One of the three branches of philosophy is epistemology, otherwise know as the theory of knowledge is related to the philosophical scope and nature of knowledge. Epistemology relates to examining how the theory of nature relates to beliefs truth and justification, the three elements that make a means ‘knowledge’. Without belief, truth or justification, a thought simply cannot be known. The core of epistemology is skepticism.
The contemporary issue of partisan dealignment is extremely prevalent in recent politics. Since 1974, UK political parties have been suffering from an increase in partisan dealignment, where the electorate no longer associates themselves with a party, and decides to vote rationally on current economic and social issues. Aristotle engages with the meno problem (the question of why knowledge is more valuable than our belief), you must know the knot to untie it. He see’s skeptics as an investigator, and one anti-skeptical charge says that if a skeptic knew nothing, they wouldn’t be able to formulate the questions they investigate.
The famous Scottish philosopher David Hume targets scepticism that tends to operate at a later stage – consequent to science and enquiry’, this uses scientifically produced results that cast doubt on our beliefs about the nature of our surroundings. Hume develops his theme of the power of human nature against abstract philosophical reasoning by indicating that ‘nature is always too strong for principle’, Hume argues that when we withdraw from the philosophy class and proceed with the ‘occupations of common life, we become solely exempt from the abstruse reasonings of the utmost sceptics, the ‘pyrrhonians’. Pyrrhonism aims at tranquility; and it assigns pride of place to appearances.
Philosophical skepticism, according to David Hume, is asking whether human beings can perceive the world around us with any degree of accuracy. Practising this school of thought means that a person initially never believes anything to be true, but at the same time, does not say everything is necessarily false; instead, he maintains a position of doubt. Ancient Greece is the home of two skeptical traditions; academic skepticism and Pyrrhonian skepticism. Academic skeptics argue that sensory impressions don’t actually enable you to know anything. Descartes developed a powerful skeptical scenario, designed to make you doubt everything, including your grasp of abstract facts. Descartes argues that the challenge of skepticism is the challenge of proving that you’re not in the hands of a deceptive demon, this is a global skeptical scenario.
Skepticism is prevalent in our society today, we feel as if we should, by a chain of reasoning, assure ourselves, presupposed from a patterned assumption cannot conceivably be disingenuous or fictitious. Hume argues that this is simply just Human nature, however, over the period of the last 100 years, human nature and society has progressed further to live in a much more atomistic and rational society. Philosophers such as Ayn rand would agree that the actions that we take are to benefit our owns selves within our community
The rise in partisan dealignment in modern day society leads us to question why society is so much more skeptic about our future, and why there is no longer any trust towards politicians, or it could be that we are moving closer to Ayn Rands idea of an atomistic society, and therefore not feeling the need to stay loyal to a party, whatever their manifesto may be. However, John Coleman argues that an indispensable question of partisan politics is to whether the mass public can be integrated and mobilised into the democratic process by political parties.
The concept of skepticism has emerged as an attempt to oppose specific notions, assumptions, and processes that do not have grounds. Therefore, skeptical people are those who have doubts about specific issues. Being skeptical about the judgments of other people implies a possibility to refute the issue. It also implies that they cannot claim or specific assumptions because of inadequate reasoning or explanation.
Because it is impossible to be confident in everything, people can be skeptical about everything. However, questions arise concerning the possibilities of prejudice all existing knowledge. There are schools of thought that claiming that all existing knowledge is always uncertain. It is of particular concern to Cicero, who played a major role in shaping the concept of skepticism and uncertainty. Despite these philosophical underpinnings, there were schools of thought that were inclined to think that the boundaries of uncertainty exist.
Specific attention deserves Pyrrhonic School that manages to establish the limits of uncertainty. In particular, the fact that a person claims with certainty that he/she knows nothing establishes the boundaries of uncertainty. Further development of philosophical claims allowed the Pyrrhnoic skeptics to prove that all the claims could be refuted.
For instance, I agree with the claims introduced by Descartes. In particular, the philosopher’s famous claim, “I think, and therefore I am” is full of certainty. Hence, a person perceives the world through a thinking process, which is the evidence of his/her existence. Also, it is possible to prove that something exists because it can be opposed to nothing. Therefore, the existence of opposite notions is certain evidence itself of existence. While using similar approaches, it is possible to establish the boundaries of uncertainty in all spheres of knowledge.
Truth and Limits of Knowledge
On the one hand, there is an assumption that the world exists outside our minds and that it is absolute in its origins and epistemological meaning. On the other hand, the world can be regarded as a set of individuals’ experiences and responses to the surrounding worlds. The latter assumption creates some challenges and controversies because the world is not always presented in the way people perceive it.
It is of particular to cases when one’s attitude to an object is premised on the perception of other people (Audi, 2010). Such a perspective also undermines the possibilities of human awareness of the truth. However, several certain facts justify the existence of the truth, as well as possibilities for individuals to perceive the world as it is.
Taking into consideration the fact humans are part of the world, they can also be considered part of the absolute reality. As a result, the way people understand and perceive reality is also a part of the process of reality formation. Besides, the fact that the majority of people accept the world similarly also justifies the fact that humans are capable of conceiving true knowledge. Another problem concerns the concepts of thinking and sensing.
Thus, Descartes premises on the idea that thinking is the evidence of existence. In contrast, sensing cannot be considered as evidence of human existence because individuals have different degrees of perception. However, the very fact of human’s ability to feel and express emotion can also testify to the existence of emotions, which is also a part of absolute reality.
Reference
Audi, R. (2010). Epistemology: A Contemporary Introduction to the Theory of Knowledge. US: Taylor & Francis.
One of the main criticisms of David Hume’s gnoseological model has been traditionally reflective of the assumption that being strongly reductionist denies the possibility for people to be able to attain a complete understanding of the surrounding natural/social reality. Because of it, Hume’s outlook on gnoseology has been commonly referred to as such that epitomizes the “dead end of empiricist philosophy.”1 Nevertheless, even though many individuals (especially the idealistically minded ones) tend to think of the philosopher’s insights into the very nature of human cognition as being overly mechanistic, this does not undermine the overall scientific legitimacy of Hume’s line of reasoning. After all, the recent discoveries in the fields of neuroscience and quantum physics confirm the full validity of the gnoseological model in question. The author will aim to substantiate the discursive appropriateness of this suggestion at length while arguing that Hume’s philosophy contributed towards keeping humanity on the path of intellectual progress.
Analysis/Discussion
The foremost idea that is being promoted throughout the selected sections in Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding is that there are two integral components of one’s conscious reasoning: impression and idea. The former refers to a person’s sensory-based experiences and the latter to his or her subjective judgments, with respect to what should be deemed these experiences’ significance, regarding the cause-effect ways of the world. Consequently, this implies that even the most abstract/perceptually unconventional notions, brought into existence by the brain’s capability to indulge in the synthesized type of thinking, are firmly grounded in the surrounding reality. As Hume noted, “When we think of a golden mountain, we only join two consistent ideas, gold, and mountain, with which we were formerly acquainted.”2 This, of course, reveals the fallaciousness of the idea that synthesized knowledge has any metaphysical quality to it.
According to the philosopher, while addressing life challenges on a daily basis, people involuntarily grow to recognize the recurring algorithmic patterns within the observable interrelationship between causes and effects in this world. A dropped apple necessarily falls down to the ground, the Sun rises in the East every morning, etc. The mind’s propensity for expecting a certain dialectical order of things is behind the formation of convictions in people. These convictions subsequently attain the subtleties of either an irrational belief or a rationale-based cognitive axiom. In his book, Hume identified three major principles of human cognition, “Resemblance, Contiguity in time or place, and Cause or Effect.”3 The concerning principles, however, are “external” in the sense that they do not originate a priori in the person’s mind. Rather, they are the by-products of one’s ability to notice the cause-effect particularities of how the world turns around. Even though people are able to take practical advantage of the concerned principles while cognitively engaging with the reality’s observable extrapolations, there still remains much uncertainty as to why it is the case.
Hence, the most notable philosophical implications of Hume’s gnoseological model:
The mind is not independent in its constructions and conclusions concerning the world.
The mind’s lack of “cognitive independence” is reflective of the fact that people are naturally predisposed towards acting in accordance with their irrational/rational beliefs. Also, it shows that it is impossible to ascertain the truthfulness/falsity of one’s mental constructs outside of the experiential realm.
There is no good rationale in assuming that the cause-effect logic of the relationship among ideas inside one’s mind applies to the actual pattern of the person’s experiential impressions, from which these ideas derive.
Hume’s conclusions, in this regard, expose the fundamental inconsistency of the idea (popular with contemporary psychologists and social scientists) that the human brain has been specifically “designed” to do abstract/synthesized thinking per se, and that education is the key to making this world a better place. At the same time, however, they correlate well with what today’s neuroscientists know about the true purpose of human cognition. Human faculty for abstract thought is not concerned with discovering any “higher truth” about the workings of the universe but with enabling “hairless primates” to lead a socially integrated lifestyle. This, in turn, increases their chances to succeed in ensuring the survival of their genome into the next generation.4
If the deployment of a particular behavioral algorithm, on one’s part, makes it more likely for the person to successfully undergo the “natural selection” process, then his or her mind will automatically adjust the individual’s perception of the surrounding reality to be epistemically consistent with it. In other words, it is a person’s behavior (defined by the external circumstances) that determines the specifics of his or her conscious reasoning and not the other way around. This also explains the phenomenon of “competence without comprehension,” commonly observed with regard to the termites’ seemingly mysterious ability to construct termite mounds that closely resemble gothic cathedrals while featuring the same level of structural complexity.
Apparently, the ways of nature are not quite as intuitively sound as most people assume them to be. Hume must be given credit for having realized it well ahead of his time. It is specifically this particular realization, on the philosopher’s part, from which his “gnoseological skepticism” originates, “All inferences from experience suppose, as their foundation, that the future will resemble the past… If there be any suspicion, that the course of nature may change, and that the past may be no rule for the future, all experience becomes useless”.5 To confirm the validity of Hume’s suggestion, in this regard, one will need to imagine a hypothetical machine that features two light bulbs (blue and red) and the button that is supposed to ignite either of them upon being pressed. After having pressed the button ten thousand times and realized that only the blue light bulb reacts to this action, a researcher is likely to conclude that the pressing of the button will necessarily result in this particular light bulb being turned on. However, it may be the case that the machine is programmed to ignite the red light bulb once the number of the button’s pressings reaches ten thousand and one. This alone implies that reproducibility should not be seen as the undisputed indication of veracity.
The earlier mentioned discoveries in the field of quantum physics substantiate the legitimacy of Hume’s argument even further. After all, these discoveries imply that the ways of the universe can only be predicted on a macro-level. The behavior of elementary particles (the building components of macro-objects), however, cannot be predicted by definition: Heisenberg’s “uncertainty principle” predetermines it to be the case.6 What this means is that there is always a theoretical possibility for the flow of events in the macro-world to cease making any conventional (intuitively sound) cause-effect sense. For example, according to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, warmth is always transmitted from the warmer objects to the colder ones and not vice versa. However, because the veracity of this law has a statistical quality to it, it is possible to imagine the situation when instead of being turned into vapor, boiling water turns into a chunk of ice. As Hume aptly suggested, “In vain do you pretend to have learned the nature of bodies from your past experience. Their secret nature, and consequently, all their effects and influence, may change”.7 The only possible objection to Hume’s insistence that all mental abstractions are quintessentially experiential is that people appear to be capable of visualizing (mentally) even those shades of a particular color to which they have never been exposed in real life. The philosopher admitted that he does not know how to explain this phenomenon. In the author’s opinion, however, the very fact that there is a strongly defined sophist sounding to this inconsistency renders it deprived of much of its actuality.
Conclusion
What has been said earlier helps to explain why David Hume has never been considered a particularly popular philosopher in the West. Evidently enough, Hume’s “gnoseological skepticism” is quite inconsistent with people’s unconscious predisposition towards striving to attain an intellectual mastery over the surrounding reality as an integral part of their existential mode. Nevertheless, there can be very little doubt about the fact that one will indeed be able to benefit from reading Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. The reason for this is apparent: one’s awareness of the factors that hamper human cognition is itself the necessary precondition for the concerned individual to be able to proceed with broadening its intellectual horizons. The author believes that this conclusion is fully consistent with the paper’s initial thesis.
Bibliography
Bansal, Ashish, and Ajay Kumar, “Generalized Analogs of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Inequality.” Journal of Inequalities and Applications 3, no. 2 (2015): 1-15.
Barlow, Richard. “’Hume Sweet Hume’: Skepticism, Idealism, and Burial in Finnegans Wake.” Philosophy and Literature 38, no.1 (2014): 266-275.
Delhez, Julien. “A Darwinian Manifesto for Rationality, Intelligence and Liberty.” Mankind Quarterly 59, no. 1 (2018): 127-143. Hume, David. Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding.
Footnotes
Richard Barlow, “’Hume Sweet Hume’: Skepticism, Idealism, and Burial in Finnegans Wake,” Philosophy and Literature 38, no.1 (2014): 269.
David Hume, Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, 2.
David Hume, Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, 4.
Julien Delhez, “A Darwinian Manifesto for Rationality, Intelligence and Liberty,” Mankind Quarterly 59, no. 1 (2018): 135.
David Hume, Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, 11.
Ashish Bansal and Ajay Kumar, “Generalized Analogs of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Inequality,” Journal of Inequalities and Applications 3, no. 2 (2015): 2.
David Hume, Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, 12.
Skepticism is a philosophical position that implies distrust of received knowledge or statements. In other words, skepticism is the habit of not believing in something for which there is no indisputable evidence or facts. According to Nichols and Pinillos, a skeptic follows this way of perceiving information (399). Skepticism has its advantages and disadvantages. On the one hand, this force field protects people from pseudo-facts, bad ideas, excessive gullibility, and manipulation. But a skeptical look can manifest passivity, cynicism, suspicion, and fear of losing one’s point of view.
Reliability of Normal Sources of Knowledge
Any point of view is based on information obtained from some source of knowledge. However, the critical characteristic of any source is its limitation. Moreover, the source may be unreliable, which creates the risk of believing in a lie. Non-skeptical persons will consider various sources of knowledge reliable, resulting in erroneous reality and ideas. (Nichols & Pinillos, 2018). On the contrary, skeptics question the reliability and validity of knowledge sources due to their limitations. The four sources of knowledge include perceptions, memory, introspection, and reasoning, but each is unreliable.
Perceptions as a Source of Knowledge
A person receives information about the world through a variety of perceptions. On the one hand, through perceptions, people receive confirmation that things and phenomena that correspond to these perceptions exist. On the other hand, perceptions do not always reflect what exists in the real world. First, visual and auditory illusions do not correspond to anything real. Secondly, perceptions are subjective since they are perceived by a person based on the personal characteristics of the mind. According to Nolder and Kadous (2018), perception is one of the consequences of perceptual reliance. Thus perceptions are the source of knowledge.
Memory as a Source of Knowledge
Memory is also an unreliable source of knowledge. First, there is the possibility of remembering individual aspects of information instead of the complete data set. Secondly, people can forget new information while retaining old information. Memory distortions are also quite common. Nolder and Kadous (2018) assert that memory fails everyone from time to time. Therefore, memory can be misleading, making it a poor source of knowledge.
Introspection as a Source of Knowledge
Introspection is a highly inaccurate source of knowledge. Most people believe that the perception of themselves is more accurate than the perception of others. Aspects such as cognitive distortions, biases, and the unconscious challenge the reliability of introspection as a source of knowledge. Moreover, a key characteristic of introspection is subjectivity. Thus, all of the above points to the unreliability of this source of knowledge.
Reasoning as a Source of Knowledge
Reasoning is also a source of knowledge, with several shortcomings that make it unreliable. Nolder and Kadous (2018) note that a person’s reasoning about the environment depends only on his position, past experience, and future expectations. For example, a person concludes that all black people are breaking the law after witnessing a black person committing a crime. Therefore, the reasoning is not enough to obtain sufficient and reliable knowledge.
Reliability of Sources and Deception
Thus, such sources of knowledge as perceptions, memory, introspection, and reasoning often turn out to be unreliable. In this regard, they are capable of leading to false knowledge. However, this does not always happen, but it happens from time to time. If people make mistakes sometimes, it does not mean they always make them. Sometimes a person, relying on the sources of knowledge described above, can be deceived and sometimes may be right. This is because all of the sources have a subjective aspect. However, personal perception, recollection, introspection, and reasoning can often be relatively objective.
Conclusion
Therefore, skepticism is a tendency to abstain from peremptory and categorical judgments, a critically distrustful attitude towards any generally accepted phenomenon or information imposed from outside that is not confirmed or proven. That is, skepticism encourages not so much doubt as studying and investigating. Being a skeptic means having a healthy dose of distrust and common sense to tell the real from the fake.
The possibility of gaining accurate and verifiable knowledge has been a debatable topic in philosophy for centuries. Skepticism refers to the theory of knowledge that denies that there are multiple opportunities for deriving accurate information concerning reality. This essay seeks to explain skepticism, exemplify its propositions regarding the unreliability of normal sources of knowledge, and address the theory’s implications and possible responses to its proponents.
The theory of skepticism represents an entire family of views. It is built on the premise that people “lack knowledge in some fundamental way,” which implies that most or even all beliefs must be false (Vaughn, 2022, p. 284). The theory holds that there is no reliable method of distinguishing between beliefs that do and do not contain actual knowledge (Vaughn, 2022). As skepticism suggests, any piece of information stemming from perception, memory, reasoning, and introspection can possibly be an instance of delusion or a hallucination.
Perception is unreliable due to relativity and sensory organs’ imperfection. Physical/optical phenomena and the visual system’s limited adaptability to various environments can give rise to illusions, such as the incorrect perception of length, depth, movement, or temperature. For instance, if a mother’s hands are persistently cold, she might assume that her actually healthy child has a fever when touching the child’s forehead. Thus, sensory perception might be limited by the observer’s current state.
Regarding memory, the reason for its unreliability is that remembering all details and events without gaps is impossible. Memories change over time under the influence of a person’s emotions or external pressure. For instance, the possibility of inducing the memories of events that never happened has been confirmed scientifically (Calado et al., 2021). Therefore, there are reasons to assume that memory does not produce accurate knowledge.
Reasoning and introspection can also be imperfect in terms of trustworthiness. The former is unreliable since reasoning might involve operating facts that are actually misconceptions and incorporate biases. It can be untrustworthy when the subject is of personal importance, making an individual forced to emphasize and ignore some evidence to maintain psychological comfort. If devoted Christians reflect on the status of abortion, they can be inclined to emphasize evidence from religion while ignoring research on fetal pain and pro-choice secular arguments. Introspection’s unreliability might be rooted in people’s proneness to cognitive biases, including perceptual confirmation. As an example, if individuals wrongly assume that everyone hates them, they would be likely to treat others’ non-verbal cues and words taken out of context as the justification for this perception when examining it. Thus, these sources of knowledge might be inherently flawed and conducive to biases.
Concerning responses to skeptics, the truth that information from the four sources of knowledge can be false does not immediately lead to the assumption that people might never be correct. Firstly, if billions of people are greatly heterogeneous in perceiving reality and approaches to reasoning, it can be assumed that at least some will derive true and justifiable knowledge and spread it. Secondly, skepticism posits that there is no way to separate true and false beliefs, which is not entirely correct (Vaughn, 2022). People notice when something is unrealistic and differs from everyday experiences, so lucid dreaming is a common phenomenon.
Next, comparisons are available to range knowledge in terms of accuracy. For instance, patients with schizophrenia can compare their sensory perception before and after treatment with antipsychotics to single out the illusory elements. In this response to the theory’s proponents, it is also notable to mention that if most knowledge is incorrect, their assumption that people are always mistaken might be incorrect as well. It places skeptics and their opponents in an equal position.
Finally, philosophical skepticism argues that most sources of knowledge are flawed, and assessing the correctness of conclusions is impossible. The common sources of knowledge can generate misleading information due to the existence of biases, illusions, and memories’ proneness to modification and distortion. Nevertheless, skeptics’ denial of knowledge might also be illusory, and sensory perceptions of external objects provide cues for the assessment of their reliability.
References
Calado, B., Luke, T. J., Connolly, D. A., Landström, S., & Otgaar, H. (2021). Implanting false autobiographical memories for repeated events. Memory, 29(10), 1320-1341. Web.
Vaughn, L. (2022). Philosophy here and now: Powerful ideas in everyday life (4th ed.). Oxford University Press.
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 18th 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
Bensley, D. Alan, Cody Watkins, Scott O. Lilienfeld, Christopher Masciocchi, Michael P. Murtagh, and Krystal Rowan. 2022. “Skepticism, Cynicism, and Cognitive Style Predictors of the Generality of Unsubstantiated Belief”. Applied Cognitive Psychology 36 (2): 487-487.
Lyons, Jack C. 2011. Perception and Basic Beliefs. New York: Oxford University Press.
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.
Amongst the galaxy of French thinkers, philosophers and writers, Rene Descartes stands as one of the tallest luminary. Descartes was also called as the Father of Modern Western philosophy whose writings have had a profound effect in the formation of modern nation states. This essay examines Descartes’ principle ideas of the utility of doubt for arriving at truths and the concept of dualism between the mind and the body.
Descartes formulated the concept of methodical scepticism. The famous maxim Cogito Ergo Sum, or ‘I think therefore I am’ was formulated by Descartes, a theme that established western rationalism as the popular philosophical body of work that could be put to practical uses. According to Descartes, if any idea can be doubted, then it is not true knowledge that then requires further rational enquiry to arrive at the real truth. Human existence is proved by the very fact that a human thinks, with inputs from his five senses, which are not very reliable, but it is through the very act of thinking that gives him the rational conclusion that he exists. The Wax analogy used by Descartes establishes this rationale. A block of wax has certain physical characteristics that a human receives through his sense of sight, smell and touch. However, when the wax block is brought close to a heat source it melts. Going by the sense of sight, smell and touch, the wax has changed its characteristics. It no longer feels solid; it looks liquid and also gives off a certain smell that had not existed earlier. Thus the senses, in isolation arrive at a different conclusion regarding this new entity. However, the mind tells the human that the object is still wax. Hence it is the process of thinking that converts the doubt about the truth about the wax into a certainty. Hence, the doubting methodology ascertains the real truth. This system of doubting was further developed by Descartes in his Cartesian Theory of Fallacies in which the inquirer starts with a premise that a particular statement is false and then develops an argument to prove it is true. This theory has been till to date modified and used in pure maths field of mathematical analysis and analytical geometry.
In his theory of dualism, Descartes holds that the mind controls the body through the pineal gland. However, at times the body driven by human desires influences the mind. In this way dualism exists as a two-way traffic between the mind and the human body with the dominance of the mind on most occasions. Central to Descartes belief of dualism was that the pineal gland contained the human soul and was resident only in humans and not in other animals. One must remember, that Descartes was only internalising the known scientific knowledge of those times (1596-1650) and hence could be pardoned for holding such perceptions. That does not detract the essence of the mind-body connection albeit, not from the pineal gland but from the brain and cognition as modern day psychologists and neuroscientists have found.
In conclusion, it can be said that Descartes’ concept of methodical skepticism laid the foundations for scientific reasoning and spirit of rational enquiry that led to further discoveries in the field of mathematics, science as well as development of rationalism as a valid field of philosophy.
A French philosopher, mathematician and scientist, Rene Descartes (1596-1650) introduced a shift in thinking from the empiricist school of thought to the rationalist school of thought. The empiricist school of thought held that all knowledge ultimately comes to us through our senses. The rationalist school of thought introduced by Descartes holds that human reason is the source for all human knowledge. He is often called the father of modern philosophy for this shift in thinking. Through this development in thought, he was also the founder of modern day mathematics and provided the framework for study of the natural sciences. In developing these ideas, Descartes wrote several books regarding the nature of existence and knowledge, which has had tremendous influence on those who have come after him. In answering the challenge of the skeptics regarding the source of knowledge, Descartes published Discourse on Method in 1637 in which he presents his argument supporting the rationalist theory. He summed up his argument with a line that continues to be quoted in and out of context today: “I think, therefore I am.” By studying the writings that led up to this concept as expressed in Discourse on Method and comparing them with further attempts to refine this idea within a subsequent book Meditations on First Philosophy, one must conclude that Descartes cannot fully overcome the challenge of skepticism with this argument.
Being among the first to question the dominant Aristotelian schools of thought that had so dominated academic thought throughout the ages and approaching the subject from the mathematical field rather than the traditional philosophical stance, Descartes was in the unique position of providing an alternative path for philosophy to take. “According to Descartes, the four rules of logic were: to accept as true only those conclusions which were clearly and distinctly known to be true; to divide difficulties under examination into as many parts as possible for their better solution; to conduct thought in order, and to proceed step by step from the simplest and easiest to know, to more complex language; and in every case to take a general view so as to be sure of having omitted nothing” (Kandaswamy n.d.). Reading through these steps, the linkage of thought to mathematical methods of analysis can be clearly traced as one examines his argument.
Descartes’ cogito argument
The simple-sounding statement of “I think, therefore I am” succinctly sums up what has become referred to as Descartes’ cogito argument. It is the result of a systematic discourse in which Descartes calls into question all of the assumptions he’s come to know as a result of the philosophical thought of his day. “I had long before remarked that … it is sometimes necessary to adopt, as if above doubt, opinions which we discern to be highly uncertain” (Descartes, 2001). In order to discover the highest version of the truth possible, Descartes felt it was necessary to question every assumption of knowledge that had even the shadow of a doubt. He did this by analyzing every instance of assumption he could find for its supporting data, much like a computer might analyze every document in a hard drive for its supporting links. Through this questioning process, he demonstrates how thought, not observation is really the right foundation for knowledge. “When I considered that the very same thoughts (presentations) which we experience when awake may also be experienced when we are asleep, while there is at that time not one of them true, I supposed that all the objects (presentations) that had ever entered into my mind when awake, had in them no more truth than the illusions of my dreams” (Descartes, 2001). His idea of discovering truths about the world was defined by whether he had a clear and distinct perception of them and determined that this ‘clear and distinct’ perception was sufficient for knowledge.
However, the idea that knowledge can be defined by a “clear and distinct perception” is foiled by its own dependence on the senses as the senses can often be fooled. Acknowledging this, Descartes argues his way out of this idea by indicating that in order to fool a mind, a mind must first exist. “But there is I know not what being, who is possessed at once of the highest power and the deepest cunning, who is constantly employing all his ingenuity in deceiving me. Doubtless, then, I exist, since I am deceived; and, let him deceive me as he may, he can never bring it about that I am nothing, so long as I shall be conscious that I am something” (Descartes, 1989). Regardless of the way in which it’s presented, though, there is a hole in the logic that states thought instead of the senses is the basis for truth while the evidence of correct thought is a clear and distinct sense that what is thought is correct. In his arguments regarding the nature and existence of God, Descartes goes on to say that it does not matter whether we are dreaming or not because whatever our intellect tells us is true is, in fact, true. This directly contradicts what he said earlier regarding dreams being little more than impressions that did not exist and did not necessarily represent what was true.
Descartes’ full circle
Therefore, in pursuing a definition of the truth, Descartes came around full circle. From denying the existence of everything that had the shadow of a doubt, including everything known through the senses and seemingly intuitively, he argued his way through the idea that thought completely separated from sense was the necessary basis for knowledge and that the only correct thought was thought that carried with it the sense that it was clear and distinct. “He developed a dualistic system in which he distinguished radically between mind, the essence of which is thinking, and matter, the essence of which is extension in three dimensions. Descartes’ metaphysical system is intuitionist, derived by reason from innate ideas, but his physics and physiology, based on sensory knowledge, are mechanistic and empiricist” (Watson 2002). Through the meditations included in Meditations on First Philosophy, Descartes presents his logical sequence leading to the idea that since God exists, all knowledge must come from him and therefore, whether we are dreaming or awake, our perceptions of our reality must be real. It’s a self-contradicting circle that simply doesn’t make sense when taken in its entirety.
Conclusion
The discussion surrounding this statement as well as the process by which Descartes arrived at this conclusion and the branches of thought that arise from these discussions, has proved to be the foundation upon which most modern philosophical commentary has been focused. “The philosophy of Descartes had a profound impact on the philosophers and theologians of his day” (Woolston 2004). Several of the major thinkers of his day either took up pains to support Descartes’ views or to reject them and prove them false. From these discussions came the branches of thought regarding what made up the human spirit and just how was this connected with the human body. “Descartes’ influence in philosophy cannot be underestimated. The epistemic foundation, presuppositionless systems, the mind/body problem, and the subject/object relationship are issues that haunt philosophy to the present day. In one fell swoop, Descartes split apart you and the external world. Much of later philosophy is spent trying to get these two together somehow” (Davis 1997). In the years that followed, the Empiricists worked to deny any kind of nonmaterial realm “and they denied Descartes’ assertion that there is a distinct substance existing independently from the senses or from the physical world. The Materialists argued that the universe is nothing more than matter in motion moving through space. They maintained that the mind is nothing more than a process of physical phenomena just as breathing and defecating are natural processes, and that there is no warrant for asserting the ‘soul itself’ as existing independently in some realm” (Woolston 2004). Regardless of whether they agree or disagree with Descartes’ original thoughts, processes and premises, though, the fact remains that it is Descartes and the realm of ideas he brought forward that they are basing their arguments upon, thereby underscoring and reinforcing the concept that Descartes is the father of modern philosophy.
Works Cited
Davis, W. The Rene Descartes Project. Covenant College. (1997). 2008. Web.
Descartes, Rene. Meditations on First Philosophy. Trans. John Veitch. New York: Prometheus Books, 1989.
Descartes, René. Discourse on Method. Vol. XXXIV, Part 1. The Harvard Classics. New York: P.F. Collier & Son, 1909–14; Bartleby, 2001. Web.
Kandaswamy, D. The Key to Geometry: A Pair of Perpendicular Lines. New Brunswick: Rutgers Mathematics Department, 2006.
Watson, R. “Rene Descartes: 1596-1650.” The Encyclopedia Britannica. Scottsdale, AR: Pearson Software, 2002.
Woolston, C.S. “Rene Descartes: Mind vs. Body.” Dynamic Deism. (2004). Web.
Skepticism, as a philosophical relationship, subjects to doubt the possibility to obtain any kind of knowledge. One of the most extraordinary thoughts about skepticism was formulated by David Hume, a Scottish philosopher, historian and an economist. This paper analyzes some of Hume’s arguments of skepticism regarding the unobserved, along with addressing some of philosophical concepts about science and human understanding.
A Priori knowledge
A priori – is a philosophical term that has an important meaning in the cognitive theory, especially in Kant’s philosophy. This term could be defined as the knowledge that was obtained independently of the experience initially inherent to consciousness. As an opposite of this term, a posteriori is the knowledge that is based on the experience.
In forming the difference of these two terms, a priori knowledge can be represented as the proposed and nonnegotiable truth, or the knowledge that is based on instincts where it could be said that stepping from a cliff would result in falling of a person, is a priori, whereas stepping from a cliff would result in the person to be killed, is a posteriori knowledge. According to Hume, the relation of cause and effect is entirely based on experience and thus can be considered a posteriori.
Relations among Ideas and Matters of Facts
Based on Hume, the objects that can be subjects of observation and analysis can be divided into two groups based on their relations to ideas or facts. Propositions of relations of ideas are related only to the matter of thinking and logical observation, whereas the propositions of relations of facts are based on the relations of cause and effect, which can be as a posteriori knowledge based on experience.
In giving examples of those two connections, it should be noted the similarity to the concepts of a prioiri and a posteriori.
Sciences such as mathematics and physic are based on finding the relations between the objects, along with economics where the possible cause of the objects can be demonstrated, e.g. equation of difference of squares or the area of a rectangular.
Another example based on Hume the relations of facts that come from experience, thus the results cannot be a priori, and laws of physics for example are concluded through experiments. According to Hume, neither of these relations can lead to knowing or predicting a future outcome. Relations based on demonstration alone cannot establish the uniformity of the nature, as in scientific laws and principles.
The cause and effect relations cannot do that either, and the best result that can come up, is sort of conditional truth, if some particular predictions are true then particular conclusions follow. Thus, nothing in the world can be established with confidence.
Giving an example of an event which we know about its future outcome, such as finding the time of filling a tank with water of certain velocity, we are assuming the results based on assumptions of previous experiments, that “held up to the present”. However, observations cannot result in the discovery any factor that can link the velocity and the time after which the tank will be filled.
Accordingly, the future outcome is based merely in the psychological confidence that a certain cause should be followed by a certain effect.
Uniformity principle
The uniformity principle can be considered as a set of axioms that postulates that the universe is controlled by laws, the future is similar to the past and what happened once would happen again if the same conditions are recreated.
This principle if translated to cause-effect relation can be interpreted as the cause-effect relations are the same throughout the time, and this generalization is based on previous generalizations, where even the most vague law of nature was discovered by itself, and the most evident became generally accepted, before they was talked about. Every accepted fact, confirms that each event is related to some law, and for each event there is a combination of objects and other events.
In relating this concept to the Hume’s previous concept of relation of facts, it can be said that the Uniformity principle is true until a refutation is made to one of the generalized laws that will confirm Hume’s skepticism.
In that sense if taking an example of the shape of the earth and its circle, if the previous assumption, although not scientific, was taken in consideration and became generally accepted, the people would take the assumptions of the others to justify future assumptions.
In the case of the earth, if the law of the earth circling around the sun was not generalized, further false assumptions would have been made only based on the psychological fact that it previously was true. Then, saying that the future is like the past is wrong, as a single regularity can reject the uniformity principle
Future is known As Hume rejected any reasoning in making future propositions, he states that the uniformity principle if is to be true it is based on some unknown factor that pushes forward the forces of universe, and this force is not subject to reasoning.
Thus, the belief in the uniformity principle is based on custom rather than reasoning. These customs are the basis for stating the facts to be a priori in establishing future propositions. In that sense stating that something is a priori without the experience is a matter of custom and a habit..
The habit plays a major role making associations, hearing a familiar word, or a name we relive in our memory the habit which is associated with the same name or word. In the matter of science, it could be said the facts that are taken a priori is just the best taken evidences.
Conclusion
In general, the arguments of the skeptics are reasonable at some points, where the scientific approach cannot be taken to solve all the problems, despite the fact that scientific confirmation had been devoted to by many scientist a great deal of attention. The scientific approach should not be taken as a prediction, rather than the logical outcome which held only to “the present”.
Stating that everything is subject to doubts, is also a controversial statement, as without going into philosophical argues, the people have to have something to believe, which is based on certain pattern, rather than on a possibility. In that matter having object a priori is essential.
Skepticism is considered to be a negative side of our consciousness. Some philosophers think that skepticism can only be interesting as a challenge of our common-sense knowledge. The author offers some methods of skepticism defense which are not considered to be traditional. He provides with the arguments that our everyday communication leads to the false utterances though we always speak of real objects.
A lot of sophisticated philosophers do not perceive skepticism seriously because they consider that it involves some unacceptable things. The usage of the notion “knowledge” in our speech leads to systematic error of information we say. Our inner beliefs are not false but strong views are responsible for the facts we say. The word “knowledge” is related to absolute terms because it is persuasive and categorical in comparison with relative ones. The line between these two groups of terms is paraphrase that should be comprehensive and used within a context. Any basic absolute term can be defined with the help of certain relative terms.
Some terms we use in speech are followed by prepositional clauses, but it is impossible to think that all such terms are followed by them. The process of paraphrase can be seen on the example of the word “confident” which is considered to be absolute. People speak indifferently of the confidence of a person as well as of his certainty. But there is a difference between a confident and a certain person: a certain person is more than confident of the fact and confident one is not very much certain of it.
The only explanation of the notion being absolute is the logical necessity in it being so. Our understanding of the process makes us be sure in its absolute character. If a person is certain of one thing more than of another, so the first thing he is certain of is considered to be absolute for him.
The modern philosophy tends to believe that knowledge needs being certain. It explained by the fact that a person knows something only in case of being certain. Some philosophers think that belief is quite enough for knowledge; there are some contradictions among thinkers who consider that if a person believe in something, he knows it for sure and is strongly certain about it. According to their thoughts people use in everyday speech facts they believe to be true, that is why it is not important for them being certain about something. But just the opposite opinion is proved by an example: if a person knows that it is raining but he is not certain of it, we see the contradictions of his belief. So, knowledge compulsory requires certainty.
Such arguments may strike almost every philosopher even those who take skepticism seriously. The defense of skepticism is based on the notion of certainty, because this notion should never be apart of any other and be closely connected with all the views. One cannot remain sure whether these statements are true and analysis can be a background for future investigations, but this skepticism defense is adequate and is proved by facts and deductions.
As a way of summarizing one cannot but notice that many scholars do not believe in the importance of skepticism and consider it to be of no importance. One can hardly connect this procedure with such notion as certainty and make it to be an integral part of skepticism. But it is really true as proved by the philosophers. We always say what we know and consider our facts to be true though they may appear to be false. One cannot say that he really knows something without being certain of it. Let us imagine that we know such obvious things as existence of fossil fuel but we are not certain of it. We surely know why we need it but have no certainty whether it is true or not. The only we have is a slight belief in our theory. But what it means?.. We have inner contradictions with what we know and what we are certain of. So, it says that we cannot surely know something without being certain of it. But only absolute notions bring this certainty to us; one should remember that absolute notion is different for everyone. If one is certain about something more so this thing is considered to be absolute for him.
If I were to examine the notion of skepticism I would definitely back up the view of the author of the article Peter Unger. Certainty should be present in every methods of investigation as well as in usual life. Great thinkers avoid the serious character of this notion and its importance in everyday communication, but we have just been proved the opposite point of view and can use it as a background for future deductions.
References
Unger, Peter. “A Defense of Skepticism”. The Philosophical Review, Vol. 80, No. 2, (1971), pp. 198-219.