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.