Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Category: Ancient Skepticism

  • Solubility Skepticism, Religion, and Reason

    Stack topper.  Here are four addenda to what I say in the Substack entry. 1) A skeptic is an inquirer, not a denier. Too many confuse doubt, the engine  of inquiry, with denial. If I doubt that such-and-such, I neither affirm it nor deny it. 2) Is doubting whether a proposition is true the same…

  • The Riddle of Evil and the Pyrrhonian ‘Don’t Care’

    Substack latest on the aporetics of evil.   Today I preach upon a text from Karl Jaspers wherein he comments on St. Augustine (Plato and Augustine, ed. Arendt, tr. Mannheim, Harcourt 1962, p. 110): In interminable discussions, men have tried to sharpen and clarify this contradiction: on the one hand, evil is a mere clouding of…

  • Heaven, Hell, Purgatory, and the Will to Believe

    My friend, I continue to read and reread your Heaven and Hell essay, especially the "Concluding Existential-Practical Postscript".   Psalm 23. "The Lord is my Shepherd. I shall not…." Let us pray that there is a Good Shepherd who cares deeply about his flock and will do things to relieve their suffering. Can we come…

  • Limited Doxastic Voluntarism and Epoché

    Are there any beliefs over which we have direct voluntary control?  I am a limited doxastic voluntarist: I hold that there are some beliefs over the formation of which one has direct voluntary control. That is, there are some believable contents — call them propositions — that I can bring myself to believe at will,…

  • Safety is Overrated

  • The Characteristic Attitude of the Pyrrhonists

    Benson Mates, The Skeptic Way, Oxford UP, 1996, p. 5: ". . . the characteristic attitude of the Pyrrhonists is one of aporia, of being at a a loss, puzzled, stumped, stymied."  Aporia is not doubt.  Doubt implies understanding, but aporia is a lack of understanding.  The modern skeptic may doubt, but not the ancient skeptic. Connected with…

  • Something about Nothing

    Consider the following contradictory propositions: 1) Something exists. 2) Nothing exists. (1) is plainly true. It follows that (2) is false.  So much for truth value. What about modal status?  Is (1) contingent or necessary? If (1) is contingent, then its negation is possible, in which case it is possible that (2) be true.  If…

  • Our Pyrrhonian Predicament

    It is widely admitted that there is something deeply unsatisfactory about the human condition.  One aspect of our wretched state is recognized and addressed by the Pyrrhonists: we want certain knowledge but it eludes us. And so we must content ourselves with belief. But beliefs are in conflict and this conflict causes suffering which ranges…

  • Skepticism and the Life Adoxastōs

    A very good essay in metaphilosophy.

  • Further Pyrrhonian Ponderings: Are There Two Kinds of Assent?

    Michael Frede urges a distinction between two kinds of assent. The one he calls "just having a view," and the other "making a claim, taking a position." ("The Sceptic's Two Kinds of Assent and the Question of the Possibility of Knowledge" in Philosophy in History, eds. Rorty, Schneewind, and Skinner, Cambridge UP, 1984, p. 261.)…

  • The Riddle of Evil and the Pyrrhonian ‘Don’t Care’

    Today I preach upon a text from Karl Jaspers wherein he comments on St. Augustine (Plato and Augustine, ed. Arendt, tr. Mannheim, Harcourt 1962, p. 110): In interminable discussions, men have tried to sharpen and clarify this contradiction: on the one hand, evil is a mere clouding of the good, a shadow, a deficiency; on…

  • On the Road with Peter Wust

    Both Pyrrhonists and dogmatists aim at and achieve a sort of psychological security: the former by ceasing to inquire and by living more or less adoxastos, without beliefs; the latter by the rigid and unquestioning holding of contentious beliefs. The dogmatists hold on, the skeptics let go. The former live tenaciously, clinging to their tenets;…

  • A Quasi-Pyrrhonian Metaphilosophical Puzzle

    Some of us are tempted by the metathesis (MT) that every substantive philosophical thesis is such that the arguments for it and the arguments against it are equally plausible and thus 'cancel out.' But the metathesis is itself a philosophical thesis. So if the metathesis is true, then every argument in support of it is…

  • Nietzsche on Pyrrho: Sagacious Weariness, a Buddhist for Greece

    Will to Power #437 contains a marvellous discussion of Pyrrho of Elis.  A taste: A Buddhist for Greece, grown up amid the tumult of the schools; a latecomer; weary; the protest of weariness against the zeal of the dialecticians; the unbelief of weariness in the importance of all things. (tr. Kaufmann) Years ago I noted…

  • The Pyrrhonian as Epistemic Wimp

    What is so bad about the strife of systems, controversy, conflict of beliefs? Are they always bad, never productive? Is it not by abrasion (of beliefs) that the pearl (of wisdom) is formed? At least sometimes? Doxastic conflict can be mentally stimulating, a goad to intellectual activity. We like being active. It makes us happy.…