Back to Skepticism

Contents

1. Philosophic vs Practical Skepticism
2. Hume’s Explanation of How Practical and Philosophic Skepticism Differ
3. Dictionary Definitions of Practical and Philosophic Skepticism

Philosophic vs Practical Skepticism

• Practical Skepticism is the disposition to believe based only on evidence and rational argument.
• Philosophic Skepticism is the doctrine that there’s no rational basis for believing various classes of propositions, for example:
  • propositions about the external world: that there are tables, trees, cars, houses, and the myriad other things that occupy space and time
  • propositions about other minds: that other people, like oneself, are conscious beings having thoughts, sensations, feelings, emotions, and beliefs.
• The thesis that there’s no rational basis for believing a proposition P logically implies that
  • No one is justified in believing P
  • It’s irrational to believe P
  • No one knows that P.

Hume’s Explanation of How Practical and Philosophic Skepticism Differ

• Hume distinguished Philosophic and Practical Skepticism, using the terms Pyrrhonian for the former and Mitigated Skepticism for the latter.
  • “But a Pyrrhonian cannot expect, that his philosophy will have any constant influence on the mind: or if it had, that its influence would be beneficial to society. On the contrary, he must acknowledge, if he will acknowledge anything, that all human life must perish, were his principles universally and steadily to prevail. All discourse, all action would immediately cease; and men remain in a total lethargy, till the necessities of nature, unsatisfied, put an end to their miserable existence. It is true; so fatal an event is very little to be dreaded. Nature is always too strong for principle.”
  • “There is, indeed, a more mitigated scepticism or academical philosophy, which may be both durable and useful, and which may, in part, be the result of this Pyrrhonism, or excessive scepticism, when its undistinguished doubts are, in some measure, corrected by common sense and reflection.”
    • An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section XII.

Dictionary Definitions of Practical and Philosophic Skepticism

• unabridged.merriam-webster.com/unabridged/Skepticism
  • 1a :  the doctrine that any true knowledge is impossible or that all knowledge is uncertain :  a position that no fact or truth can be established on philosophical grounds
  • 2:  an attitude of doubt or disposition toward incredulity in general or in regard to something particular (such as a supposed fact)
• ahdictionary.com/word/search.html?q=skepticism
  • 1. A doubting or questioning attitude or state of mind; dubiety. See Synonyms at uncertainty.
  • 2. Philosophy
    • a. The ancient school of Pyrrho of Elis that stressed the uncertainty of our beliefs in order to oppose dogmatism.
    • b. The doctrine that absolute knowledge is impossible, either in a particular domain or in general.
    • c. A methodology based on an assumption of doubt with the aim of acquiring approximate or relative certainty.