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Skepticism
    #24502692 -

Quote:
The Sceptic's end, where matters of opinion are concerned, is mental tranquility; in the realm of things unavoidable, moderation of feeling is the end.... Upon his suspension of judgment there followed, by chance, mental tranquility in matters of opinion. For the person who entertains the opinion that anything is by nature good or bad is continually disturbed.

When he lacks those things that seem to him to be good, he believes he is being pursued, as if by the Furies, by those things which are by nature bad, and pursues what he believes to be the good things.... On the other side there is the man who leaves undetermined the question of what things are good and bad by nature. He does not exert himself to avoid anything or to seek after anything, and hence he is in a tranquil state.

Sextus Empiricus
(Garfield, Epoche and Sunyata; Skepticism East and West)




We can think of skepticism as a method ("method of doubt") of pursuing knowledge and as a base of scientific reason, but philosophically, don't we also commonly consider it as an embodied mental temperament that is individually appreciated at the same time?

A suspension (epoche) of belief, can be in any matter, and any part of life. According to the ancients, like Pyrrho and Sextus Empiricus, the end of skepticism is principally for the individual, in achieving tranquility of cognitive life.

For example, we can start in the broadest sense. We tend to live by scientific, both as its body of acquired knowledge, and invention, but also by skeptical method. Making a practice of thinking of the grounds of expressed statements about the world, (lets say: a shared common premise or fact) rather than broader human identifications with ideas, (lets say: "belief", general speculation, and the wide eyed marches of ideologies as collective identifications) is the common practice of shared critical discussion. But as it is sometimes said, we also know of the "healthy" skepticism that is individually appreciated.

Skepticism (the epoche, or suspension) can be considered an integral part of individual cognitive life. If human beings are rational, or if we tend to live deliberately in certain means, and our way of aquiring certain ends, in other words, a skeptical approach would be to focus on the means, or the work in the moment, the duty or practice, rather than mentally speculate and mentally dwell on the potential results of action. When a person looks to or dwells on the possible results, with hope or desire for something good, or in fear or aversion of a bad result, this is affliction. Granted we live in certain means and project towards ends, as a matter of fact, but as a mental practice, we can at least emphasize focus on the means, rather than the speculative consequence of ends as a voluntary cognitive practice. This way, as Sextus says, what is good or bad (in this case, the eventual consequence of the work and action in the long run), is something we face  with the same attitude and poise whatever comes, rather than in any additional and unnecessary or contrived mental vascillation. We can as a practice suspend and halt our judgements and then the mentality to these opinion based things, itself, in this sense.

Or at least this is what Sextus Empiricus seems to me to suggest, as a skeptical philosophical temperament. Not exerting at a mental level where it is unnecessary. Are there actually these or other cognitive benefits to skepticism? Is skepticism a "healthy" attitude? Just a passing philosophical thought, or possible question for the forum.

I wonder if there are any skeptic yogis out there.

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Re: Skepticism [Re: Kurt]
    #24502698 -

a tranquil state is not produced by logic


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:brainfart: _ :finger:

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Re: Skepticism [Re: redgreenvines]
    #24502705 -

I agree. (!)

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Re: Skepticism [Re: Kurt]
    #24502778 -

I have a skeptical Yogi for ye. Thomas Metzinger.

"Nobody ever had or was a self. Selves are not part of reality, in the sense of elementary building blocks that endure over time. The first person pronoun “I” doesn’t refer to an individual object like a football or a bicycle, or to some mysterious category of invisible things—it just points to the speaker of the current sentence. The speaker simply is the person as a whole."

Let your wet works assimilate this organisms momentum and establish a genuine foundation branch from. Great interview http://www.beinghuman.org/article/interview-thomas-metzinger-what-self

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Re: Skepticism [Re: Jaegar]
    #24502804 -

A quote from link you may find related. The body and the mind are constantly changing. Nothing in us is ever really the same from one moment to the next. Yet the self represents a very strong phenomenal experience of sameness, and it’s clear this would be adaptive or helpful for a biological organism that needs to plan for the future. If you want to hide some food for winter or you want to save some money in your bank accounts or work on your reputation, you’re planning for future success and you wouldn’t do that if you didn’t have the very strong feeling that it’s going to be the same entity that gets the reward in the future. That it was the same entity in the past that got cheated, injured, hurt by someone, and that is now longing for retaliation, revenge, or something like that. Obviously, for the evolution of culture, a fiction of personal identity was also necessary. Just think about responsibility and culpability in the context of evolving a legal system; or of the need to build a reputation in larger, growing groups of early human history. A self-model is not something in the brain or in philosophy, it is also something social and public. Personal websites and Facebook accounts are public self-models too—they have a function, and they make something happen.

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Re: Skepticism [Re: Kurt] * 2
    #24502936 -

Given a world of colliding, contrasting opinions, skepticism seems healthy. To be skeptic is to emerge from a local set of beliefs and go with the flow of cognitive scrutiny.

So perhaps it is going with the flow that is healthy, and a skeptical attitude is an increasingly common and accepted flow with which to go.

Skepticism, in its infancy, for someone emerging from a dogmatic or otherwise heavy-set perspective, seems a matter of turmoil, not tranquility. It is the overturning of tables. It is friction with the community.

But in fruition, yes, I find peace in skepticism. It can yield a nimble, non-clinging navigation of cognitive space. It cultivates responsiveness rather than reactivity. There is little to defend. Trends emerge, but are not clamped so thoroughly as to deny their subtle curves.

But skepticism, like belief, can slip into its own stagnant pit. The skeptic opinion--a dissonant, defensive rejection of whatever smells of belief. It is something hardened in this form, full of itself perhaps, and isolating, as it denies a leavening trust in the unsourced insights of other minds.

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Re: Skepticism [Re: DisoRDeR]
    #24503653 -

Okay this is a difficult point. Here is a chopped down concise version.

Skepticism - a suspension of belief - maintains the cleaner hum of rational thinking, undisturbed by unnecessary speculations and beliefs.

Skepticism is not in this way just an implied assertion of rationalism as an ideally productive virtue (for instance, a thinking that is producing knowledge about the world) but what allows for a calm, detached and working state of mind to do what it is doing. We know this as the meaning of being "rational" as much and as well as the productive synthesis.

Maybe rationalism/skepticism tends to be idealized and made into an important western institution, but I think there is still some human truth to it.

Appreciate all the points.

Edited by Kurt (07/23/17 09:08 PM)

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Re: Skepticism [Re: Kurt]
    #24503662 -

DisoRDeR said:
Given a world of colliding, contrasting opinions, skepticism seems healthy. To be skeptic is to emerge from a local set of beliefs and go with the flow of cognitive scrutiny.

So perhaps it is going with the flow that is healthy, and a skeptical attitude is an increasingly common and accepted flow with which to go.

Skepticism, in its infancy, for someone emerging from a dogmatic or otherwise heavy-set perspective, seems a matter of turmoil, not tranquility. It is the overturning of tables. It is friction with the community.

But in fruition, yes, I find peace in skepticism. It can yield a nimble, non-clinging navigation of cognitive space. It cultivates responsiveness rather than reactivity. There is little to defend. Trends emerge, but are not clamped so thoroughly as to deny their subtle curves.

But skepticism, like belief, can slip into its own stagnant pit. The skeptic opinion--a dissonant, defensive rejection of whatever smells of belief. It is something hardened in this form, full of itself perhaps, and isolating, as it denies a leavening trust in the unsourced insights of other minds.


This is ninja. Great post.

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Re: Skepticism [Re: Kurt]
    #24504328 -

let's see


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:brainfart: _ :finger:

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Re: Skepticism [Re: redgreenvines]
    #24504873 -

Maybe I should have clarified in the title that this is philosophical skepticism. I find the ancient greeks philosophically interesting. If you are interested, I would say there are certain consistent statements that can be made and examined on their own merit.

Here is one statement. I do not think the philosophical theory of skepticism is "demonstrative". Sextus Empiricus holds skepticism to be in an individual's general principle or meditative practice in part, even if this extends to and relates to a conventionally productive rationalist enterprise (eg. empiricism).

I think any integral point in what is being described as tranquility; is not in trying to tease something forward to be rationally productive. "Not asserting" is the closest definition or simple meaning of epoche, or "suspension of belief", and that is where skepticism is careful. You were right in your first post, but assumed something, only in the negative way. (Rationality does not "produce" tranquility - agreed). Further thought pending I guess.

I think it is possible to come close to a hit with these terms on tranquility through skepticism. Thanks for the responses and reading.

Edited by Kurt (07/24/17 01:00 PM)

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Re: Skepticism [Re: Kurt]
    #24517299 -

Kurt said:
I wonder if there are any skeptic yogis out there.


"There are two paths leading to oneness with the Tao.

The first in the path of acceptance.
Affirm everyone and everything.
Freely extend your goodwill and virtue in every direction, regardless of circumstances.
Embrace all things as part of the Harmonious Oneness, and then you will begin to perceive it.

The second path is that of denial.
Recognize that everything you see and think is a falsehood, an illusion, a veil over the truth.
Peel all the veils away, and you will arrive at the Oneness.

Though these paths are entirely different, they will deliver you to the same place: spontaneous awareness of the Great Oneness." - Lao Tzu

(See; Zetetic "Zetetic is an old word coming from the Greek followers of the skeptical philosopher, Pyrrho. The main feature of this approach is to emphasize the communal norm of skepticism present in the scientific community.")

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