Knowledge Skepticism: The Impossibility of Skepticism

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Table of Contents

Introduction
The Origins of Skepticism
Why is Skepticism Important
Benefits of Skepticism in Philosophy and Knowledge
Problems and Theories of Skepticism
Technology, Knowledge, and Skepticism
Conclusion
References

Introduction

Philosophy, ever since its formational years, has found itself preoccupied with the matters of the human condition, Used to both bolster and challenge various perspectives on living, knowing, and understanding, philosophy developed and grew massively throughout human history. As a result, many interesting or unique pathways to interacting with the world have emerged, including alternative ways to view knowledge. The present paper will focus on skepticism, an approach that challenges the concept of truth and certainty itself, seeking to cause doubt on what is commonly considered to be fundamental. The actual value of skepticism, both locally and globally is highly debated, resulting in an environment where a variety of opinion can thrive.

The work will argue that the presence of skepticism is necessary to the constant knowledge-seeking process, allowing people to see new and exciting possibilities behind the conventional norms. Knowledge, its validity and acquisition, is and must be continuously challenged in order to bring about change. Skepticism, questioning and inquiry are a basis for successful learning. On an individual level, the practice can additionally be used in order to bring about change. The starting point of the paper will discuss the philosophical movement’s origins, paying attention to its founding ideas. Next, the importance of skepticism, along with its effect on perception will be covered, allowing the discussion to be moved forward. Theories regarding knowledge and certainty are to be covered next, outlying the principles of doubting the human experience itself. Lastly, a more practical look at the importance of skepticism will be attempted, placing the practice in the context of the ever-shifting pool of common knowledge, understanding and progress.

The Origins of Skepticism

Like many other philosophical movements, skepticism found its roots in ancient Greek philosophy. The Greeks are well known in the west as the origin of many modern philosophies, and progenitors of common ideas. Starting in the Hellenistic period, many philosophers, including Pyrrhon, Plato and Socrates practiced some form of skepticism (Reed 2016). Their ideas focused on casting doubt upon what was commonly understood as true, and seeking to blur the border between truth and falsehood. Among the ones mentioned, Pyrrho can be identified as something of a “founding father” to the skepticism principle, actively choosing to reject any assertion of truth (“Skepticism | Definition, Philosophy, Examples, History, & Criticism” 2022). The man practiced global skepticism, which can be defined as a rejection of all possible certainty.

However, with the development of skeptical thought, the common field of inquiry regarding skepticism became more local, more focused on specific ideas, such as the validity of human perception, the search for universal truths, and the ideas of the unknowable reality. What is important to understand about skepticism, is its primary goal and objective. Instead of shining a new light into a subject, or trying to present novel ideas of understanding, it instead focuses on undermining existing principles, never asserting any theory as truly certain. Doubt is the key word for this philosophy, permeating into all areas of learning. Skepticism confirms the existence of alternatives, providing rationale as to why the commonplace ideas might not be as stable as previously thought.

Modern skepticism as most people understand it stems from ancient Rome and Greece, which came into prominence with the revival of older philosophical thought. The ideas of challenging presupposed notions were largely used as a tool to either oppose or scrutinize religion. With the passage of time and the coming of the 18^th century, works of David Hume became popular. The man fully denied the people’s ability to find the truth though either inductive or deductive reasoning, both of which were seen as ultimately unreliable. Instead, Hume and many other skeptics thought that a person’s experiences are the only real measurement of truth.

Why is Skepticism Important

Skepticism, like many other philosophies, serves a particular purpose and a goal. In the modern world, the pool of available information is ever-increasing, with new evidence, theories and modes of understanding being founded incredibly fast. In such a climate, it becomes much easier to accept new and emerging ideas as the truth and incorporate them into one’s worldview, without stopping to critically consider their strength or validity. Skepticism, then, works as a tool of accessing knowledge, of making sure that the human progress does not become complacent to a solid understanding of a subject, always seeking more evidence, more rationales, more alternatives. In addition, skepticism is a pathway of challenging the status quo, noticing problems emergent with everyday social systems. In some cases, the presence of skepticism is a necessity in order to identify flaws of a government regime, or to understand potential failures of social structures (Lodewijckx 2022). Despite the appearance of a constantly increasing pool of information, skepticism has the ability to continuously scrutinize new data.

Additionally, it is interesting to understand the field of Epistemology as a whole in its relation to skepticism. By definition, Epistemology is the study of knowledge. The process includes building understanding about how knowledge is acquired, interpreted and understood. In addition, it also attempts to determine what can constitute as knowledge. The entire field of epistemology, then, is founded as a response and disproval of skepticism (Stone 2000). If skeptics argue that truth is unknowable and knowledge is an impossibility, epistemologists seek to reinforce the validity of their philosophical field. Both philosophies have endured for many decades, thriving off of each other and continuously challenging the ideas presented by their competitor (Stone 2000). As a result of this relationship, both the field of epistemology and skepticism grew exponentially, with neither being capable of fully “winning” in their philosophic discussion. Jim Stone, in his work discussing epistemology supposes that skepticism has a number of substantive ideas, owing to its ability to remain the field of public discussion.

Benefits of Skepticism in Philosophy and Knowledge

The process of acquiring knowledge, as well as processing it, is, by nature, very personal. Despite being actively taught how to think and critically appraise information, people generally learn through their own unique lens, placing their experiences and life events along a set of ideas they call a worldview. The need of information to be perceived by a person, or measured in some capacity in order to be understood is precisely what many skeptics would find problematic. The inability to confirm that what one sees, knows or understands to be true is actually the universal, unchanging truth, stands at the core of this ideology. This is most prominent in discussions of knowledge, which lay at the basis of the entire philosophy. By itself, the process of knowledge includes interacting with the world and accepting feedback from it, which then helps people make conclusions about how life is. As mentioned previously, however, knowledge cannot be truly said to be universal (Harman 2016). With the variety of human lives, and existing philosophies, it becomes almost impossible to pose that any one truth about the world, or the process of knowing it, is true. Perception plays a large role in this discussion as well, informing how people receive information about the world.

In an individual’s life, they can only see the world, and understand others from their limited personal perspective. Therefore, it is utterly impossible to know if another individual “thinks” or “knows” the same way as one does. The perception of visual data, understanding of common concepts, such as shape, color, form and other is all based on the assumption people see the same way as each other. There is, however, no one way to truly translate a person’s perception of the world to others, no way to share feelings in their original form. In order to share their perceptions, ideas, feelings and modes of understanding, then, people use approximations. Words or images substitute thoughts, help a person to translate their subjective meanings onto others. This method of communication, is imperfect, however, presenting a major barrier in how people understand each other. Due to the existence of this barrier, skeptics can pose that the universal truths cannot exist. If the uniqueness of each person’s perceptions cannot be disproven, and there are no tangible ways for one person to understand the world as another does, there is no certain reason to assert that both these people know the same truth. Therefore, the universality of such concepts as truth and goodness are put into question (Burton 2022). Learning and knowledge become similarly muddied by the need to translate ideas into the form that is understood by others, or the need to be perceived.

Some thinkers challenge the notion of skepticism’s importance, however. Some writers argue that it is practically and philosophically impossible to adopt full skepticism as a legitimate form of ideology (Greco 2012). Global skepticism requires the person completely abstains from analyzing or judging the world around them, and abandoning both social norms and common sense. The adoption of global skepticism would lead to a disregard for personal safety, and wellbeing, as well as the wellness of others. Many criticisms also apply to local skepticism as well. While it is possible to present interesting and unique perspectives by using skepticism, it can also be seen as practically useless in advancing real scientific or philosophic progress (“Skepticism | Definition, Philosophy, Examples, History, & Criticism” 2022). The opposition claims that the ideas presented by skeptics do not work toward improving the scientific or social fields, as the problems they highlight are not truly “problems” (“Skepticism | Definition, Philosophy, Examples, History, & Criticism” 2022). The goal of raising doubts about the reality of human knowledge and experience is considered useless, because other fields of inquiry already possess methods of asserting the legitimacy of an experience.

Problems and Theories of Skepticism

The Problem of the External World

The problem of the external world can be called a center of epistemology, and many epistemological discussions. Subsequently, it is a strong point of criticism for the skeptics, and a philosophical dilemma that is unlikely to be solved. Individuals largely believe in the existence of an external world, one that is detected by their perception and considered rational. Physical objects, sensations and natural phenomena are understood as a reality of the world, a factor unchanged by one’s own view on it. However, it is impossible to truly prove that the “external world” exists, or that it is accurate to people’s perceptions of it (Lyons 2011). A common supporting argument of this assertion comes from dreams. When a person is dreaming, they are largely unable to distinguish their sleep state from reality, perceiving it as a tangible norm. Only when a person wakes up can the illogicality of a dream be understood by them, often compared to the state of being awake. Skepticism assumes that there is no substantive reason why the external world as people understand it cannot be akin to a dream – completely conjured up by a mind of a single individual. It is impossible to refute the nonexistence of the external world, as human senses are far too unreliable to be used in an assessment of objective truth.

Brain in a Vat Theory

The brain in a vat, or BIV hypothesis is strongly connected with the external world problem and the dream hypothesis. In the case of this thought experiment, it is imagined that any given person does not truly live in the world the same way they experience it. Instead, they are but a single brain floating in a vat of nutrients, being externally stimulated through a super-computer. The computer provides a brain with electrical signals, which in turn contribute to its experience of an “external world”. In such a scenario, it would be wholly impossible for a brain to be capable of realizing its actual circumstances, or understanding the un-reality of their experience.

This thought experiment is used to refute the existence of credible evidence to a reality of a person’s experiences, or the existence of a material reality. Any argument that can be made to support these ideas would also be applicable to the aforementioned brain in a vat, and therefore incorrect. This assertion is almost entirely correct, however, certain researchers have been able to pose counter-arguments to this theory. Notably, the use of evidentalism can be effective in refuting the hypothesis (Markosian 2014). The author of an evidentalism angle states that the existence of evidence a person believes in proves that they are not a brain in a vat (Markosian 2014). Instead of rooting the argument in objective experience or universal truth, this approach supposes that having evidence that an individual finds believable is enough to convince them of their realness. Because of the argument’s ability to accommodate each and every counterargument, it can be considered difficult to refute. However, as asserted by Huemer (2016), this type of theory is difficult to take seriously, or consider in any productive manner. An idea that inherently refutes every other proposition, while also imagining a scenario that is impossible to personally experience loses much in the way of credibility.

The Problem of Induction

The problem of induction, similarly, can be seen as a major criticism to the ability of people to know and objectively see the world. It concerns the idea of people not being capable of knowing what will happen in the future. The supposition can concern both future events and concepts like technological development of scientific progress. In science, the truth of a statement or universal idea is largely based on induction – a demonstrable trend or hypothesis, supported by past occurrences. If a scientist only sees gray toads, inductive reasoning would suggest that all toads are gray, and will be gray in the future. However, this reasoning supposes that any future result will be similar to the present or past evidence (Vickers 2022). The future remains unknowable in the face of this assumption, making the process of making certain universal claims impossible. Much like there are green, olive and even red toads, the future of scientific research or progress cannot be accurately predicted. As a result, the validity of most scientific data can be seen as unreliable and perception-based, once again brining the idea of knowing itself into question.

The Problem of the Past

The problem of the past can be understood differently depending on the area it is applied to. Generally, though, this problem discusses the relationship between past and the present, calling into question the cause-effect link between them. An epistemological framing of this problem supposes that past has no way to affect the present, as it had already happened (Cockburn 1987). There should be no reason for actions to be based on the past, as it no longer exists. The past cannot be experienced or re-experienced in the present, which makes it immune to analysis in the eyes of a skeptic. Without the lens of personal experience to evaluate the past, any claim or statement about it is effectively null. Given that each person only lives in the present, without the ability to exist in neither the future of the past, it is also impossible to truly prove that the past happened as a person might remember it. Therefore, a skeptic could assume that the past does not exist, does not affect the present, and any records of past events cannot be held as legitimate.

These problems, along with many other theoretical arguments, build the foundation for epistemology’s field of inquiry, along with skepticism’s main arguments against it. When accessed through an objective lens, all of these problems appear legitimate, placing doubt in the truth behind simple presuppositions most people hold in life. The power of skepticism comes precisely from the ability of its supporters to take simple ideas and uproot their foundation. This process is conductive to viewing seemingly “ordinary” concepts through a unique lens, one that might not have been present without establishing doubt. Similar to how its proponents take fantastical scenarios to explain the mundane, it can be argued that the many things people take for granted are unique in their own right. The inability of people to fully prove the universality of human experience, or the existence of a world outside their mind further works to discredit most other assertions made by science or research.

Technology, Knowledge, and Skepticism

Technology has an interesting relationship with the concept of skepticism. Generally, the technological progress that comes with human development brings many benefits, including better standards of life, and the expansion of the common pool of knowledge. More people are able to receive education, learn and find themselves in the world. Similarly, the realm of the tech industry expands rapidly, producing new programs and machines aimed at analyzing the natural world. Machines for space exploration, seeing microorganisms, simulating environments and generating energy all give people insight into how the founding principles of the universe supposedly operate. With the invention of newer, more advanced technology, it becomes possible for people to move closer to the concepts of universal truth, or obtain deeper knowledge. However, skepticism has a deep and profound relationship with measured scientific data. Much like information obtained from one’s own perception, calculations and measurements must be interpreted by people, and further put into context of the existing pool of knowledge.

Decisions of which theories are supported and found to be correct, and which theories are false are made using best approximations of rational thinking and evidence. A theory that actively rejects certainty, then, finds itself at odds with a clear-cut certainty of technological advancement. For skepticism, the hard data presented by the new and emerging machines becomes another point of contention. It is important to note that the relationship between scientific knowledge and skepticism is complex, however, owing to the ability of skeptical ideology to be harmful. In some cases, skepticism relating to new technological advancements, new information or data can be useful, providing a framework for further inquiry. It becomes a way to promote further development of the tech industry, and actively combats complacency. On the other hand, skepticism often emerges as accompanied by people’s cynicism toward commonplace ideas, distrust for authority and a disregard for scientific evidence. In this case, practices of skepticism might be actively harmful to society and individual humans. As research has found, skeptical belief was often found in conspiracy theory believers and paranormal enthusiasts, shining a light on how doubt-casting may become dangerous (Bensley et al. 2022). It is concurrent with the practices of denying evidence by conservative-learning people (Ponce de Leon, Wingrove and Kay 2020). Therefore, it is important to wield criticism with critical thought in mind.

Skepticism has also had a considerable relationship with other various scientific fields, including medicine. One of the pyrrhonian skepticists, Sextus Empiricus was both a philosopher and physician, contributing much to the field of medical skepticism (Laursen 2003). The man’s views did not deny the possibility of knowledge altogether, but instead sought to suspend judgements about the truth of falsehood of any particular claim. This method of understanding asserts that people can make claims about their experiences with a particular object or event, but the only information they receive is subjective, being unable to tell them about the properties of said object/event. Similar principles are still applicable to the medical field as a whole, and important to providing patient care. Aspects of skepticism are used by both doctors and nurses in their work, where each treatment method can vary in effect depending on the patient. Some individuals may respond to a medication positively, while others would experience complications. As a result, doctors and other medical staff are disincentivized from making value judgements about their treatment procedures, or applying them universally to each individual. Alternatively, the approach varies depending on each patient.

In the growth and development of the medical field, skepticism proved to be vital in introducing change. The healthcare industry has changed and improved in many conceivable ways, including the introduction of more hygienic care, active use of evidence in the medical process. Similarly, some practices went out of favor due to an active presence of scrutiny within the professional community, coupled with the changing needs of the public. This is relevant to the discussion concerning skepticism, as medical research is directly connected with the idea of doubting existing medical approaches. For example, the humoral theory of human biology dominated medical understanding of health up until the 1850’s affecting the way people were treated for their conditions. Despite having an incredibly uncertain scientific evidence basis, some of the practices used by humoral doctors, such as leeching, bloodletting and herb-related treatments had positive effects on the wellbeing of patients. Without the application of skepticism, this fact would presuppose that the humor theory is an effective way to understand biology and medicine. However, the medical field moved forward, creating new ways of understanding and accessing patient wellness, ones that have had considerably better effects on people than humorism. The change from the four humor principle to modern medical practices could not have been possible without a sufficient degree of doubt and criticism.

Conclusion

As a whole, it can be supposed that skepticism is an important part of modern and ancient philosophy. In the world of quickly emerging knowledge and changing trends, skepticism remains a tool of promoting vigilance in research and constant move toward quality-driven change. News and social media quickly change, with emerging social, political and economic trends. Oftentimes, it is difficult to find what is true, and what is false when living one’s regular life. Because of that, ideas of skepticism appear to be extremely valuable. Applying principles of casting doubt, it is possible to exist with more nuance and consideration for the truth. The ideology supposes that doubt is a necessary part of understanding the world, and that knowledge should never be seen as universal. Skepticism brings into question the validity of the common human experience, presenting the option of each person perceiving the world completely differently from others. These ideas find their reflection in the modern world and become used in a variety of ways. For philosophical and scientific communities, skepticism acts as a tool of promoting further research or inventing new ways of assessment. Some thinkers challenge this notion, and contend for the practical uselessness of skeptical approaches, but their arguments have failed to truly affect the skeptic ideology as a whole.

A number of epistemological problems have emerged from skeptical thought. Many of them challenge the basic notions of knowing and proving the validity of claims. Skeptics believe that it is impossible to verify the existence of a world beyond one’s own mind, similarly to how it is impossible to truly know another person’s experience. The future, or any scientific result and conclusion cannot be reliably called true, as the assertions of correctness do not see the future. Assuming similarity while not knowing potential differences makes any conclusions made using the inferential method unreliable. Much like the future, the past is also called into question, due to its non-existent nature. As a result, skeptics construct a narrative that makes it impossible to fully prove the truth of a claim made beyond the realm of personal experience. The existence of a material reality, cause-effect relationship between the past and the present, and even predictions of the future – all of them are made null by skepticism. For philosophers, skepticism casts doubt onto the idea of knowing itself, potentially rejecting the need to understand one’s lived experience in any capacity. Skepticism remains important for the public and the individual, as a way to drive philosophical, scientific and public discussion forward.

References

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Markosian, Ned. 2014. “Do You Know That You Are Not A Brain In A Vat?”. Logos & Episteme 5 (2): 161-181.

Ponce de Leon, Rebecca, Sara Wingrove, and Aaron C. Kay. 2020. “Scientific Skepticism and Inequality: Political and Ideological Roots”. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 91: 104045.

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Vickers, John. 2022. “The Problem of Induction”. Stanford.Library.Sydney.Edu.Au. Web.

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