Skepticism

Meaning of Skepticism

Skepticism is a term derived from the Greek verb skeptesthai, which means, “to consider, to look about carefully.” But this term of worthy meaning has lost its literal force, and has come to mean the doctrine of those who deny the existence and possibility of certitude, or who qualify certitude in such a way as to destroy its true character.

Skepticism has several varieties. Universal Skepticism denies the possibility of any certitude whatever; Partial Skepticism admits some certitudes; Absolute Skepticism denies the mind’s capacity for certitudes or even probabilities; Qualified Skepticism admits probabilities.

Skeptics generally admit the thing called common or vulgar certitude by which we accept as certain our own existence and that of the world about us and i7o CERTITUDE the ordinary facts of daily experience. But skeptics deny that this is true certitude; they regard it as an unexplained and inexplicable condition of what we are naturally compelled to regard as our life and being. In a word, they regard it as an unexplained “psychological fact.”

Notable skeptics of ancient times were: Gorgias (5 century b.c.), who denied the existence of everything, and was called “The Nihilist” in consequence; Pyrrho (4-3 centuries b. c.) ; Arce silaus (4-3 centuries b. c.); Carneades (3-2 centuries b. c.) ; Sextus Empiricus (3 century after Christ).

In later times, the following were notable exponents of Skepticism: Montaigne (1533-1592), famous essayist, who sought in Skepticism a refuge from the bickerings of doctrinaires, but who did not include in his doubts and denials the fundamental truths of morality; Pascal (1623-1662), author of the famous Pensees, who held that man can know nothing for certain unless aided by supernatural grace; Hume (1711-1776), Scotch idealist; Balfour (1848-1930), who asserted that authority is the sole basis of certitude.

Critique of Skepticism

The arguments for Skepticism may be summarized as follows: First Argument: Our knowing-powers often deEXISTENCE OF CERTITUDE 171 ceive us. Hence we must not trust them. But if we cannot trust our knowing-powers, the quest for certitude is vain.

Second Argument: Perhaps we are the creatures of a power that delights to see us deceived in a dream-world that is but a maze of unrealities.

Third Argument: To have certitude means that one has a criterion whereby the certitude is known as such. But this criterion is known as certitude, and there must be a further criterion for it. And this further criterion requires a criterion, and this requires another, and so on, forever. Manifestly, we can never reach a first and fundamental criterion.

Hence, there is no foundation for certitude; certitude is impossible.

To these arguments we may make reply as follows: To the First Argument: (a) Our faculties do not deceive us. Misuse of faculties, employment of faculties upon objects not proper to their function; accidentals such as defects of organs or unsuitable medium for the function of faculties—these and other accidentals may lead us into error. But these causes of error can be noted and checked; error can be eliminated, and the faculties allowed to function in proper and suitable manner, and to achieve their natural and normal tendency, which is the acquiring of their object truly, (b) The argument is a contradiction in itself. The skeptic says, “It is certain that our faculties deceive us; therefore nothing is certain ” To the Second Argument: The fantastic theory of a malign power that delights to deceive us is proposed with a “perhaps,” and is best answered with a “perhaps not.” The theory does not square with experience, with the constancy and consistency of nature, with the character of knowing-powers, with the wondrous design of sense-organs which so well adapts them for their use.

The theory is to be rejected as unphilosophic and whimsical.

To the Third Argument: This would be an unanswerable argument if each and every act of knowledge required a new and different act to recognize the grounds for assent. But in knowing fundamental truths, the mind grasps truth and the evidence for truth in one and the same act. When this is so, the truth is self-evident. Thus the mind, in grasping the truth that a totality is greater than one of its parts, apprehends the truth and the necessary character of the truth in one understanding act. The mind needs only to know the terms of such a proposition to understand that the truth of it is inevitable. Thus there is a foundation for certitude, and the skeptical argument falls to nothing.

We, therefore, reject Skepticism as a theory wholly inadequate. Its arguments are not sound, and it contradicts itself by teaching that it is certain that there is no certainty, and by using reason to prove that nothing can be proved by reason.

Universal Doubt

Rene Descartes (1596-1650) proposed, and defended as the true philosophic method, a Universal Methodic Doubt. He taught that the mind must doubt all things until it fixes on something that cannot be doubted, even by a fiction, by a deliberate effort of mind. He finds that this one indubitable fact is his thinking existence; a person cannot, even by an effort of the mind, doubt that he is making an effort of mind; he cannot doubt himself or his thought. Descartes summed up this fundamental and indubitable fact in the famous phrase, “Cogito, ergo sum, I think, therefore I exist.” This is no inference; it is the simultaneous recognition of thought and thinker; it is the recognition of the thinking self. Upon this indubitable fact is built up a series of certitudes. But, while its author would have rejected Skepticism, Universal Doubt leads logically and immediately to Universal Skepticism. For, once everything possible is doubted, there is no longer any means of getting out of the doubt. Nor will the indubitable fact of the thinking self serve as such a means. For to be certain of myself thinking, is not to be certain that my thinking has any objective value. It is only to be certain of an inexplicable “psychological fact.” Hence, the Universal Methodic Doubt of Descartes is to be rejected as inept method and as false doctrine, amounting as it does to Skepticism, which, as we have seen, is inadmissible.

Summary Of The Article

In this article we have studied Skepticism, the doctrine of those who deny the existence of true certitude. We have mentioned notable skeptics. We have considered the arguments for Skepticism, and have found them unsound. We have seen that the Universal Methodic Doubt proposed by Descartes amounts to Skepticism and is to be rejected.