Definitions
Skepticism: The attitude of doubting or questioning claims, especially those that are widely accepted.
Epistemology: The study of knowledge - how we know what we know.
Justification: Having good reasons or evidence for believing something.
Certainty: Being completely sure about something, with no possibility of being wrong.
What is Skepticism?
Skepticism is the practice of questioning claims and demanding evidence before accepting them as true. It's not about being negative or cynical, but about being careful and thoughtful about what we believe.
A skeptic asks: "How do you know that?" and "What evidence supports this claim?" before accepting any belief.
Skepticism is not the same as denying everything. It's about being open to evidence and changing your mind when the evidence warrants it.
Types of Skepticism
Using doubt as a method to find truth. Descartes used this approach - he doubted everything he could doubt to find what was absolutely certain.
What did Descartes find?
Descartes concluded that the only thing he couldn't doubt was that he was thinking. This led to his famous "I think, therefore I am."
The view that we cannot have certain knowledge about anything, or at least about most things.
How far does this go?
Some philosophical skeptics doubt even basic things like the existence of the external world or other minds.
Questioning extraordinary claims and demanding extraordinary evidence. This is the approach used in science.
Arguments for Skepticism
We can't prove that the future will be like the past. Just because the sun has risen every day doesn't guarantee it will rise tomorrow.
What does this mean for science?
It means that even our best scientific theories can't be proven with absolute certainty. They can only be supported by evidence.
How do we know that other people have minds and experiences like we do? We can only observe their behavior, not their inner thoughts.
How do we know we're not just brains in vats being fed false experiences by a supercomputer? We can't rule this out with certainty.
Problems with Extreme Skepticism
If we can't know anything, then we can't know that we can't know anything. This creates a logical contradiction.
We can't live our lives without making assumptions. We have to act as if the world exists and other people have minds.
What's the practical solution?
Most philosophers accept that we can have justified beliefs even if we can't have absolute certainty. We can be reasonably confident about many things.
If we doubt everything, we can't make decisions or take action. Life requires us to act on our beliefs.
Conclusion
Skepticism is a valuable tool for critical thinking, but it can be taken too far. The key is finding the right balance between questioning and accepting reasonable beliefs.
We should be skeptical of extraordinary claims and demand good evidence, but we can still have justified confidence in ordinary, well-supported beliefs.