Skepticism

SKEPTICISM. - From the Greek σκέπτομαι, I look, observe, reflect, meditate, investigate, it is the attitude — and the systematic position — that does not admit, in general or for a particular order of objects, the possibility of certain and definitive affirmations. It has been opposed, since antiquity, to dogmatism ([v.] from δόγμα, δόξα, δοκεῖν, to opine, to give a judgment). Scepticism is therefore the negation of a knowledge that has the meaning of absolute truth and allows a theoretical conception of reality and of life.

An essential condition of scepticism is therefore doubt (v.) about the value, nature and meaning of reality and of experience, and consequently the renunciation (ἐποχή) of every judgment that places itself beyond the immediacy of experience itself. This is so-called total (or universal) scepticism, which must not, however, be understood as the negation of any certainty. Indeed, a form of scepticism that extends doubt to experience (v.) as such is unthinkable. Every sceptical attitude finds in experience, as the very reality of the doubting consciousness, its insuperable limits and therefore allows, within the sphere of phenomena, a degree — however theoretically slight — of certainty. Alongside total scepticism, partial expressions of it can exist — and have historically existed. Thus one speaks of religious, ethical, aesthetic, pedagogical, scientific scepticism, etc., when in these individual orders of objects and values human thought is not granted the possibility of an objective knowledge. Partial forms of scepticism do not necessarily go together, indeed they sometimes conflict with one another: religious scepticism, for example, can coexist with rationalistic or scientific dogmatism, and conversely a scepticism about the possibilities of reason can be associated with extreme forms of religious dogmatism.

Furthermore, the difference between scepticism as a purely psychological attitude and as a systematic position must be specified. In the first case scepticism is a simple mental disposition, a de facto doubt, more or less conscious of its own reasons; it can have a character of greater or lesser seriousness (scepticism "frivolous", "vulgar") according to the different spiritual value and the moral sincerity of the person who professes it. As a systematic position, on the other hand, scepticism presents itself, in its own way, as a (negative) philosophical conception derived from premises of fact and of principle; it can take the form of "dogmatic" scepticism if it expresses itself in the formula: "a certain theoretical knowledge is not possible"; or of simple agnostic negativism if it resolves itself into this other affirmation: "one can neither affirm nor deny — it is doubtful — the value of truth and of certainty of knowledge". Although dogmatic scepticism presents a character of more absolute radicality, there is nevertheless an essential equivalence of the two positions, inasmuch as the doubt, decisive and definitive, about the possibilities of certainty involves the negation of certainty itself. Every position, on the other hand, that accepts doubt as a non-decisive but methodological moment, or that is in any case an attitude of research that does not systematically exclude the possibility of an objective certainty, must be distinguished from scepticism (v. PROBLEMATICISM). Analogous expressions of scepticism are empiricism and phenomenalism (v.): indeed, every consistent empiricism cannot but conclude in a general theoretical agnosticism (v.), which is precisely the essence of scepticism.

The causes of the sceptical attitude have historically been various. The following must be indicated as the principal ones: the contradictions of thought and of existence; the obscurity of the problems, of the reasons and purposes of things; the uncertainty of values in life and in history.

Scepticism received a mature elaboration in Greek philosophy. Partial motives for it can already be found in the school of Elea (v. ELEATISMO), which regarded the world of the senses as appearance and illusion. A fragment of Xenophanes affirms: "opinion [as opposed to truth] reigns everywhere", δόλος δ'ἐπὶ πᾶσι τέταται (G. A. Mullach, I, Paris 1860, p. 103, fr. 14). The Sophists were undoubtedly inclined to scepticism: such are the affirmations of Gorgias on the unknowability of being and the impossibility of a truly communicative discourse (cf. Pseudo-Aristotle, De Xenophane, Zenone et Gorgia, ch. 5) and the saying of Protagoras that on every matter there are contrary arguments (Diogenes Laertius, IX, 51), an anticipation of the ἰσοσθένεια τῶν λόγων of the sceptics. The sceptical school also appealed, besides to Heraclitus, Zeno, Parmenides, Anaxagoras, Empedocles, Democritus, etc. (cf. Diogenes Laertius, IX, 71-73; Sextus Empiricus, Pyrrh. hypot., I, 220 ff.; Cicero, Acad., I, 72 ff.), to Socrates and Plato. In reality the certainty that Socrates had of moral science (the profession of ignorance was in him not scepticism, but a methodological moment of knowledge: cf. Apol., 21 b-d) and the positive dialectic of Plato exclude scepticism. At most, latent motives for it can be identified in the unknowability of nature, affirmed by Socrates, and in the meaning of appearance attributed by Plato to the world of the senses.

Scepticism proper asserts itself with Pyrrho of Elis (c. 365-370 B.C.; v. PYRRHONISM). For Brochard, Pyrrho's scepticism has a practical character; it does not arise from dialectic but represents a reaction to dialectic; its fundamental idea is: to make doubt an instrument of wisdom and moderation, of stability and happiness (op. cit. in bibl., p. 67). It expresses itself in the programmatic assertions that later became common to the sceptics: nothing is comprehensible (ἀκαταληψία); one must therefore abstain from assent (ἐποχή); nor can it be said of anything that "it is rather thus" (οὐ μᾶλλον); I define nothing (οὐδὲν ὁρίζω); everything is hidden (πάντα ἀόριστα); nothing is in itself good or evil, just or unjust, and all things men do by law and custom (ὅμως δὲ καὶ ἔθει; cf. Diogenes Laertius, IX, 61). Hence the various designations of the sceptics: σκεπτικοί, inasmuch as they always look and never find; ζητητικοί, inasmuch as they remain in search; ἀπορητικοί, inasmuch as they doubt; ἐφεκτικοί

(from ἐπέκω), in that they suspend every judgment (ibid., IX, 69-70). As a consequence of the suspension of judgment, skepticism posited the tranquility or imperturbability of the soul (ἀταραξία: ibid., IX, 107); the impossibility (ἐπέδεια: ibid., 108) and the indifference (ἐπέδεια). The reasons for the skeptical attitude are, for Pyrrhonism, the uncertainty and relativity of perception, and the impossibility of an absolute demonstration, inasmuch as the validity of a demonstration presupposes a criterion, and the criterion in turn needs a demonstration (ibid., 79 ff.). It is therefore absolute skepticism concerning every definition about the nature of things: "The things that we experience as men we affirm; that it is day, that we live, and many other things that present themselves (παντεύεως) in our life, we know; but concerning those things that the dogmatists claim to comprehend by reason, we suspend assent because we consider them uncertain and obscure; and we recognize only our affections" (μὸν δὲ τὰ πᾶθη γιγνώσουμεν: ibid., 103); a testimony that corroborated the assertion of Richter (op. cit. in bibl., I, p. 108 ff.), that in Pyrrhonism there is an anticipation of Humean skepticism, apart from, in the English skeptic, the subjectivistic element, absent from ancient skepticism, which calls into question the very existence of reality beyond phenomena. The most distinguished among the immediate disciples of Pyrrho was Timon of Phlius (b. 325 B.C., d. in Athens 235 B.C.), of whose many works only a few scanty fragments remain. Later Pyrrhonism was taken up again by Aenesidemus of Knossos (Crete; the date of birth is uncertain: between 80 B.C. and 130 A.D.); and by Agrippa (mentioned in Diogenes Laertius, but of whom nothing is known: Hass opines that he taught toward the end of the 1st century B.C.). To Aenesidemus (whose Ἰησοῦναι λόγοι were lost, besides the Περὶ σοφίας and the Περὶ ζητήσεως) are referred the ten "places" (τόποι, τρόποι, λόγοι) or reasons for the suspension of assent, handed down, with slight variations, by Diogenes Laertius and by Sextus: perception and representations vary according to: 1) the diversity of animals; 2) the differences found among men; 3) the different constitution of the senses; 4) the circumstances; 5) the situation, the distance, the place; 6) the mixtures of objects; 7) their quantity and composition; 8) their relations; 9) their frequency or rarity; 10) the institutions, customs, laws, fabulous beliefs and dogmatic opinions (Sextus, Phyrrh. hyp., I, 36 ff.; Diogenes Laertius, IX, 79 ff.). Of Agrippa are likewise remembered five "modes": 1) the disagreement of men; 2) the process to infinity in demonstration; 3) the variety of objects according to their relations; 4) the hypothesis, when, to avoid the process to infinity in demonstration, a hypothetical principle is assumed as certain; 5) the vicious circle (διέλληλος τρόπος), when one takes as a premise what needs to be proved by the conclusion (Sextus, Phyrr. hyp., I, 164 ff.; Diogenes Laertius, IX, 88-89).

But even before the restoration of Pyrrhonism with Aenesidemus, skepticism had been welcomed, with Arcesilaus, by the New Platonic Academy (the Ciceronian tradition, followed by Brochard [op. cit. in bibl., p. 29] posited only two Academies, the ancient one of Plato, and the new one of Arcesilaus; Sextus [Phyrrh. hyp., I, 220 ff.] gives as the third that of Carneades and reports that others distinguished yet two later ones). Arcesilaus of Pitane (315-240 ca. B.C.) is almost a contemporary of Pyrrho, but, as it seems, independent of him (Hirzel, Natorp; cf. Credaro, op. cit. in bibl., I, p. 130 ff.): the skepticism introduced by him into the Academy is essentially dialectical, inasmuch as it is an analysis and systematic critique of Stoic and Epicurean doctrines (ibid., II, pp. 229-30). Against the Stoics' claimed κατάληψις "comprehension" Arcesilaus declared that no perception has in itself a guarantee of truth: there is no truly "perceptive" representation, and opposing reasons prevent assent concerning every thing: "Arcesilaus negabat esse quidquam quod sciri posset...; sic omnia latere censebat in occulto; neque esse quidquam quod cerni aut intelligi posset" (Cicero, Acad., I, 45; cf. Diogenes Laertius, IV, 28 ff.). However, since in practice a criterion is needed that may be a norm for action, "he who universally (περί

παντός) abstains from judging, will conform his acting and not acting to what is reasonable (τῷ εὐλόγῳ; cf. Sextus, Adv. math., VII, 158). The εὐλόγον of Arcesilaus is therefore (Hirzel, Credaro) a purely practical norm: it is the reasonableness of the action in relation to its eudemonistic end, "prudence, the feeling of what is fitting, the art of living well," and it therefore has no theoretical significance. The direction of Arcesilaus, after his immediate successors, Lacydes of Cyrene, Hegesinus of Pergamon, Evander, was continued in the Academy by Carneades of Cyrene (ca. 219 (14) - 129 (48) B.C.), "homo omnium in dicendo acerimus et copiosissimus" (Cicero, De orat., I, 45). Carneades (he wrote nothing and the doctrine was handed down by his disciples) took up in depth the critique of Stoic dogmatism (particularly of Chrysippus: "If Chrysippus had not been, neither would I"; Diogenes Laertius, IV, 62). There is no criterion of truth in reason nor in the senses: reasoning, representation and sensation are sources of illusion and error. The knowledge of things in themselves (πρὸς τὴν φύσιν) is therefore not possible: whether the gods are or are not, whether the world is their work or is governed by them, is not known: the wise man neither affirms nor denies it, he abstains from judgment. The same must be said for ethics: moral evaluations are not founded on absolute norms but are mere opinions, variable according to men and times (cf. Cicero, De leg., I, 42). However there are, for Carneades, representations that, in relation to man and his nature, seem true, and therefore have, in varying degree, probability (εὐθανότης); such probability is taken as a criterion of practical truth: a verisimilar representation, not contradicted by others, well controlled, allows the maximum degree of persuasion and is the criterion of the wise man's deliberation (cf. Sextus, Adv. math., I, 166-89; Phyrrh. hyp., I, 226-31). The πιθανόν of Carneades (from which his direction received the qualification of "probabilism") is something more than the εὐλόγον of Arcesilaus, inasmuch as it concerns the credibility or admissibility of a proposition, but since verisimilitude is relative to the subject, it does not seem to represent an effective overcoming of skepticism (cf. Credaro, op. cit. in bibl., II, p. 68 ff.). The teachings of Carneades were gathered by his pupil and successor Clitomachus of Carthage: later Cicero and Sextus drew from them (the Academy meanwhile was effecting a return to Platonism).

Sextus Empiricus ([v.] belonging to the school of the "empiricists": philosopher-physicians who opposed "art," observation, experience, and medicine to dialectic) represents, between the second half of the 2nd century A.D. and the beginning of the 3rd (b. ca. 180), the last expression of Greek skepticism (he was Greek, even if of unknown origin, certainly not from Athens or Alexandria). The writings of his that have come down to us (Outlines of Pyrrhonism, Πυρρόνειοι ὑποτυπώσεις [It. trans. by O. Tescari, Schizzi pirroniani, Bari 1926]; Against the Mathematicians, Πρὸς μαθηματικούς; Against the Dogmatists, Πρὸς δογματικούς; the last two works generally combined under the title Adversus mathematicos) are the most precious source on skepticism. In them Sextus collects, coordinates, and develops in a systematic, concise, and detailed exposition all the arguments and doctrines of the ancient skeptics: it is therefore impossible to determine how much belongs to him as his own. The essential human meaning of skepticism, for Sextus, can be summed up in the following statements: "We do not intend to oppose the common assertions of men nor to remain inactive..., the skeptic does not doubt sensations and phenomena..." (Adv. math., VIII, 157). "Therefore it is sufficient, I think, to live according to experience and without dogmas, in conformity with common observances..., suspending judgment on whatever is said by dialectical subtlety, which lies entirely outside what is useful for life" (Pyrrh. hyp., II, 246; cf. I, 19 ff.).

Christian thought, because of its certainty of Revelation (v.), opposes skepticism. Partially skeptical motives are nevertheless sometimes found in the undervaluation of rational-philosophical knowledge in the face of faith (cf. Lactantius, Div. inst., I, 2: PL 6, 117-18; III, 4: ibid., 357-58). St. Augustine had at first inclined toward Academic skepticism: "academicorum more dubitans de omnibus atque inter omnia fluctuans" (Conf., V, 14); later, in the Contra acad. and elsewhere, he asserted against skepticism the certainty that doubt and the truth present in it entail (cf. Contra acad., III, 9; De Trin., XV, 12; De civ. Dei, XI, 26; De vera relig., 36, 73). Medieval scholasticism, on the whole, is alien to skepticism (apart from the tendency toward theological agnosticism expressed in the so-called "negative theology," which nevertheless, because of its pronounced mystical character, had a substantially positive meaning). The principal source of skepticism, the Hypotyposes of Sextus, seems in any case not to have been unknown to scholasticism: indeed, its tradition was discovered in a library of St. Victor in 1888 by Picavet and again in 1891 by Baeumker (Eine bisher unbekannte mittelalterl. lateinische Uebersetz. des Hupp. Un. des Sextus Emp., in Arch. f. die Gesch. d. Philos., 4 [1891], pp. 574-77). Skeptical assertions, particularly concerning the knowledge of causality in creatures and of the existence of the external world, are found in Nicholas of Autrecourt (v.): in 1347 there were proscribed by Clement VI, among others, the propositions: "Quod de rebus per apparentia naturalia nulla certitudo haberi potest"; "Quod de substantia materiali alia ab anima nostra non habemus certitudinem existentiae"; "Quod nescimus evidenter quod aliqua causa efficiens naturalia sit vel esse possit" (Denz-U, 553-70).

The motives of ancient skepticism were taken up in the 16th century by Montaigne (v.): the various solutions of philosophical dogmatism to the eternal problems of being, the soul, and God do not permit a reasonable choice: nor can verisimilitude be accepted, since its determination presupposes a knowledge of truth. The grounds of skepticism lie in the relativity of sensory knowledge, the source of all our knowing, and in the inevitable circularity of demonstration. Better, then, regarding the nature of things and of ourselves, to suspend every judgment and entrust oneself to the guidance of experience and faith, without demanding of faith a rational demonstration (cf. Essais, II, ch. 12; III, ch. 8, 13). On Montaigne depends the position of P. Charron ([v.] Le traité de la sagesse, Bordeaux 1601), who reaffirms in the decline of reason the foundation and necessity of faith. Analogous motives are found in Fr. Sanchez ([1562-1632] Tractatus de multum nobili et prima universali scientia quod nihil scitur, Lyon 1581: Sanchez's position had a mainly polemical character against the science of his time). In the 17th century skepticism is reproposed by S. Foucher ([1644-96] Lettres par un académicien, Paris 1675; Apologie des académiciens, ibid. 1687). Of Pascal (v.) the expressions on the impotence of reason are well known ("la raison impuissante"; "nous sentons une image de la vérité et ne possédons que le mensonge"; Pensées, 434, ed. Brunschvicg, Paris 1949, p. 229); but their meaning lies rather in a confession of man's insufficiency to realize his existence and his spiritual destiny without the help of Grace. Nor is there any doubt in Pascal of the fundamental value of human nature: "je met en fait qu'il n'y a jamais eu de pyrrhonien effectif parfait" (ibid.; cf. also 83, pp. 86-87 and 374, p. 201).

In modern philosophy the most elaborate expression of skepticism in the metaphysical sense is Humean phenomenism (v.). The value of knowledge and of reason, which Hume does not intend to reject with the absolute negation of "excessive" skepticism (Hume does not call himself a skeptic), is nevertheless rigorously confined within the sphere of facts and experience and of abstract quantitative relations (mathematics). Every attempt of reason beyond these limits (metaphysics, theology, the search for cause) is nothing but "sophistry and illusion" (Enquiries, sec. 12, part 3, ed. Selby-Bigge, n. 132, Oxford 1951, p. 165; cf. the entire section). Hume's subtle critique acted, as is well known, on Kant and, through Kant, also on later epistemologies (against the alleged Kantian overcoming it was reaffirmed by G. E. Schultze [v.] in the Aenesidemus, Helmstedt 1792). Skepticism was not generally taken up in the negative absolutism of its ancient elaboration (which had, moreover, already been systematically concluded with Greek decline); but, alongside grandly constructive systems (e.g., idealism), the most radical claims of skepticism remained in force in recent and contemporary philosophical thought. The task pursued by criticism and by the later speculative effort, of determining the possibilities and limits of reason, has finally succeeded — sometimes through the very same positive solutions — in explicit forms of renunciation of metaphysics (positivism, agnosticism, pragmatism, neopositivism, existentialism). Recently in Italy a defense of skepticism was reproposed by G. Rensi (v.): skepticism, as uncertainty of every solution to metaphysical problems, is the only situation of sincerity of thought: "at the moment in which [the philosopher] thinks of a metaphysical problem, he cannot fail to discern, cannot fail to feel intimately, the opposing solutions as equally possible" (Sic et non, Rome 1911, p. 11).

Against skepticism the internal contradiction of an absolute denial of truth has always been urged: whoever affirms that he knows nothing, at least knows that he does not know, and whoever says that every judgment must be suspended, enunciates one: «si nihil sciri potest, necesse est id ipsum sciri, quod nihil sciatur... Sic indictur dogma sibi ipsi repugnans, seque dissolvens» (Lactantius, Div. inst., III, ch. 6: PL 6, 361). The nature of thought, which is essentially affirmation, does not allow a truly universal doubt; thought in act is always, in some sense, certainty: «si dubitat, dubitare se intelligit; si dubitat, certus esse vult; si dubitat, cogitat; si dubitat, scit se nescire; si dubitat, iudicat non se temere consentire oportere» (St. Augustine, De Trinit., X, ch. 10, no. 14: PL 42, 981). Such a critique of skepticism, while it brings out the intrinsic inconsistency of a denial of certainty that claims to be absolute, nevertheless does not answer the most authentic demands of historical skepticism, which does not contest every certainty, but only that which would place itself beyond facts and experience. One can agree with Hume «that no one has ever met a person who has no opinion or principle on any subject of a practical or speculative nature» (Enquiries, sec. 12, part 1, ed. cit., no. 116, p. 148). The consideration that skepticism demands («despite appearances, Pyrrho, Carneades, Aenesidemus, Agrippa have well deserved of the human spirit»: Brochard, op. cit. in bibl., p. 130) lies elsewhere: in its appeal to the essential dimension of inadequacy of man's possession of truth. There is no consciousness (whether it opens onto the metaphysical depths of the world, of the self, of the will, of freedom, of action) which does not come up against limit and opposition, against a content that is always a further referral and that withdraws from an absolute, conclusive, exhaustive grasp of thought. This condition, which is the gravest mystery of man in search of truth and not assured, in either a theoretical or a practical sense, in his possession of it, is a limit always present to the possible excesses of philosophical dogmatism. But skepticism is wrong in not recognizing the universality and immutability of the value that for truth - any truth, even the ordinary truth of life - makes itself present in human consciousness and thought. Hypothesis, probability, doubt, error certainly accompany, as moments of its becoming, every effort of thought: the Ἰσσοδεύειν τῶν λόγων is often a reality in knowledge and in life. But precisely because hypothesis, probability, doubt, error exist, they are measured in relation to the truth which, if in its totality it is for man only an ideal term, nevertheless structures his mind, his thought, his action. Man is in truth, radically, by his very thinking, as he is radically in being, even if both, truth and being, are not - by reason of his situation as a creature - man's absolute dominion. And the criterion of truth contested by skepticism man has in his own intellect as an expression, however participated and limited, of being and of its fundamental meanings (logical, real, moral), and therefore also as the initial possibility of metaphysics. The very fact that we know how to discern error, to uncover it, to abandon it, confirms that we possess, in general, a norm of certainty. The character of relativity of sense knowledge and the variety of human opinions cannot be an argument for skepticism; they confirm only that knowledge has a margin of contingency and historicity -

expressed for each person by his particular individual situation in time. To the Pyrrhonian demands concerning sense perception the answer is not difficult, through a critique of perception itself that clarifies its subjective modalities and contains its meaning of truth within the terms of an objective but conditioned relation of reality to the subject.

The condition of moral optimism (ἐνταχάξις) that ancient skepticism posited as a consequence of its negative theoretical attitude is far from being a necessary derivation from it. A situation of radical uncertainty about the meaning of existence, for a consciousness that seeks itself with full sincerity, is rather a cause of obscure uneasiness, as well as a negative element for the spiritual commitment of life and action.

Ugo Viglino