A Sceptics' world

"We need proof that the proof is reliable. And so on ad infinitum."

Any given person at any given time may say they're sceptical of any given thing, beit a presidential candidate, a new neighbor, a movie with shaky reviews, one social networking website over another, or even a new brand of detergent never previously used, but when it comes to the actual definition of a Sceptic and the roots of it's origin, I've personally come to realize that to live a true Sceptic's life you would be disliked by all, but your Sceptic friends and be placed in endless self-inflicted loops of existential break downs brought on by the canon of Scepticism.

In its creation and ideal state, a Sceptic followed a specific doctrine about our cognition and knowledge and also about the way to live; A Sceptic was someone who examined things very carefully.

The first philosopher-Sceptic who troubled himself to write anything down (around the 2nd century AD) was a man by the name of Sextus Empiricus, although the school of Scepticism existed centuries before him. The founder of Scepticism was a Philosopher by the name of Pyrrho of Elis. He was so important to the school of Scepticism that people would often speak of "Pyrrhonism" as apposed to "Scepticism." I digress. In Sextus' writings there are myriads of arguments against our perception of reality. We are challenged to acknowledge that what we think we know beyond a shadow of a doubt is uncertain at best. Reason being, our perception of the world and all things in it is based on our senses and our senses, according to Sextus, do not penetrate to reality. For example, both animals and humans perceive the world through the given senses but what makes what we perceive over the animals "more" right then what they perceive over us. Another example he uses is honey. Honey certainly appears sweet to us but there is no proof that honey is sweet inherently by itself. At risk of sounding too "heady," A true Sceptic believes that perception of reality is based on various external traits that differ from person to person such as age, sickness, and so on; the things we see and experience are based on the stimulus of our senses, only.

Scepticism, of course, can be applied to metaphysical and theological claims as well; now I won't go into this too deeply, respecting the risk of offending anyone and/or their religious beliefs if applicable. In fact, I will leave it up to a legitimate author. Here is a passage from a book I'm reading, Why is there something rather than nothing? 23 questions from great philosophers by Leszek Kolakowski; "In order to be convinced of the truth of an opinion or belief, we must have the signs with the help of which we can tell if something is true or false; in other words, we need a criterion of truth. But how can we tell if a given criterion is reliable? In order to be able to assess its reliability, we must have another criterion according to which we might judge it. And so on ad infinitum. Thus there is no criterion of truth; there are no signs that could tell us what is true and what is false. Similarly, in order to be convinced by a proof, we need proof that the proof is reliable. And so on ad infitum."

There are so many other things that Sextus talked about in his life time. I will not bore you with all of them and let you look him up yourself.

I've always enjoyed philosophy and reading about the great minds who have shaped the thought process of the modern world. I hope you can enjoy this chip of the ice berg.



you're beautiful.




-joe