Why is Universal Skepticism a Fallacy?

Skepticism is a practical impossibility.

No sane human being can live without certitude of a practical kind. Even the most confirmed skeptic, no matter how many reasons of a theoretical and speculative nature he may have for doubting the possibility of genuine certitude, cannot lead a human life without denying his skeptical theory all day long in his conduct. 

His life shows that he is certain of so many things: the physical world, with its seasons and changes of weather, with its periods of day and night, with its differences of time and space relations; his own body, in all its concrete reality, in its conditions of health and sickness, in its physical needs of food, drink, and sleep; the existence and knowability of other people and other minds, some of whom agree with him while others disagree, with whom he communicates by means of conversation and writing, and whom he tries to convince of the truth of universal doubt.  

The story is told of Pyrrho the Skeptic that, when chased one day by a rabid dog, he ran for safety without allowing his skepticism to exercise its doubt about the existence and viciousness of the brute. When the bystanders laughed at him and ridiculed him for the inconsistency of his action, he is said to have made the sage remark (completely out of keeping with his theory): "It is difficult to get away entirely from human nature." After all, he could not doubt, in an untheoretical moment, that his body and the dog were real objects. 

This discrepancy between fact and theory, between life and philosophic system, between practical certitude and speculative doubt, is an incontrovertible proof that universal doubt is impossibility except as a mere formulation of the mind. When facts and theories clash and contradict each other in such transparent fashion, the sane man will not deny the facts and cling to his theories, but will realize that something is radically wrong with his views. Facts cannot be denied. To persist in universal skepticism in the face of a million contradicting facts of life bespeaks either insanity or stubbornness of mind. 

When the inconsistency between life and theory cannot be harmonized, it will not do to deny life, because that would be ridiculous; the theory must be abandoned as essentially faulty. Universal skepticism, therefore, must be rejected as a practical impossibility.

The Brief Historical Sketch of Epistemological Skepticism

A number of ancient and modern philosophers have defended speculative skepticism. Among the ancient philosophers we find Protagoras (fifth century B.C.), Gorgias the Sophist (contemporary of Protagoras), Pyrrho (360-270 B.C.), Carneades (219-129 B.C.), Aenesidemus (first century B.C.), Agrippa (contemporary of Aenesidemus), and Sextus Empiricus (about second century A.D.).

Agrippa and Sextus Empiricus formulated the reasons for universal skepticism under five heads;

• The differences of opinions and theories among men
• The necessity of an infinite regress for every demonstration
• The subjective and relative character of all perception
• The gratuitous assumption of all axioms and principles
• The vicious circle or begging of question, involved in every syllogism.

Among Christian philosophers, universal skepticism never made headway. But the Renaissance, with its blind adoration of everything Grecian, again brought skepticism to the fore. Michael de Montaigne (1533-1592) in his Essais defended it. Others followed Montaigne in this trend of thought were Charron (1541-1603), Sanchez (1562-1632), Huet (1632-1721), Pascal (1623-1662), Bayle (1647-1706), and Jouffroy (1796-1841). Some of these were not really skeptics in principle. They attempted to show the constitutional inability of the human mind in its natural powers to arrive at truth, in order to vindicate the necessity of faith in divine revelation. It was a case of faulty apologetics.

Modern skepticism has its most noteworthy representative in David Hume (1711-1776). According to Hume, knowledge consists of mere perceptions, and these are twofold in character;

• Impressions, which are the more lively perceptions
• Ideas, which are but faint images of impressions

Though is thus reduced to sense-knowledge. All axioms and principles of science are the result of mere associations of impressions, made by the mind through force of habit; they are, therefore, purely subjective in nature and have no objective value. He considered the arguments of skeptics to be unassailable. In an indirect way, Hume's skepticism has exerted a powerful influence on modern thought.

It is obvious that a universal skeptic, who really and seriously doubts or denies the validity of all knowledge, cannot be convinced by any argument which may be advanced against his position: he would be forced to double the fact that such an argument has been advanced. He is as isolated in his skepticism as a fly buzzing in a vacuum; if, indeed, a fly can buzz in a vacuum, when both the fly and the vacuum probably are nonexistent. When we argue against skepticism, it is not our purpose to convert the skeptic himself; we intend to show non-skeptics that universal skepticism is folly. In doing so, we achieve a double result;

• We show directly that universal doubt is an improper approach to the problem of knowledge
• We demonstrate indirectly that any system which logically leads to skepticism must be intrinsically wrong.

Our contention is that universal skepticism cannot be the proper initial state of mind with which to approach the problem of knowledge, because it is a practical impossibility and philosophic absurdity.

Skepticism and Descartes' Doubt

It is the purpose of epistemology to test the validity of man's spontaneous convictions and see whether they are justifiable before the bar of rational criticism. If they are vindicated after a thorough investigation of their ultimate grounds and causes, they become reflex and philosophic certainties and will rest upon a firm, scientific basis. If, however, a critical examination should show that these spontaneous convictions are blind assents of the mind or are the result of some compulsory internal mechanism of the human mind, their truth-value will either be disproved or will remain forever in doubt.

In approaching the problem, the method employed will be a matter of great importance. A wrong method may produce disastrous results, just as a march from a false starting point, persistently carried on, will take the traveler far away from his goal; not every route will lead to the desired destination.

We must never overlook the fact that, while investigating the mind and its faculties, we are using this very mind and its faculties as the instruments of our investigation. On the face of it, this seems an unwarrantable procedure. Since the validity of the mind and its faculties is at stake, how can their use in this investigation be legitimate? The answer is: the truth of our whole domain of knowledge being under examination, the only legitimate procedure available is to analyze our knowledge reflectively and watch the operations of our mind in the formation of its spontaneous convictions, so as to see whether they are based upon truly rational grounds; there is no other way possible.

The only alternative would be to approach the problem in the attitude of complete doubts. The initial state of mind would then be to doubt absolutely everything, including the capability of the mind and its faculties to attain to any and all true knowledge. This, of course, would mean to approach the problem of human knowledge with the method of universal skepticism. At first blush, this would seem to be the logical thing to do--doubt everything from the start and then work our way upward toward certitude and truth. But this method would be fatal in its very inception.

Classes of Truth: The Mediate Judgments as Results of Inductive Process

The fourth class of truths is contained in mediate judgments which are the result of an inductive process generalizing the individual, concrete data of direct sense-perception into laws of a universal character.

 

The generalizations and laws of experimental science are of this type. After careful investigation and extensive experimentation the intellect perceives the essential elements in a series of repeated phenomena and occurrences and then expresses the true cause in a definite judgment or law.

 

It is not necessary for science to investigate every single case of the past and present; that, in fact, would be impossible. Since I have arrived at knowledge of the essential elements of the phenomenon in question, the law which the intellect has formulated has a universal and necessary value and applies with equal force to each and every phenomenon of that class.

 

An instance will make this clear. It was noticed that the boiling point of water is always +212 degrees Fahrenheit at sea level. Taking this as a starting point, scientists made a great number of experiments of boiling water at seal level, and the result was in each case the same: water boiled at +212 degrees Fahrenheit.

 

Thus the law was formulated by means of a generalization: 'The boiling point of water is +212 degree Fahrenheit at sea level.' This being an essential characteristic of water, it was not necessary to take every drop of water on the globe to sea level and boil it; scientists know that it will boil, because such is the nature of water.

 

Every such law is a mediate judgment which expresses a necessary and universal truth, based upon the Principle of Sufficient Reason and the Principle of Causality.

 

 

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Classes of Truth: The Mediate Judgments to Attain Truth

The third classes of truths are those contained in mediate judgments deduced by inference (reasoning) from 'first principles.'

 

These mediate judgments are based on self-evident 'first principles' or 'axioms,' but they themselves are not self-evident; it takes a process of reasoning to show that they follow necessarily from these axioms.

 

Mathematical deductions are examples of this class of judgments. That 38,400 is divisible by 2,560 fifteen times is not in itself directly clear; but if we perform the division, or multiply 2,560 by 15, we can prove the truth of the judgment. Similarly, that the square of the hypotenuse of a right-angled triangle is equal to the sum of the squares constructed on the other two sides is clear enough when the proof is furnished by a process of reasoning: but it is not a self-evident truth like the statement that a plane square encloses four right angles.

 

A mere explanation or comparison of ideas will not suffice in these cases to perceive the truth of such judgments by means of immediate intuition; mediate inference is require to establish the logically necessary connection between such truths and the axioms upon which they are based. However, once this connection is demonstrated, these deductive judgments are as true as their 'first principles,' unless it can be proven that man's reasoning powers are essentially invalid in their operations. Man's conviction is, of course, that he can reason in a valid manner.

 

Provided, then that man's reasoning powers are essentially valid, these mediate judgments derived from 'first principles' possess universal, necessary, absolute truth.

 

 

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Classes of Truth: The Mediate Judgments as Results of Inductive Process

Classes of Truth: The Immediate Judgments to Attain Truth

The second among the classes of truth are the immediate judgments containing truths which are derived from direct experience through internal and external sense-perceptions.

 

Here are examples: 'That lady waling along the street has a package under her arm.' 'That boy is running.' 'I have a pain in my tooth.' 'I am thinking and writing.' Such judgments refer to individual concrete facts, events, persons, and objects. We do not arrive at the truth of these judgments through a mere analysis of the ideas contained in them. Take the judgment, 'That boy is running.'

 

On comparing the ideas 'boy' and 'running' alone by themselves, independent of experience, I cannot know whether I should unite them into a judgment, because there is no necessary connection between the ideas 'boy' and 'running'; the boy might just as well be 'standing' or 'sitting' or 'walking.' That I actually judge, 'That boy is running,' is due to my actual experience of seeing him run. Such judgments, then, are not analytical but synthetic; they contain empirical truths, based on direct experience.

 

As such, therefore, they are not considered to be universal, necessary, and absolute truths; they are contingent and experiential truths which may change with changing circumstances. A comparison between this and the foregoing group of judgments will reveal at a glance that the synthetic judgments have by no means the general truth-value of the analytical judgments, so far as knowledge is concerned.

 

 

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Classes of Truth: The Mediate Judgments to Attain Truth

 

Classes of Truth: The Analytical Judgments to Attain Truth

First of all, we possess analytical judgments, which contain truths directly evident to the intellect through a comparison or analysis of the ideas of the judgment, without the aid of any immediate sense-perception or logical reasoning. For instance: 'The whole is greater than any of its parts'; 'a plane square encloses four right angles'; 'something cannot be true and false at the same time'; 'it is impossible that a thing exist and not exist at the same time'; 'everything must have a sufficient reason.' Such judgments, called 'first principles,' are immediately evident to the intellect by merely analyzing the ideas contained in them, provided the intellect knows what these ideas mean. They need to demonstration and no direct sense-perception to verify them.

 

If I know what a 'plane square' is and what a 'right angle' is, a mere comparison of these two ideas will make it clear to the intellect that 'A plane square encloses four right angles,' one in each corner of the figure. Again, if I know what 'whole' and 'part' mean, it is evident with similar axioms. Such principles are at the bottom of all knowledge, and they are, as all admit, indubitably present in our spontaneous convictions.

 

Axioms, like the Principle of Identity, the Principle of Contradiction, and the Principle of Sufficient Reason, are used, consciously or unconsciously, in every act of reasoning and are considered to be universally, necessarily and absolutely true.

 

 

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Classes of Truth: The Immediate Judgments to Attain Truth