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?
KN,
Yet just a few days ago, you wrote:
By those criteria, the Islander does possess true beliefs about LaLa Land. Have you changed your mind again within the last week??
KN,
Look at my car key example again:
In that example, the perception is the basis for the assertion, and the assertion is true by your criteria. So the senses did indeed “disclose a truth about the world”, by your own standards.
Glen,
It’s another of those cases in which Christians fight against an obvious and straightforward interpretation of the evidence simply because it doesn’t lead to their desired conclusion.
I would describe the case differently.
I would say that the assertion is warranted based on a coordination between what is perceptually present and absent to the agent, what the agent knows about herself and about the conditions that are perceptually present and absent to her, and what the agent takes to be relevant considerations for assessing what is perceptually and absent to her. So there’s a good of background or tacit knowledge that is at work in her ability to judge whether “the keys are on the table” is a warranted assertion in this situation. Taking the senses as disclosing truths about the world involves the whole conceptual framework that is implicitly operating here. In the absence of that framework, I don’t see how the senses by themselves can tell us anything that is true (or false).
On that basis, I don’t think we should assimilate judging to perceiving; what we judge can be in response to what we perceive, but perceiving is not itself a species of judgment. And if only judgments can be true or false (assuming bivalence for natural language), then perceptions are not themselves true or false. Hence we shouldn’t say that sensorimotor abilities are themselves veridical (or non-veridical).
I’m not sure how keiths knows* for a fact that the keys are real and are on the table. Is it that he’s not wearing goggles?
Can’t wait to see how keiths will change his views after reading The Illusion of Doubt.
KN,
If I had known that you would be hairsplitting about what it means to “sense” vs “perceive” vs “judge” that the keys are on the table, then I never would have accepted the loose language of your claim:
All the hairsplitting just obscures a simple and obvious fact: Regardless of where you draw the lines between sensing and perceiving and judging, the end result — the assignment of a truth value to the proposition “the keys are on the table” — depends on the information delivered by the senses — in this case vision.
Betty looks, sees the keys on the table, and says “Yes, that proposition is true. The keys are on the table.” A blind man standing in the same spot, with his head oriented in the same direction, does not see anything and is unable to assign a truth value to the proposition.
The difference, obviously, is in the information that Betty receives through her sense of vision. Accurate information is necessary for accurate sensing/perceiving/judging.
In the example, Betty is tacitly assuming the accuracy of this information. In fact, we can’t know that the information delivered by our senses is accurate. Hence Cartesian skepticism.
KN,
No response to this or this?
Are we just assuming the keys on the table are real? Maybe Betty is perceiving a hologram.
Mung,
Did you miss this?
We can observe things that we then judge to be false. They are called hallucinations, mirages, etc. There is a clear distinction between judgement and sensory information. I don’t think that’s a quibble; I think that’s a fairly important point.
No response, because those cases are irrelevant to the point I was making about the prosentential theory of truth.
And all of our discussions around this have illustrated is that the so-called “Cartesian skepticism” is a useless theory, one that cannot make any difference to any cognitive project that a human being can undertake. Since it can make no difference to practice, it makes no difference to philosophy. It’s pointless, and so is trying to talk with you about it.
It is a nice illustration of how skepticism about the external world relies on dogmatism about the senses, so thanks for that.
What is inaccurate information? Information that leads one astray?
I don’t see how keiths can answer this question one way or the other without insisting on the Cartesian dogma that we can distinguish between “what is given to us in experience” and “what the world is really like in itself”. Keiths just thinks that this distinction is “self-evident.” I think it’s just a dogma, a piece of pseudo-philosophical mythology.
One gets skepticism about the external world only if one treats the senses and/or cognition as an instrument that mediates between oneself and the world. But the skeptic never calls into question that picture of cognition itself. One has to be a dogmatist about cognition in order to be a skeptic about the world. “Cartesian skepticism” is half-hearted and half-baked.
(This is, by the way, just the argument that Hegel gives in the Phenomenology of Spirit for the philosophical profundity of ancient or Pyrrhonian skepticism over modern or Cartesian skepticism.)
If one assumes skepticism, is it any wonder that one would be a skeptic?
It appears to me that keiths is making the argument that if we assume that what we perceive is factual/veridical then it is true that the keys are on the table. But to me that begs the question of whether the keys really are on the table, and if they are, how could we ever know it. And if we don’t know it, how can we say it is true?
All Betty has is an experience of something that appears to be like a set of keys, something that appears to be like a table.
The real problem here is that it’s just a piece of Cartesian dogmatism that there’s an intelligible distinction to be drawn between the world as we experience it and the world as it really is, such that skepticism about the external world could arise.
That we do make that distinction in specific contexts, when problems in inquiry require us to make it, is not objectionable. But to inflate that into the basis for an entire metaphysics is just Cartesian dogma, not genuine skepticism.
In my view, “the world as it really is” has no actual meaning.
I’m with Neil on this one. What underlies the concept that what we sense and perceive isn’t all there is?
Do you mean why do people post on blogs thinking that others will all sense and perceive the same thing that was written? Do things not being sensed or perceived simply cease to exist?
I’m inclined to agree, truth be told. However, I think it must be pointed out that if “the world as it really is” has no meaning, then neither does “the world as we experience it”. The very distinction between subjective appearances and objective reality collapses. And once that disappears, then it ceases to make sense to pose the kinds of questions that keiths insists are necessary for philosophical reflection.
I aim to dispense with the very idea of a demarcation between subjective appearances that is immediately knowable by introspection and objective reality that is either unknowable or knowable only through inference or postulation. That is, I want to reject the whole modern epistemological tradition that runs through Descartes to Locke, Berkeley, and even Kant — and which was restored in the 20th century by Russell et al. in their head-long rush away from British Idealism. Heidegger, in his own way and deeply problematic way, thinks that there is something ontologically distinct about us, because we’re the kinds of being that can ask about the meaning of Being.
The closest that a good question can get to the kinds of bad questions posed by the Cartesian-Kantian tradition would be, “under what conditions can an embodied/embedded cognitive agent question the adequacy of its own perceptual engagement with and purposive responsiveness to its surroundings?”
And the answer would then be, “when it can use a semantically rich recursive syntax to express and understand the similarities and differences between its own perceptual engagement with and purposive responsiveness to its surroundings with the perceptual engagement with and purposive responsiveness to those same surroundings by other beings recognizable to it as sufficiently similar embodied/embedded cognitive agents”.
In short, something like what Davidson called “triangulation” is the answer to the kinds of questions that used to be asked within the Cartesian-Kantian tradition.
Apart from that Davidsonian response to the epistemological question (once rephrased within Gibsonian terms), there’s nothing else to say that actually makes a difference within any real project of inquiry. The Cartesian/Kantian worries are simply idle.
The meaning of my question requires the reader perceive a few of the previous comments. In particular, the discussion concerning “the keys are on the table”.
That’s actually a point underlying my question. I don’t find any reason to think things cease to exist if I’m not there to perceive them, but clearly it’s a possibility for those who hold that what they perceive could be different from “what the world really is.”
I mostly agree with that.
I agree if we are talking about the distinction that keiths wants to make.
However, I think we can still understand “objective” in terms of agreement between subjects (or members of a community). But that’s very different from the traditional view of “objective”
Looked at in this way, science is not the discovery of the objective world. Rather, it is the extending of intersubjective agreement to cover more of our world.
I tend to classify knowledge as rules of thumb — which get us through the day without a lot of thinking — and operationally defined generalizations, which can be precise and widely agreed upon.
I would put it slightly differently: intersubjective agreement does not constitute objectivity, but it is a reliable criterion of objectivity.
An individual cognitive agent is, as it were, “locked inside” its perspective. It cannot even pose to itself the question as to whether or not it is occupying a perspective, since it cannot take the meta-stance in order to “see” its own perspectivism.
Only critters with language can compare and contrast their own perspectives with those of other critters, and in that way become aware of themselves as having a perspective at all. For each critter, its own ability to distinguish between what features of its perceptual Gestalt are constituted by own sensorimotor abilities and what features are constituted by objectively real patterns is an ability mediated by ongoing interactions with other critters. In the absence of those iterated social interactions, the most an animal can do is correlate the similarities and differences between exteroceptive and proprioceptive information (movement-related perceptual changes and non-movement-related perceptual changes).
The more different embodied/embedded perspectives one is able to incorporate into one’s evolving world-model, the more adequate one’s model will be of the underlying objectively real patterns. This vindicates a kind of ‘convergent realism’ a la Peirce, though much less grandiose than his.
keiths presents quite the conundrum. A physicalist who can’t know that anything physical really exists.
Now this is funny. Mung falls into Cartesian skepticism without even realizing it:
On the contrary, my silly skeptic, you’ve merely had an experience as of there being a case of me falling into Cartesian skepticism in front of you.
Mung:
I addressed that earlier in the thread, though in terms of naturalism rather than physicalism:
The same argument applies when you substitute ‘physicalism’ for ‘naturalism’.
Mung,
Are you prepared to call yourself a Cartesian skeptic, now that you’ve embraced Cartesian skepticism? 🙂
Does it mean meeting more chicks?
I took that to be intended as a parody of your skepticism.
Neil,
No, he meant it. You can tell from the context.
keiths:
Mung:
In your case? No.
keiths:
KN:
In those two comments, I was criticizing statements that you made. Do you stand by your statements, or do you agree with my criticisms?
If the former, where precisely do you think my criticisms went wrong?
You think that to investigate a question like “What empirical claims can we legitimately make about the world, if any?” is not a “cognitive project”??
Epistemology is philosophy, KN, and skeptical questions are central to epistemology, whether you like it or not.
keiths:
walto:
In terms of the example of the keys, the information is accurate if
1) it leads to the perception that the keys are on the table, when
2) it is true that the keys are on the table; or
3) it leads to the perception that the keys are not on the table, when
4) it is true that the keys are not on the table.
Note that this works whether you are using a “correspondence”-type definition of “true” or a more KN-like definition.
KN,
Yet I know you used to accept the existence of illusions. Is this another enormous philosophical change you forgot to tell us about?
No, that’s not a cognitive project. It is a philosophical project, with about the same importance as “how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?”
I assume that KN still accepts the possibility of illusions. I have not seen him say anything that would suggest otherwise. Note that I quite deliberately used “possibility” rather then “existence” because I’m not sure that it even makes sense to talk of the existence of illusions.
Indeed.
No, but I do think it’s funny how quickly and easily you abandon your Cartesian Skepticism when you need to score points against KN.
A Cartesian Skeptic arguing for the correspondence theory of truth?
Epistemology is a branch of philosophy, but its importance is contentious. Likewise the importance of skepticism for epistemology is contentious. See for example recent work by Michael Williams, Duncan Pritchard, and Ken Westphal.
If it were true that epistemology were central to philosophy, and if epistemology were an autonomous discipline — as if one could engage in epistemology without also doing metaphysics and political philosophy at the same time — and if skepticism were truly central to epistemology, and not just a Cartesian innovation that he invents because he’s trying to respond to Montaigne’s revival of skepticism and also reconcile mechanistic physics with the teachings of the Catholic Church, then you might be right.
But in fact, Descartes’s preoccupation with vindicating the veridicality of the senses is wholly internal to his overall project of reconciling mechanistic physics with Catholic doctrine. If you don’t care about holding onto Catholic doctrine, then just go with a completely mechanistic metaphysics like Spinoza’s, and the problem of skepticism disappears.
You want to be a Cartesian about epistemology and a Spinozist about metaphysics. That’s really weird. Why not just be a Spinozist about epistemology, too? If you don’t want to read Spinoza (and who does, really?), then read Dennett. I got his new book in the mail yesterday.
In other news: I’m not happy with “exists” in terms of illusions, but sure — if holes and shadows and reflections and dreams all “exist”, then so do illusions. I don’t see how the existence of illusions requires one to make the distinction between subjective appearance and objective reality the basis of one’s epistemology/metaphysics. I can see how, if one already had that framework in place, the ability to explain illusions in terms of that framework is nice. But the very fact that we are sometimes prone to illusions and hallucinations is insufficient to justify that framework itself.
(Nor did Descartes think it was — in fact, a careful reading of the opening pages of Meditation 1 reveals that what really motivates Cartesian anxiety about the senses is a much deeper anxiety about his own sanity.)
He’s not being inconsistent — his acceptance of the correspondence theory of truth is a required premise for his claim that it makes sense to ask if the senses are “veridical” or not. His “Cartesian skepticism” is that we’re never entitled to assert that the senses are veridical, since there’s no non-circular argument justifying that assertion.
My objection has been two-fold: firstly, that sensorimotor abilities don’t function like assertions, so it makes no sense to say that “the senses” are or aren’t “veridical”, and secondly, that on a deflationary treatment of truth — whether prosentential or otherwise — we don’t need to make truth into some really heavy-hitting metaphysical relation between mind and world (veritas est adaequatio rei et intellectus). Keiths thinks that the correspondence theory of truth is built into our ordinary language. I don’t think that’s true. I think that the correspondence theory of truth is an explanation of ordinary language, but it’s just one competing explanation among many, and one that raises a good many problems.
So while there might indeed be good reasons to be dissatisfied with a wholly semantic treatment of truth, esp in the age of “post-truth”, the weaponized lie, I still think that the traditional metaphysics underpinning the correspondence theory of truth are also really problematic (esp. for atheists).
Mung,
When have you seen me abandoning it in order to “score points” against KN? Links or quotes, please.
Sure. What’s the problem?
After screwing up and inadvertently embracing Cartesian skepticism, Mung is now trying to backpedal, claiming (after Neil) that it was only a “parody”.
As I said, the context shows otherwise.
This, for example:
This kind of screwup shouldn’t surprise anyone. Grabbing the ball and running into the wrong end zone is classic Mung.
KN:
keiths:
Neil:
Read what he wrote above.
How could you tell that something was an illusion — an erroneous perception — if you didn’t have a correct standard against which to compare it?
This isn’t a subtle point. At all.
knows* and goggles should have given it away, I would think.
Exactly! Now that’s how to make an anti-skeptical argument.
KN,
Whether you can find someone who argues that epistemology isn’t important isn’t the issue. Ditto for skepticism.
Your claim was:
That’s obviously false. Philosophy is what philosophers do. Epistemology does make a difference to what philosophers do, and skepticism does make a difference to what epistemologists do.
I don’t understand why you blurt these things out when you could simply pause, reflect, and save yourself some embarrassment.
KN,
I addressed that already:
Do you actually deny that Betty’s vision delivers the information that forms the basis of her assertion that the keys are on the table? And that the blind man’s defective vision fails to deliver that information?
KN,
Who said anything about making it “the basis of one’s epistemology/metaphysics”? My point is that the existence of illusions depends on the distinction.
I explained this to Neil above, in response to this statement of yours:
To accept that there can be illusions is to accept that experience can differ from reality. If there were no distinction between sensory experience and reality, there could be no illusions. Experience would always be veridical, by definition.
The Müller-Lyer illusion illustrates the point. We perceive the lines as being of different lengths, but careful measurements show that the lengths are the same. The perception is deemed illusory, and the careful measurements are taken to reflect reality. If there were no distinction, there could be no illusion.
Again, this is not a subtle point. It’s obvious.
KN,
No, I think that the idea at the heart of the correspondence theory of truth — that a proposition is true if it corresponds to the actual state of affairs — is highly intuitive. I explained this in the following comment, which you keep refusing to address for some reason: