“Too much scepticism makes life impossible”… it seems

We're scheduled to discuss Pyrrhonian skepticism today in CoPhi, and we're meeting in the library. Really. It doesn't just seem so.

(Pyrrho seems to me a lot like Douglas Adams's "ruler of the universe"--"I say what it occurs to me to say when I hear people say things. More I cannot say..."…)

"All sorts of philosophers from Aristotle to David Hume ["a wise man proportions his belief to the evidence"] have argued that too much scepticism makes life impossible. In 1748 Hume wrote that a Pyrrhonian

. . . must acknowledge, if he will acknowledge anything, that all human life must perish, were his principles universally and steadily to prevail. All discourse, all action would immediately cease; and men remain in total lethargy, till the necessities of nature, unsatisfied, put an end to their miserable existence

Hume thought that a consistent Pyrrhonian Sceptic would not eat, drink or keep himself out of danger, because he would be incapable of deciding how to do any of these things. Should he put bread in his mouth or should he nibble a stone? Ordinary people believe that it is bread which is nourishing, but a Sceptic is surely committed to keeping an open mind [you know what they say about minds that are too open...] about it. Should he step aside from a thundering horse, or under its hooves? A Sceptic would have to suspend judgement on all such matters and suffer the consequences. One ancient author made a similar point by asking: 'how is it that someone who suspends judgement does not rush away to a mountain instead of to the bath, or stands up and walks to the door rather than the wall when he wants to go out to the market-place?'

Arcesilaus and other like-minded philosophers had an answer to this. A bath does seem to be the sort of place where you could get a good wash, and this explains why a Sceptic will head towards one when he wants to get clean. If a mountain seemed to be such a place, then he would go there instead; but it does not, so he goes to the bath. A door does seem to be the best way out of a house, bread does seem to be nourishing, and being trampled by horses does not seem to be a good idea. According to Arcesilaus, even though a Sceptic will refuse to form an opinion about how things really are, he can still freely admit that they appear one way rather than another. As Timon once said: 'That honey is sweet I do not affirm, but I agree that it appears so.'

[Timon appears to me too timid.]

Being human, a Sceptic is affected by appearances just like everyone else and so he will behave much like everyone else, at least in the essentials of life. He follows instincts, observes customs and generally acts in a sensible way, but he does so by habit or as a matter of human nature, not because he endorses any opinions about the world. As Sextus later put it, a Sceptic follows 'laws and customs and natural feelings' but lives 'without holding opinions'. [He's a conformist, then, paradoxically.] Thus if you were to ask him whether he definitely believes that bread is nourishing, a Sceptic would indeed say no, because he suspends judgement on the matter. But you will still find him in the larder." --Dream of Reason: A History of Western Philosophy from the Greeks to the Renaissance by Anthony Gottlieb