A Footnote to Pyrrhonian Skepticism

2000 ◽  
pp. 215-226
Keyword(s):  
Pyrrhonian Skepticism

Montaigne on Truth and Skepticism

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Miernowski
Keyword(s):  
Good Faith ◽  
Negative Theology ◽  
The World ◽  
Pyrrhonian Skepticism

The incipit of the Essays presents it as a book of good faith. The truthfulness of this claim has traditionally been seriously called into question given how extensively ironic and deeply self-contradictory Montaigne’s text is. In this article I argue that Montaigne’s opening statement about good faith should not be understood as the author’s claim, but rather as a dramatic call addressed to the reader. According to Montaigne, truth is beyond our reach since we deal only with our own “phantasies” about God, the world, and ourselves. Most notably, Montaigne’s Pyrrhonian skepticism, ontologically framed by Cusanus’s negative theology, is also merely a “phantasy.” The solution to such radical epistemological negativity is neither the indefinite irresolution of Montaigne’s discourse nor his resignation to the spontaneous flow of life. The solution may only come from the reader who is asked to trust in a book intended as a “dissimilar sign” of truth.

Hegels negative Dialektik

2020 ◽  
Vol 68 (3) ◽  
pp. 382-403
Author(s):  
Andreas Gelhard
Keyword(s):  
Radical Democracy ◽  
Crucial Importance ◽  
Phenomenology Of Spirit ◽  
Speculative Philosophy ◽  
The World ◽  
Pyrrhonian Skepticism ◽  
Negative Dialectic ◽  
Static Conditions ◽  
Practical Dimension ◽  
Pyrrhonian Scepticism

AbstractHegel’s approach to ancient scepticism is often discussed only in the context of epistemological questions. But it is also of crucial importance for his practical philosophy. Hegel draws on central figures of Pyrrhonian scepticism in order to subject Kant’s antinomies – i. e., Kant’s cosmology – to a fundamental revision. He radicalises Kant’s sceptical method to “self-completing scepticism”. At the same time he gives Kant’s concept of the world a practical twist: In Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, world means an inhabited sphere in which powers and counter-powers are in conflict with each other. In doing so, he opens up the tradition of negativist thinking in political philosophy, which ranges from Marx and Adorno to the current theories of radical democracy. When Hegel calls Pyrrhonian skepticism a “negative dialectic”, he thereby marks what he views as a deficit: the inferiority of Pyrrhonian skepticism to speculative philosophy. However, it is precisely the practical dimension of Hegel’s dialectic that suggests that the sceptical motives of his thinking should be given great weight. This can be seen most clearly in Hegel’s concept of Bildung, which defines emancipation processes as the reactivation of open power relations in static conditions of domination.

Pyrrhonian Skepticism and Two Kinds of Knowledge

2011 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 124-137 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Williams
Keyword(s):  
Theory Of Knowledge ◽  
Reflective Knowledge ◽  
Animal Knowledge ◽  
Ernest Sosa ◽  
Alternative Approach ◽  
Pyrrhonian Skepticism ◽  
Cognitive Faculties ◽  
Skeptical Problem ◽  
Vicious Circularity ◽  
Direct Answer

AbstractIn his Reflective Knowledge, Ernest Sosa offers a theory of knowledge, broadly virtue-theoretic in character, that is meant to transcend simple ways of contrasting "internalist" with "externalist" or "foundationalist" with "coherentist" approaches to knowledge and justification. Getting beyond such simplifications, Sosa thinks, is the key to finding an exit from "the Pyrrhonian Problematic": the ancient and profound skeptical problem concerning the apparent impossibility of validating the reliability of our basic epistemic faculties and procedures in a way that escapes vicious circularity. Central to Sosa's anti-skeptical strategy is the claim that there are two kinds of knowledge. His thought is that animal knowledge, which can be understood in purely reliabilist terms, can ground justified trust in the reliability of our basic cognitive faculties, thus elevating us (without vicious circularity) to the level of reflective knowledge. I offer a sketch of an alternative approach, linking knowledge and justification with epistemic accountability and responsible belief-management, which casts doubt on the idea that "animal" knowledge is knowledge properly so-called. However, it turns out that this approach is (perhaps surprisingly) close in spirit to Sosa's. I suggest that the differences between us may rest on a disagreement over the possibility of providing a direct answer to the Pyrrhonian challenge.

Pyrrhonian Skepticism and Humean Skepticism

2020 ◽  
pp. 213-236
Author(s):  
Don Garrett
Keyword(s):  
Common Sense ◽  
Causal Reasoning ◽  
David Hume ◽  
Causal Relation ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Historical Understanding ◽  
Pyrrhonian Skepticism ◽  
Academic Skepticism

Richard Popkin famously argued that David Hume “maintained the only consistent Pyrrhonian point of view”; yet Hume explicitly rejected Pyrrhonism, as he understood it, in favor of a mitigated “Academic” skepticism. The keys to understanding Hume’s relationship to Pyrrhonism lie partly in his own historical understanding of it, but even more in his own distinctive and non-Pyrrhonian theories of belief and evidence, theories that allow him to employ common sense and reflection to correct what he regards as “excessive” skeptical doubts. Central to those theories, in turn, are his conceptions of causal reasoning and of the causal relation itself. Ultimately, it is on the topic of the nature of causation that Hume comes closest to a Pyrrhonian outlook.

scholarly journals Beyond Quietism: Transformative Experience in Pyrrhonism and Wittgenstein

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 105-128 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rico Gutschmidt
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Transformative Experience ◽  
Philosophical Practice ◽  
Transformative Experiences ◽  
Everyday Lives ◽  
Pyrrhonian Skepticism ◽  
Philosophical Questions ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
The Human Condition

Pyrrhonian skepticism is usually understood as a form of quietism, since it is supposed to bring us back to where we were in our everyday lives before we got disturbed by philosophical questions. Similarly, the ‘therapeutic’ and ‘resolute’ readings of Wittgenstein claim that Wittgenstein’s ‘philosophical practice’ results in the dissolution of the corresponding philosophical problems and brings us back to our everyday life. Accordingly, Wittgenstein is often linked to Pyrrhonism and classified as a quietist. Against this reading, I will employ Laurie Paul’s notion of epistemically transformative experience and argue that Pyrrhonian skepticism and Wittgenstein’s philosophy can be interpreted as a philosophical practice that changes our self-understanding in significant ways. I will argue that this practice can evoke transformative experiences and is thereby able to yield a non-propositional insight into the finitude of the human condition. This shows that Pyrrhonian skepticism and Wittgenstein’s philosophy go beyond quietism.

Descartes and Ancient Skepticism: Reheated Cabbage?

2021 ◽  
pp. 325-355
Author(s):  
Gail Fine
Keyword(s):  
Way Of Life ◽  
Cartesian Skepticism ◽  
Pyrrhonian Skepticism

Chapter 13 considers a variety of ways in which Pyrrhonian skepticism has been thought to differ from Cartesian skepticism: that is, from the sort of skepticism Descartes describes in (among other places) Meditation 1. For example, it has been argued that Pyrrhonian skepticism disavows belief, whereas Cartesian skepticism disavows only knowledge. It has also been argued that Pyrrhonian skepticism is less extensive than Cartesian skepticism is, and that Pyrrhonian but not Cartesian skepticism is a way of life. This chapter argues, however, that Pyrrhonian skepticism is closer to Cartesian skepticism than it is often taken to be, siding with Descartes in his statement that what is new is not the skepticism he describes, but his refutation of it.

scholarly journals Pyrrhonian Skepticism Meets Speech-Act Theory

2012 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 83-98 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Turri
Keyword(s):  
Language Use ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Speech Act Theory ◽  
Pyrrhonian Skepticism ◽  
Different Levels

This paper applies speech-act theory to craft a new response to Pyrrhonian skepticism and diagnose its appeal. Carefully distinguishing between different levels of language-use and noting their interrelations can help us identify a subtle mistake in a key Pyrrhonian argument.

On the Coherence of Pyrrhonian Skepticism

2001 ◽  
Vol 110 (4) ◽  
pp. 521-561 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. C. Johnsen
Keyword(s):  
Pyrrhonian Skepticism

On A Philosophical Model of Hegel's Phenomenological Method: A Reply to Kenneth Westphal

2008 ◽  
Vol 29 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 71-96
Author(s):  
Brett A. Fulkerson-Smith
Keyword(s):  
Phenomenological Method ◽  
Considerable Effort ◽  
Secondary Literature ◽  
Extant Literature ◽  
Alexandre Kojeve ◽  
Sextus Empiricus ◽  
Explicit Reference ◽  
Pyrrhonian Skepticism ◽  
Epistemological Issue

Hegel's Phenomenology is among the most difficult, if it is not in fact the most difficult, philosophical treatise ever published. Owing to its opacity of form and content, the Phenomenology, which Hegel quite accurately describes as the highway of despair upon which natural consciousness travels to its absolute knowing, has had its share of hitchhikers (§78). In their efforts to comprehend the scenery along this highway, many readers of this text rely on any number of analytical commentaries and expositions. Westphal (2003) offers a welcomed contribution to this kind of secondary literature.As its title suggests, Westphal's text seeks to introduce Hegel's Phenomenology in a novel way, namely with explicit reference to the epistemological issue at its core. This is the Dilemma of the Criterion from Sextus Empiricus' Outlines of Pyrrhonism. (Benson 1996). In addition to introducing the central features and characteristics of the epistemological aim of the Phenomenology, Westphal devotes considerable effort to showing how, that is by what method, Hegel responds to at least Pyrrhonian skepticism.Westphal's examination of Hegel's method is framed by two questions. The first question is: what is Hegel's method? The answer that Westphal offers, namely that Hegel employs a phenomenological method, agrees with a host of classic and contemporary commentators, including Ivan Iljin (1946:126), Alexandre Kojève (1980: Ch. 7), Kenley R. Dove (1969-70), William Maker (1982), Wendy Lynn Clark and J.M. Fritzman (2002). Nevertheless, Westphal does offer a detailed, sophisticated, and novel account of the characteristics of Hegel's phenomenological method that is unrivaled in the extant literature.

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