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Philosophical scepticism

Overview

Philosophical scepticism is the family of positions holding that knowledge, or certain knowledge, is unavailable in some or all domains. It runs from the ancient Pyrrhonists, who suspended judgement on everything and claimed to find peace in doing so, through the Academic sceptics, who argued that nothing can be known but that some beliefs are more reasonable than others, to the modern thought experiments (Evil demon, Brain in a vat, Simulation hypothesis) that ask how anyone could rule out a systematically deceptive world.

It is distinct from everyday scepticism in the sense of demanding evidence before belief. The scientific sceptic doubts particular claims because the evidence is poor; the philosophical sceptic doubts the possibility of evidence settling anything at all.

Notes

  • The strongest form, global scepticism, is close to Solipsism and shares its fate: it cannot be refuted and cannot be used. It makes no predictions and forbids nothing.
  • The Münchhausen trilemma is the sceptic's best weapon. Every justification ends in an unsupported assumption, a circle, or an infinite regress, so no belief is justified "all the way down". I accept this and conclude that justification is not that kind of thing (see Foundationalism and Fallibilism).
  • My own position is a tamed scepticism. Certainty is not available about anything, and I do not pretend otherwise; but Knowledge, understood as models built to minimise surprise, does not require certainty. The sceptic is right about the foundations and wrong to think that matters for the building.
  • The practical self-refutation is the same as for solipsism: the sincere global sceptic has no reason to argue, since argument presupposes that reasons can move belief. Sceptical arguments are useful as reminders of fallibility, not as a place to live.
  • Presuppositionalist apologists (Presuppositionalism) try to turn the sceptical regress into an argument for God: only a divine guarantor stops it. This does not stop it either; it merely adds a step that itself needs justifying. See the Transcendental Argument.

Also see