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moralobjectivity.net concepts section: copyright Robert Ellis 2011

Scepticism

Scepticism (spelt 'skepticism' by Americans) was originally a philosophical movement from Hellenistic (i.e. later Greek) times, and is used today loosely to refer to any doubting position. However, here we are concerned with philosophical scepticism. The insights of classical scepticism as to the limitations of our knowledge are important ones, shared with Hindu and Buddhist thought, and stimulating much later Western philosophy by issuing a profound challenge to it. One important aspect of Middle Way philosophy is to take scepticism seriously and accept its insights rather than ignoring it or unsuccessfully attempting to refute it.

Scepticism puts forward arguments like the following:

As finite beings occupying a limited point in space, the information that we have access to is always necessarily limited.
Given our limited mental capacities, it is unlikely that the concepts we form are capable of accurate representation of reality.
Our senses are limited in what they can detect (for example, we only see objects that reflect light between certain wavelengths), so we cannot gain true perceptions of objects through the senses, since we might be missing crucial features.
Given evidence and arguments for one belief, alternative evidence and arguments that appear to support opposing beliefs can always be found.
Our conceptual frameworks for understanding the world are limited by our cultural and linguistic background.
No conclusive proof can be offered that one�s current experience (or any given past experience) is not illusory. You may be dreaming at this moment.
Given how often we have made mistakes in the past and had to alter our beliefs, it seems likely that we will make more mistakes and have to alter them again. At least some of our current beliefs thus seem likely to be mistaken, and we do not know in advance which ones.

In judging these arguments it's important to distinguish between agnostic scepticism and negative metaphysics. None of these arguments justify a negative metaphysical response of claiming that our beliefs about reality are necessarily false. They justify only metaphysical agnosticism, because they leave us without justification for either definite positive or definite negative assertions about how things actually are. Nihilistic philosophies often begin with arguments that justify agnosticism but use them to try to justify negative metaphysics: the process of sceptical slippage (q.v.). Dualistic philosophies are often identifiable by their selective use of sceptical arguments that suit their purposes, but their ignoring of other ones that undermine their assumptions.

In the Western tradition of philosophy there have been many false assumptions about the implications of scepticism. One of these is that if we take it seriously it stops us from holding beliefs or making claims altogether. This is not an implication of scepticism, because all it undermines is claims about reality. It does not prevent us from making statements about our experience, nor does it prevent us making justifiable provisional statements about what appears to be the case based on that experience. Scepticism is not a threat to science or to human understanding, only to dogmatism. All our claims are subject to revision. Nor does scepticism deprive us of justification for our claims, given that objectivity can be based, not on metaphysics, but on our degree of avoidance of limiting assumptions that prevent us from engaging with conditions in our experience.

Scepticism is not a threat to be defended against, but a welcome support for the Middle Way. It continually challenges us not to settle down into truth-claims but to recognise their lack of justification, and thus is the basis for the skill of critical thinking. Since objectivity (including moral objectivity) requires an avoidance of the truth-claims of metaphysics, scepticism used consistently and rigorously is a force for good.

Links to related discussion:

Truth on the Edge (Chapter 1 begins with scepticism)

Critical thinking (introductory page)

Dogmatism and scepticism (from thesis)

Classical scepticism (from thesis)

Hellenistic philosophy (academic paper)

Justification of belief in Buddhism (from The Trouble with Buddhism)

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