Scepticism is a school of philosophy that has two main subgroups. Academy sceptics and Pyrrhonian sceptics. What is common between them and someone who may be called a sceptic is that a sceptic is one who is committed to investigation but does not arrive at beliefs, opinions from the investigation or advocates any belief or opinion. They do not “Teach”, but in a Socratic style, ask questions. They go along with the way things appear to be; accepting customs and doing what nature demands of them, such as eat, drunk, reproduce. They do not claim to know, but merely report how things seem to be like a historian who simply records what happens.
Academy scepticism is more focused on knowledge, belief, truth, action. Arcesilaus, who headed the academy in a sceptical direction is said to have believed there is no criteria for truth, we have no way of judging truth from our “sense-experience”. You cannot decisively prove anything you perceive or know to be true because it relies on assumptions that also must be proved, this is recursive. Our senses taste, touch, vision, hearing, smell are complex and memories often untrustworthy, particularly the more time that passes. Something may be true, but we are not equipped to discover it. Believing something is true when definitive knowledge is impossible is shameful or even dangerous. But if you can never know something is true, how do you know what to act on? A sceptic will act on the most persuasive “impressions”. If something is important then they will act on the most persuasive impression that does not have competing impressions pulling in a different direction which can happen after each impression and its surroundings are examined.
Pyrrhonian sceptics where only concerned with attaining peace of mind. Pyrrho of Ellis was the philosopher is was named after and he is said to have prised agnosticism and suspension of judgement. He believed that nothing is just or unjust, nothing is honourable or dishonourable. Nothing really exists. Our experiences and beliefs are neither true or false and there is no difference between them so everything is undecidable therefore we should not take sides or have views on anything. He was said to be calm, relaxed and indifferent to everything, he even didn’t attempt to get out the way of traffic which his friends had to constantly protect him from so it surprises me to find that he lived to the ripe old age of 90. But he followed his beliefs to the letter; it was said that he walked by a drowning man without attempting to help because the man’s plight and saving him or not did not matter.
Pyrrho was well liked and gained quite a lot of followers who wished to emulate him. His home of Ellis gave tax exemption to all philosophers to honour him but I personally feel that people wanted to follow his ideas as a form of escapism, he appeared to live an uncaring life where people watched him to prevent him from killing himself by walking into traffic like a toddler so I don’t think his philosophy is sustainable for the whole of the human race to follow.
I tend to agree with some of this. If I examine my assumptions and what I trust to be true I cannot ever prove that anything is real or truthful but that does not mean I should act like it isn’t. I should accept what senses and memories tell me as far as it is reasonable to do so. If for example I notice that a memory has inconsistencies or I start seeing aliens then I must consider that it’s not a reliable “sense-impression” and examine alternatives.
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