories are neither true nor false. Our notions of true and false cannot start until we have first pragmatically adopted some suitable criteria by which to make judgments of truth and falsity. Ultimate reality has no nature.
I know I come across as belligerently dismissive, but I simply can’t get excited about the BIG questions. I read about them as a teenager, noted that they seemed unsolvable, and took up other interests.
I don’t see them as unsolvable in the sense that gravity or quantum theory are unfinished and unfinishable. I mean they seem intractible to being defined in ways that are acceptable to everyone.
So when I read through these threads, the first thing I look for is evidence that the various factions agree on what is being talked about.
Yes, of course. But that’s part of my point, too — that Skepticism is the inverse or negative image of ancient Greco-Roman dogmatism, and all those versions of Greco-Roman dogmatism all descend, one way or another, from Parmenides. And Parmenides’s foundational claim, from which all the rest of Western philosophy descends, is being is thought, thought is being. Plato, Democritus, Aristotle, Epicurus, Epictetus — all are riffing on this foundational claim.
And so too are all the philosophers that stem from them: Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas, Descartes, Leibniz, Berkeley, Malebranche, Spinoza — along with all the philosophers who (intentionally or not) reject the pragmatist revolution — including Husserl, Russell, Heidegger, Carnap (depending to how one reads him), Deleuze, Meillassoux, Kripke, David Lewis, and so forth.
When the Skeptics are taking issue with the dogmatists, they are basically saying that the Parmenidean standard cannot be satisfied. And that gives us the whole Skeptical tradition that includes Montaigne, Hume, and (arguably) Nietzsche. To be frank, I’m inclined to say that the whole fiasco that was “postmodernism” was really just post-Nietzschean Skepticism — Derrida, Fish, Latour, Rorty (in some of his moods), Foucault (in some of his moods), and so forth.
The decisive innovation of pragmatism then is precisely to call into question the appropriateness of that standard as a benchmark for evaluating our cognitive practices. Pragmatism, seen in historical context, breaks with the entire tradition of Western philosophy that descends from Parmenides and that has also generated skepticism as its Other.
The further question amongst pragmatists has then been how much realism or naturalism is compatible with pragmatism and how much if any is indeed required.
The pragmatist I have in mind here are — taking that term in the maximally generous construal — Kant (almost but not quite), Hegel (in some important ways yes, other important ways no), Peirce, James, Dewey, Wittgenstein, C. I. Lewis, Quine (in some ways), Sellars, Rorty (sometimes), Dennett, Churchland, and Brandom. I hesitate to say that Merleau-Ponty or the Frankfurt School folks are pragmatists, though they have surely learned some crucial lessons from Hegel and also corrected his excesses.
Among other things, I would say that this three-way debate between dogmatism, skepticism, and pragmatism is of far greater significance than the distinctions between “analytic” and “Continental” philosophy.
And they usually don’t agree. To use a metaphor, they are not even in the same ball park.
KN,
keiths:
walto:
No, that wasn’t it at all.
The initial problem was getting you and KN to understand what Cartesian skepticism actually is. KN kept mistaking it, again and again, for the claim that the senses are not veridical. It isn’t.
Your problem was in conflating it with “Cartesian theaterism”, and then in confusing beliefs with knowledge claims.
When you finally understood what Cartesian skepticism was, you both rejected it, not because you could refute it, but because you were simply emotionally uncomfortable with it. KN even resorted to an argument from consequences, claiming that the acceptance of Cartesian skepticism would have dire results, rather hysterically describing it as “existentially devastating and utterly nihilistic with regard to all thought, meaning, and value.”
To reach your desired conclusion, you simply assumed the veridicality of the senses, without justification, and KN argued for a hopelessly watered-down, non-rigorous standard of justification so that he could at least claim that the assumption was justified. His watered-down standard of justification was woefully inadequate, however, as revealed by the Sentinel Islander thought experiment.
It’s good to see that KN has been thinking about skepticism and that he acknowledges the difficulty of refuting it. I don’t think it can be refuted, and that is why I am still a Cartesian skeptic.
Kantian Naturalist,
Analysis vs intuition. That recommend of yours, Big Gods puts a good case for that. And for why there are no women here.
ETA link
What?????
Page 180:
Women are more intuitive, apparently!
If atheist conventions (which I have not been to) are anything like sci-fi and gaming conventions (which I have been to), I’d suspect that atheist conventions tend to attract men who are emotionally immature. And in fact — this is well-known and well-documented — militant “New Atheism” has a real problem with sexism and sexual harassment.
The idea that men are more analytical and women are intuitive may be soothing the insecure and fragile male ego, but there’s no evidence to it. Someone who aspires to have their beliefs conform the evidence should take note.
Kantian Naturalist,
Apparently there is male/female bias in self-declared atheism. Norenzayan has much more to say on the issue of religiosity and describes several tests where outcomes could be influenced by inducing intuitive or analytical thinking.
I do understand where you’re coming from. Sometimes, when there’s philosophy-bashing here, my professional pride is wounded.
But, I did not major in philosophy as an undergraduate. I majored in science (biology, in fact) in part because the sciences really do make progress and really do uncover about truths about nature. By contrast philosophers do seem to be spinning their wheels more often than not. The caricature of philosophy as ‘mental masturbation’ has some truth to it.
That said, I do think that philosophers can — if they are actually informed about the relevant sciences and have some scientific training — explain why it is that the sciences are so successful and to what extent they really do (and don’t) disclose truths about nature. Philosophers are in a unique position to both explain why the sciences have the epistemic authority that is granted to them and also the limits of that authority, and to help us think through the conflicts between scientific explanations and other kinds of understanding.
keiths,
Well, I guess that’s one interpretation of the history of our debate.
Very little interpretation required. The history speaks for itself.
Anyway, as I said, it’s good to see you acknowledge that refuting skepticism is “much harder than it looks.” It isn’t as simple as watering down your standards of justification. The costs of doing so are too high.
That is the narrative, yes. It is not supported by much more than libelous innuendo from PZ Myers and his ilk.
The only well documented case that I’m aware of is the accusations against Richard Carrier, one of the militant SJWs who used to be part of the Pharyngula Phlock.
If one insists on framing the problem of epistemology in Cartesian terms, then sure, you’ll end up with a position like yours — either yours or FMM’s. But as I see it, the Cartesian starting-point is not only optional but indeed arbitrary.
What you call “watering down standards of justification” is what I call “recognizing that criteria of justification are context-dependent”.
KN,
All that’s required is
a) a recognition that the veridicality of the senses is not a given, and
b) that trying to establish the veridicality of the senses by means of the senses is circular, as you acknowledge above.
Your watered-down standards fail in the case of the Sentinel Islander thought experiment — a sure sign that you overdid the watering.
And I disagree with that.
As I see it, the training and traditions of philosophy preclude any possibility that they can understand why the sciences are successful.
keiths,
The deeper issue is whether “are the senses veridical?” is even the right question to begin with. I don’t assume that the senses are veridical, because “the veridicality of the senses” is not a concept I can make any use of.
Another keiths keeper! Anyone else here adopt positions based on the argument that their position can’t be refuted? Hi, my name is Mung, and I’m a theist because my position can’t be refuted!
But remember, Cartesian Skepticism isn’t about the veridicality of the senses.
I agree with keiths (and likely most people who have written on the issue) that, strictly speaking, skepticism is irrefutable.(Also–keiths, please PM me.)
KN has a problem with skepticism when it goes against academic fads.
Glen Davidson
Agreed. The question is whether skepticism is avoidable.
Insofar as the Skeptical challenge is directed towards dogmatic metaphysics in the Parmenidean tradition (taking that in the broadest possible sense), a genuine alternative to both Skepticism and Dogmatism would involve carefully grounding metaphysics in epistemology (as the Dogmatists failed to do) and also grounding epistemology in metaphysics (as the Skeptics failed to do).
Moved a comment to guano. Please avoid personal insults directed at fellow members.
I quite thoroughly disagree. I think that philosophers of science have actually done a pretty good job of explaining why the sciences are successful! (But, as always, there’s still more work to do!)
The really interesting turn in philosophy of science in the past few years has been a sustained interest in scientific practices, with a specific emphasis on how experimentation involves a co-mingling of theoretical ‘statements’ and causal regularities, such that we can (as John Haugeland puts it) explain the actual in light of the modal.
Those explanations work by disentangling interacting causes (shielding variables, setting up control groups, double-blind studies, running statistical analyses, peer review, etc.) so as to disclose the modal structure of those phenomena of interest to us.
For those who don’t think that philosophers have anything interesting and helpful to say about how scientific explanations work, consider that this might indicate more about the philosophers that one has happened to have read.
Samir Okasha is one philosopher of science who seems to have a useful contribution to make. Here
I assumed you would disagree.
But then the rest of your post pretty much supports the view that I expressed.
Yet they appear to only see the scientific practices that look similar to what philosophers do. The really important scientific practices seem to be completely invisible to philosophers of science.
Perhaps. Which scientific practices do you have in mind?
Alan:
Alan has ‘protected’ all of you from the word ‘doofus’, directed at a fellow commenter, by quarantining it safely in Guano. Seriously.
What would we do without you, Alan?
Someone fetch the smelling salts. We need to have them handy the next time Alan gets the vapors.
Lighten up keiths. Address the post and not the poster.
We don’t need that kind of ‘protection’, petrushka.
Alan has protected the integrity of the site. If I were a mod this comment of yours would go into Guano too, because the rules are to take moderation issues up in Moderation Issues.
Sure, if he lets you get away with “doofus” next you’ll be calling people idiots. Or claiming they are lying or dishonest. Oh, wait…
If you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime. And then cry about it.
ETA: I don’t think I ever saw hotshoe_ whine that one of her posts got sent to Guano.
Is there anyone who doesn’t bust out laughing when Mung, of all people, preaches about “protecting the integrity of this site”?
I know I do!
I’m not sure that there’s a good name for the low level practices. But what it amounts to a systematic program to solve the intentionality problem. And I see that as the core of why science works so well.
That’s the beginning of an interesting answer!
But I’m afraid I’ll need you to be much more specific and detailed if I’m to engage with you on this specific point
She was the best of us. I miss her all the time. And I mean that sincerely.
KN, I don’t think I’d say she was the best of us, but I miss her too. I doubt she’ll ever be back. Sadly.
I thought she had left around this time last year which is why I’d been bringing her up recently, but it appears that it was later in the year last year.
KN,
Are you kidding? Even if your ‘us’ refers to just two people — you and hotshoe — she wasn’t the best.
Yeah, keiths is the best of us. Obviously. =P
I loved the hypocritical tantrum that hotshoe threw right before flouncing. She had written this:
I gave her a taste of her own medicine:
She immediately went crying to the moderators, complaining that my comment wasn’t guanoed. (Hers wasn’t either, of course.)
If ever there was someone who could dish it out but not take it, it was hotshoe.
Hotshoe was “the best of us”? KN, you display the worst judgment sometimes.