To Unknow Our Knowing
by reichorn
Aphorism of the Day:
“When… one remembers that the most striking practical application to life of the doctrine of objective certitude has been the conscientious labors of the Holy Office of the Inquisition, one feels less tempted than ever to lend the doctrine a respectful ear.”
– William James, The Will to Believe
——————————————————-
This is my second post as a guest-blogger here at the TPB. It’s a follow-up to my first post, To Know Our Unknowing, and it attempts to round out the brief sketch of (certain elements of) Pyrrhonian skepticism I began there.
About me: My name is Roger Eichorn. I’m a friend of Scott’s, an aspiring fantasy novelist, and a Ph.D. student in philosophy at the University of Chicago.
My previous post ended with the self-defeating conclusion that, as far as we know, we don’t know that we know anything (with the correlate that, insofar as we’re constrained by rational norms, we’re constrained to abjure knowledge-claims). This conclusion was reached a priori: by attempting to think our thought, reflect on our reflection, know our knowing.
For as long as there have been skeptical arguments of this sort, there have been two stock counter-arguments: the peritropē, or self-refutation, argument; and the apraxia, or impracticability, argument. Sextus Empiricus, the only ancient Pyrrhonian whose texts (or some of them, anyway) have come down to us, was perfectly aware of these objections; he argued that they are only effective against an incomplete or distorted understanding of Pyrrhonism. The short version is that Sextus concedes self-refutation, but denies that it constitutes a counter-argument against Pyrrhonism (indeed, the self-refutatory character of skeptical arguments is central to his use of them), but he outright rejects impracticability arguments. Pyrrhonism is not (or at least is not merely) a philosophy; it is an agōgē, a way of life. Sextus characterizes the Pyrrhonian agōgē in terms of living adoxastōs, meaning without opinions or beliefs. In this post, I want to suggest a way of understanding what it means to live adoxastōs.
As I said, Sextus embraces the self-refutatory character of his arguments. He likens them to purgative drugs, which drain themselves away along with the humors they were administered to treat, or to a ladder one kicks away after having climbed up over it (an image appropriated, though probably at second- or third-hand, by both Nietzsche and Wittgenstein). Those who charge Pyrrhonism with self-refutation think that it falls into a dilemma: either the skeptic accepts her own arguments, which (given their self-refutatory character) is logically impossible, or the skeptic doesn’t accept her own arguments, in which case she must also reject (or at least not endorse) their conclusions. But the self-refutation charge overlooks two crucial features of the Pyrrhonian strategy: first, that charging the skeptic with self-refutation amounts to charging philosophico-rational thought as such with self-refutation; and second, that the target of Pyrrhonian arguments at their most general is not any particular content of philosophico-rational thought, but rather the very framework of such thought.
Classical Pyrrhonians argued ad hominem, not in the sense of the logical fallacy of that name, but in the sense that their dialectical strategy necessitates the exclusive utilization of the beliefs, convictions, and assumptions of their interlocutors. In other words, they construct their arguments on the basis of what other people hold to be true. In demonstrating to A the rational groundlessness of his belief x, Pyrrhonians draw exclusively from premises and inferential rules that are themselves accepted by A and that lead to the conclusion that A does not after all know x. At their most abstract, then, Pyrrhonian arguments depend only on our most abstract rational commitments. The Five Agrippan Modes (discussed in my previous post) are merely a handy formulation by skeptics of the rational commitments of non-skeptics (‘dogmatists,’ in Sextus’s sense). For those who accept their constraints, the Five Modes constitute part of the framework of any search for the truth. This is borne out by the fact that the vast majority of epistemological theorizing operates within the assumptions of the Five Modes, that is, such theorizing attempts to formulate a solution to the Agrippan challenge, rather than rejecting that challenge.
Thus, the self-refutatory character of skepticism demonstrates the self-refutatory character of all philosophizing done under the aegis of the rational commitments that give rise to the skeptical conclusion. The proponent of the self-refutation response to skepticism wants to say, in effect, “If the skeptic is right, then the skeptic is wrong.” But what the skeptical arguments in fact show is that if the skeptical arguments are right, then the dogmatists are wrong, for it is they who hold self-refuting rational commitments. At their most abstract, these commitments constitute the very framework of philosophico-rational thought itself.
Seen in this light, skepticism is simply philosophico-rational thought coming to an awareness of its own rational groundlessness.
But Pyrrhonism doesn’t stop there, for the conclusion that philosophico-rational thought is rationally ungrounded is itself rationally ungrounded. In other words, for Pyrrhonians, the skeptical conclusion is just one more thing to be skeptical about. If it has any force, it is only as a hypothetical: if x, then y, where ‘x’ is the framework of rationality as we understand it and ‘y’ is the skeptical conclusion (which, of course, wraps back around and consumes ‘x’). Pyrrhonians are willing to accept that philosophico-rational thought may not in fact be rationally ungrounded; they claim merely that, given these apparently unavoidable rational commitments—commitments without which it seems impossible that there could be any such thing as a search for truth—it seems that our justifications fail, that our thinking turns back on itself, like a mother consuming her offspring, that our knowing drops out of the picture.
Where does this leave Pyrrhonians? It leaves them not as some brand of philosophical skeptic, but rather as skeptics about philosophy.
Throughout its history, philosophy has displayed a tendency toward stunning arrogance and pretentiousness, which in turns has tended to give rise to condescension with respect to what I’ll call ‘common life.’ By ‘common life,’ I mean—simply but roughly—ordinary life as lived by ordinary people. From the rarefied heights of philosophical sagehood, common life seems a paltry, precarious, self-deluded thing. Common life is life bound in Plato’s Cave, seeing naught by shadows (appearances), whereas the Philosopher is the Great Man who has thrown off his shackles, escaped the cave, and beheld the Sun (reality).
Pyrrhonians reject the pretensions of a philosophy that would arrogate to itself the right, to say nothing of the ability, to sit in judgment over common life as such. They live according to appearances—without the baggage of a philosophically loaded notion of ‘reality’ undermining it. To Pyrrhonians, common life (that is, the appearances) is a sort of pragmatic-transcendental framework, an immanent, ground-level framework that comes into view only upon the collapse of the illusory philosophico-rational framework built atop it. Common life is ‘pragmatic’ in the sense that it seems as though the appearances (the ways in which the world shows up for us, in all its phenomenological richness) arise from our social practices; it is ‘transcendental’ in the sense that the appearances seem at the same time to underlie or make possible our social practices.
(Consider: the framework-claim that the world did not pop into existence in the year 1900 both arises from various of our practices—in the sense that if we did not have such practices then the claim would not belong to the framework of common life—and constitutes those practices, since doubting it would render impossible, or at least deeply problematize, those practices.)
Throughout his texts, Sextus claims to champion ‘common life’ over the ‘conceit and rashness of the dogmatists.’ But he is also clear that Pyrrhonians differ importantly from those who have not undergone the skeptical therapy. He marks this difference by telling us that, unlike dogmatists and pre-reflective ‘ordinary people’ alike, mature Pyrrhonians live adoxastōs, without beliefs or opinions. What does this mean? I want to suggest that it represents a sort of proto-contextualism.
In my previous post, I mentioned a few schools of epistemological thought, namely, foundationalism and coherentism, internalism and externalism. Contextualism is another. It comes in a variety of forms, but roughly, contextualists hold that the truth or justification of a claim is determined or constrained by various contextual factors. David Lewis, for instance, (in)famously argued that ‘conversational contexts’ are defined by rules, the last of which he calls the Rule of Attention, which holds that any possibility that is in fact entered into a conversation is thereby not properly ignorable, even if the possibility (such as, e.g., that we are all living in the Matrix) was properly ignorable prior to the possibility being raised. What this means is that we might know all sorts of things one moment, then in the next moment—after the unanswerable Matrix possibility is raised—no longer know anything. On this view, philosophy is actually in the business of, as Lewis puts it, ‘destroying knowledge.’ To philosophize, in other words, is to unknow our ordinary knowing.
The obvious problem with this sort of contextualism is that it seems to sever the link between knowledge and truth, focusing instead on assertability conditions (which amount to answering the question, “When do we consider it okay to claim to know x?”, as opposed to answering the question, “When are we justified in claiming to know x?”). The Pyrrhonian’s contextualism is different. It accepts the variability of assertability conditions, namely, that common life introduces uses of ‘to know’ that fail to satisfy the philosophical constraints on justification. In an everyday sense, then, Pyrrhonians think they know all sorts of things, the same as anyone else. But, unlike a contextualist such as Lewis, Pyrrhonians will maintain that this sort of knowing is, as Thompson Clarke put it in an influential paper, knowing in a manner of speaking only. As a human being in the world, thrust into a family, a culture, an environment, Pyrrhonians will believe all sorts of things—in an everyday way. And, in an everyday way, they will claim to know all sorts of things. But they will not mistake the degree of their doxastic commitment to x for the degree of x’s objective justification. They will not believe that their everyday beliefs are justified—except with reference to the presuppositions (the brute assumptions) that frame their communal epistemic practices. Like their ‘knowledge,’ the Pyrrhonians’ ‘justifications’ have a merely local force, as do (by their lights) everyone else’s—though non-Pyrrhonians are by and large too stubborn or conceited to admit as much.
Pyrrhonians, in other words, will live adoxastōs—free of the second-order belief that their first-order beliefs are (ultimately) justified.
This might sound like a trivial accomplishment, but I don’t think it is. The desire—the felt need—for objective justification is what leads people to claim to possess it (or at least to act as though they possess it), and I would argue that it is this myopic privileging of one’s own prejudices—the baseless elevation of the parochial to the universal—that has underwritten history’s greatest atrocities and that continually threatens to give rise to any number of fresh horrors.
To unknow our knowing, in the Pyrrhonian sense, is not to rob us of our everyday certainties, to deprive us of something substantial we previously possessed. Rather, it is to adopt a particular attitude toward ourselves, one that opens up a critical distance between what we believe to be true (often what we cannot help but believe to be true) and what we believe we know, a critical distance that allows us to live on the basis of an understanding of ourselves as reflective beings caught in a whirlwind of culture and biology, as consciousnesses at least partly shaped by forces whose power and scope we neither fully understand nor fully control.
Three Pound Brain 
Several decades back Edward deBono suggested that we operate according to “proto-truths”. By this he meant that we needed to base our actions on something even if that something was not 100% true for all times and conditions. He suggested that “proto-truths” should always be held as falsifiable and should give way to new “proto-truths” as new evidence was revealed that challenged previous understandings.
I think you have nicely made the case that awareness of the provisional nature of any conclusions we might hold to be true is the difference that makes all the difference. Mistaking unexamined (common) opinions for objective facts is, in my considered opinion, the chief cause of conflict in the world.
Living adoxastōs would seem to offer a powerful antidote to what ails our species.
Well said, sir!
It is, unfortunately, easier to say, “I suspend judgement” with regard to some things than with others.
For instance, I suspend judgement as to whether qualia are a valid phenomenological category, but can I suspend judgement with regard to normative ethical claims like, “equal protection under the law” (or any normative claim like, “one should suspend judgement”)? This is most acute when the possibility arises that someone with a naive commitment to their own ethics and with whom I disagree could be put in a position of power–either direct or indirect–over me and my affairs.
The nature of politics makes it disadvantageous to opt out of them. The nature of human beings makes it impossible (?) to participate in politics without a dogmatic stance. Whatever we “should” or “should not” do, this seems to be what we actually do.
The details are subtle here, and misunderstanding is easy.
On my view, what does ‘suspension of judgment’ come down to? First, a hypothetical directed at dogmatists: if you are committed to x (various beliefs, including rational commitments), then (by your own lights) you ought to suspend judgment. But this kind of epoche is simply part of the Pyrrhonian’s skeptical dialectic. The mature Pyrrhonian’s suspension of judgment is at second-order. Not only will a Pyrrhonian say things like, “People should have equal rights under the law,” or “No, they shouldn’t,” he will _believe_ these things, even believe that these things are true.
Often, as I say in the post, we have no choice in what we believe or don’t believe. The question is: must we, as it were, believe what we believe? Now, this might look like a silly question, but it means: must we hold a belief at second-order in order to hold that same belief at first-order? (Must we believe-to-be-true everything we believe?) What the Pyrrhonian wants to claim is that no, we don’t. This doesn’t mean we don’t believe things. We all believe things. We can’t help it. But ‘dogmatism,’ on this view, amounts to a second-order belief according to which our first-order beliefs are objectively justified. It is this, I’m arguing, that is not necessary, in politics or ethics or any other sphere of human life.
Well, try persuading an audience that “equal protection under the law” is an important belief without justifying it. It may be possible, but when one has an opponent who is making arguments based on justification it becomes much easier (and I would argue, more effective) to play the same game than to question the rules of the game, because the rules of the game (second order justification of first order beliefs) are so central to so many areas of an average person’s mental life, both outside and within politics.
Of course, none of this need be conscious, and usually is not. We argue the way that we do because it works. These are tactics that came from somewhere, and even more, I think that buying into the game makes one a more successful player of the game than someone who questions the need for second order beliefs. So, in effect, however appropriate skepticism may be, it is a losing strategy practically. *It must be*, as demonstrated by the fact that politics (or really any other area of society) is not dominated by an attitude of pyrrhonian skepticism, however ancient its pedigree.
Leaving all that aside, I find it impossible to practice. Maybe I am a below-average specimen, but there it is.
Pyrrhonian skeptics will go about ‘justifying’ their beliefs — the same as anyone else does: namely, with reference to the presuppositions of their communal justificatory practices. But at the same time, they recognize these practices for what they are: communal justificatory practices lacking any ultimate rational ground.
Most of the time, two people who are debating some point agree on a whole lot of other things. The ability to successfully engage in (locally) ‘rational’ justificatory practices only collapses when confronted with a person who rejects the presuppositions that frame the justificatory practices you accept. In such cases, though, no one can make headway (at least not rationally), whether they’re Pyrrhonians or the most hidebound dogmatists.
I don’t see any reason to think that a Pyrrhonian skeptic’s attitude will make him a less effective player of the game for giving and asking for reasons. Quite the opposite, it seems to me, since the Pyrrhonian is likely to be more limber, with a clearer sense of the actual rules of the game. The ancient skeptics were renowned for being extraordinarily effective debaters.
The fact that Pyrrhonism has not come to dominate the world does not demonstrate that it’s a ‘losing strategy’ in the sense you seem to have in mind. Rather, the difficulty is that people are natural-born dogmatists. This is what makes the Pyrrhonian way of life such an important achievement.
From my own admittedly brief study of Chinese Warring States philosophy, I’m inclined to think that regardless of the rigor of your contextualization argument, other philosophers can easily make you sound like an idjit for using a specialized language of philosophy. For example, the famous Mohist logician dialogue on the paradox of attributes, “a white horse is not a horse,” was roundly mocked both by contemporary skeptics like Zuangzi2 and the more traditional schools2. And all this was happening while “ordinary people” were getting trampelled by warlord armies run amok.
At least the first Emperor of China who united the land was a philosophy buff, and formally adopted the tenants of a school, except it was this one. Once in power, he also engaged in an extended heated dialogue with the other schools. So, you know, a whole lot of good those enlightened philosophers did during a time when they actually commanded the ears of kings.
Regardless of how admirable Pyrrhonian thought may be, how would you go about convincing others of it without ending up sounding like a noxious blend of annoying and crazy to the already ideologically committed?
–
1. It’s well and good to use a horse to prove a horse is not a horse, but it’s even better to use non-horse to prove a horse is not a horse. If no attribute is an attribute then all attributes are the same. Everything is a horse. Que Enormous Derpface.
2. The logicians were such slippery tongued bastards that they could talk their way out of paying taxes for moving their white horses across the border.
Pyrrhonians argue ad hominem (in the sense specified in my post). Only if they’re arguing with a wanky philosopher will they be wanky themselves. The already-ideologically-committed might find them annoying and crazy — history bears that out, actually — but only in the way a psychopath would find the bite of conscience annoying and crazy. (Skepticism as philosophy’s ‘intellectual conscience.’)
But it’s more complicated than that… Pyrrhonism, though it ends up rejecting philosophy, actually encourages people to philosophize. I mean, shit, Sextus’s texts have more argumentation per square inch than any other philosophy texts you’re going to find. The Pyrrhonian therapy depends on a commitment to the truth. If people don’t genuinely care about, and have great respect for, the truth — if they lack an intellectual conscience — then Pyrrhonism has nothing to say to them.
I’m reminded of Scott’s post on the non-philosophy of Francois Laruelle versus the non-philosophy of Britney Spears. I don’t know how sexy Laruelle used to be in his younger days, but I bet he never once sold out a concert.
Anyhow, how could all too human philosophers not take individually tailored underminings of philosophical frameworks as anything but a personal affront to everything they stand for? I can’t see the strategy of being wanky to wanky philosophers would actually cause anyone to tone down their wank rather than crank it up even further. In all likelihood the strategy would lead to some form of dismissive mockery or foaming at the mouth rage performance, insisting that the Pyrrhonians are everything that’s wrong with philosophy. Point out people’s lack of intellectual conscience and they often dodge the question by ending their lip service to rationalism altogether. If your intention is to engage in open minded dialogue, then It matters little how right you are if, because everyone else is irrational, your methods automatically makes people stop listening because they think you’re being a dick.
That aside, I’m curious about how the Pyrrhonians dealt with anyone else asking the question of how they determined Pyrrhonian ad hominem inquiry was a viable strategy for getting closer to the truth in any given case. Why is skepticism justified? How does inherent contradictions actually contradict anything? If I act like an ad hominem attack was of no value, how do you know it’s of any value? Insofar as I understand Agrippan regression, if Pyrrhonians themselves accept that skepticism about Pyrrhonian skepticism has no resolution, then what can it actually be expected to accomplishe in rejecting the Agrippan challenge?
Zuangzi would probably find all this hilarious, or tragic, or both. But then again he sounded like he was constantly high as a kite.
Well answered! This has been a very enlightening discussion, thank you.
I am now more firmly in Dan Sperber’s camp than ever. Empiricus makes a very convincing case that “reason” is not there to help us arrive at “truth”, but is actually just a really good way to get laid. =)
Roger, I understand how Pyrrhonians undercut logic and reason, but by that token they should also be able to attack mathematics. Can you tell us some Pyrrhonian arguments against the apriori assumption of mathematical absolutes? For example: the shortest distance between two points in Euclidian space is a line. I might claim this is an absolute and justified bit of Knowledge…
(This isn’t actually my position, but it has been raised here before.)
Sextus has numerous arguments directed specifically against mathematics. Instead of digging those up, though, let me give a more ‘modern’ spin on it.
Generally, Pyrrhonian arguments work by means of the method of opposition, where two opposing views are set against each other. The question then becomes: Which view is right? The Pyrrhonian, by undermining any (rational) basis for adjudicating the dispute, ends in suspension of judgment.
When it comes to Euclidian geometry, a first stab at a Pyrrhonian argument might go like this. Some hold that the space is Euclidian; other hold that it is Einsteinian (or whatever). Which is true? And the skeptical dialectic kicks in.
Now, you might want to respond: “Regardless what the world is like, I know for sure that, according to Euclid or Euclidian geometry, the shortest distance between two points is a line.”
It is less clear how a Pyrrhonian would respond to this. On the one hand, the Pyrrhonian method of arguing ad hominem seems to depend on knowing that someone holds belief x, the target being only the justification for believing x. On the other hand, there are skeptical arguments to be made against the very possibility that we can know what other people believe (the problem of other minds) or even what we ourselves believe (meaning-skepticism a la Wittgenstein).
So we get into some major complications — complications I’ve avoided in the brief sketch of Pyrrhonism I’ve offered here. The short version of a response might be something like this: the level at which the Pyrrhonian pitches his argument depends on the belief he’s targeting; in one case, he might make arguments that presuppose any number of things, but none of those presuppositions are themselves off-limits. The question always concerns what is being investigated in any particular case. But Sextus is clear that anything can be made into an object of investigation — including whether we know what other people, or even we ourselves, believe.
So now let’s make a more radical argument against mathematical knowledge. (This argument demonstrates how ‘modern’ forms of skepticism can be subsumed by the ancient forms.) On the one hand, there are any number of accounts of mathematics according to which it represents an a priori certain kind of knowledge. On the other hand, is it not possible (a la Descartes) that there exists an evil demon who systematically deceives us about even the most apparently obvious mathematical operations? We all agree that 2+2=4 — but only because the evil demon has made it so that we all systematically make the same mistake.
The question then becomes: which account is true? And the skeptical dialectic kicks in. Now, if you want to respond: “Okay, okay, but we all know that, deceived as we are, we think that 2+2=4.” But then we can bring in other-minds and meaning-skeptical scenarios to generate the same sort of unresolvable conflict, but at a different level.
It’s just me, but I’m finding this a bit dense to work through*. Does your book touch on this subject at all, Roger? Perhaps you could talk about those bits of the book (it’s a perogative of readers to attempt to tease authors into giving spoilers – just the way the world is!)
* Well, it’s that I found alot of parralel thinking in the previous thread on this matter, except in the end, atleast for myself I just think I hypocritically treat things as being ‘the case’ anyway (atleast aware of my hypocracy in doing so). I’m just gunna do shit anyway. It’s difficult to see if this post provides any salvation from my hypocracy?
It’s not just you. This is some difficult stuff. I’ve tried to make it as understandable as I can, but it’s bound to be head-scratching to those without or with only a limited background in philosophy.
My novel is not specifically skeptical. But it deals with religious conflict in a fantasy version of early-modern Europe, which is precisely the context in which the ancient skeptical texts were rediscovered by modern Europeans. So it’s relevant both topically and thematically. Religious warfare provides fertile ground for exploring the roadblocks set up in the path of communication across deep conceptual divides.
One of my aspirations for the world in which Three Roses is set is to write a subsequent series based on a fantasy version of the Thirty Years’ War. That series would be more overtly ‘skeptical’ in the ancient sense, as it would be one gigantic exploration of the horror and hopelessness of dogmatism.
Is there any real difference between pyrrhonian/skeptical and dogmatic philosophers?
It appears that the only difference is that one engages the enterprise seriously, while the other engages in the same enterprise idly.
Isn’t the necessary and only conclusion of the skeptical process that we must completely rethink our philosophical assumptions from scratch?
You seem to assume that disbelief is an appropriate response to the skeptical disillusionment in philosophical beliefs, but the dogmatist I think still have one point over you – namely the awareness of the necessity of conviction.
You claim to champion common life, but isn’t is precisely this common life which validates and even necessitates dogmatism?
Common life is not trivial thing philosophers make of it, on this I think we agree.
But doesn’t the very seriousness of it demand nothing less than absolute dogmatism? Common life is about meeting basic necessities – earning a living, maintaining shelter, ensuring the sustenance necessary to survive from day to day – in short, the stuff of life and death. And can you reasonably make any choice over life and death in the absence of anything except absolute conviction?
Responding to the impossibility of philosophical belief with disbelief then is simply not an option.
Skepticism I believe can only end in the absolute rejection of philosophical beliefs – wiping the slate clean and starting from scratch.
Isn’t that the ultimate conclusion of the skeptical journey – the call to seek a new dogmatism, one which can withstand any and all skeptical assault.
Impossible, you might think, but have you ever really tried?
You’ve offered a fair description of the entire history of philosophy. Have I ever tried to “seek a new dogmatism… which can withstand any and all skeptical thought”? No (if by this you mean develop one). But here’s a (very!) partial list of those who have tried and failed:
– Plato
– The Stoics
– Descartes
– Leibniz
– Kant
– Hegel
– Husserl
– The early Wittgenstein (on one reading)
– Heidegger (on one reading)
– Mid-twentieth-century analytic philosophy
– All the numerous, incompatible ‘refutations of skepticism’ one finds in contemporary philosophy
A simple pessimistic induction gets us to the conclusion that the project of “starting over again” appears to be doomed. Pyrrhonism has the virtue of offering some explanation.
As for this, “[I]sn’t is precisely… common life which validates and even necessitates dogmatism?”, I invite other people (even you yourself, newb) to respond on the Pyrrhonians’ behalf. I think I’ve said more than enough to make it clear what they would say to this.
A key preliminary that would need to be answered: What is ‘dogmatism’?
Anyone?
I’m only an amateur in this field, but from what I know of all the above philosophers (except for Leibnitz, of whom I know almost nothing) all have maintained the basic philosophical quest for truth in some form (though I’m not entirely sure about Hegel).
But isn’t the ultimate conclusion of skepticism that truth is a fallacy?
This is what I’m aiming at – a mode of inquiry based on something other than truth.
On a few other points which you raise:
Refuting skepticism?
No, I don’t think that skepticism can or should be refuted (except on the grounds that it doesn’t provide a substantive alternative on its own, as I argued above). Rather I’m thinking of finding a new approach which avoids the pitfalls of truth and therefore is inured to skeptical dispute. I’m thinking instead of a new approach that proceeds from skepticism rather than trying to con its way around it as most of philosophy has always tried to do.
Starting over?
Too many philosophers have tried to start over to honestly put any faith in such endeavours. I’m talking about trying something new, rather than trying the same old thing over and over again. I’m talking about looking for a completely new tangent.
What is dogmatism?
My own view? Dogmatism is your common life. What greater show of faith can there be for any belief other than being willing to live by it, to let a belief determine your everyday decisions, to willingly risk everything that is real and important to you in conviction in a certain belief. What greater show of absolute conviction in a belief is there than common life? This is why your pyrrhonian separation of dogmatism and common life confuses me.
I’ve read your pyrrhonian view of dogmatism, and I’m not convinced. It seems to rest on the belief in the inconsequentiality of actions. It suggests that one can act while at the same time maintaining a critical distance of impartial disbelief in the beliefs which drive those actions. But actions do have consequences. This is something which I doubt even the most ardent skeptic would deny.
The essence of my question is this: why keep on seeking truth/certainty, whether in belief as dogmatists, or in disbelief as pyrrhonians, when skepticism has shown it time and again to be a fallacy?
Could you point me in the direction of who you’ve got in mind when you say “mid twentieth century analytic philosophy?” I only know the earlier bunch and wouldn’t mind checking out their successors.
Well, there was the Vienna Circle’s logical postivism — Carnap and Co. Popularized by A.J. Ayer. They worshiped at the altar of the Verification Principle, until someone thought to ask whether the verification principle can be verified.
There were also the Oxford ordinary-language philosophers, who thought that skepticism would be rendered null-and-void simply by attending to the everyday use of epistemic terms.
And of course there were the sense-data theorists, who were basically twentieth-century Cartesian-cum-empiricists, trying to reconstruct the edifice of human knowledge on the foundation of indubitable sense-data. “I see a red patch, therefore I am.”
Speaking as a dabbling noob, I would define dogmatism as ontological presuppositions that are tautologically asserted and therefore immune to refutation within the asserted framework. A is true because A is true. Every philosophy is therefore on some level dogmatic. You could certainly attempt the skeptical strategy of highlighting conflicting presuppositions (if A is true and B is true, and B implies not A, what then?), but if they’re proven via tautology in the first place, then there is no conflict. God can be infinitely good AND create all evil, Buddha can teach the transience of all things AND that transience itself is intransient, etc. If you believe A is true, and NOT A is true, then A AND NOT A is true. Dogmatically there simply is no conflict.
If all people adhere to on-some-level unverifiable ontological claims, or dogmatism, and if somehow (non dogmatically?), we find the correct way to react to such claims is to undermine them with Pyrrhonian skepticism, then what happens after that? How would a Pyrrhonian skeptic society function? Would it be functional at all, and if so, would it differ in any way on the exterior from a non skeptical society?
In other words, do Pyrrhonian suspend judgment on the verifability of A but assume if A then X and act accordingly? Or do they suspend judgment and therefore suspend action as well? In the first case the result would be no different than a society that accepts the truth of A dogmatically, and in the second case you’d have to wonder how the Pyrrhonians could “live” adoxastōs while doing nothing.
This tells me the application of Pyrrhonian skepticism must have been qualified in some way, in practice if not in theory. How did the Pyrrhonians go about either doing such a thing, or sidestepping it?
That should be “every philosophy that contains ontological presuppositions is therefore on some level dogmatic.”