Preface

For more than two centuries, the mainstream rationalist tradition in philosophy took it for granted that its chief role was to respond to the skeptic challenge.

Skepticism is dangerous, most philosophers explain, because it is paralyzing. It is easy to show that this observation is obviously false; skeptics suffer from paralysis no more than other people. Remarkably, critics of skepticism use this observation as an even stronger argument against skepticism. People who claim that they are skeptics are not par­alyzed; hence, it follows logically that they only pretend to be skeptics. Yet their preaching, the critics of skepticism continue, however flip­pant it is, can nonetheless cause harm by spreading discouragement. It is obvious they conclude their argument, that doubt discourages.

All this is very convincing; we do not know why. For, obviously, it is far from the truth: skeptics are not paralyzed because skepticism does not always paralyze. In truth, every philosophy moves some people to action and others to inaction. Indeed, in a crisis, under conditions of utter ignorance, often some spirited people take the lead, do some­thing, and become leaders just because of the sane conviction that any action is better than inaction. Skeptics take this to be common, whereas their critics assume that conduct follows according to assured tradition or scientific ideas, to those that underwent the process of strict verification.

With patience and diligence, let us strive to pinpoint the difficulties that mainstream and skeptic philosophers meet facing each other. On the whole, we are willing to enter any subfield of philosophy where the dispute rages. But, we limit our discussion to the reasonable or ratio­nalist arguments. We have little interest in discussing the arguments that seem to us not worthy of critical response.

Here, we survey the reasonable literature devoted to skepticism, where we take even the slightest degree of reasonableness as sufficient for comment, brief or detailed, as the situation warrants. We do so with a slant toward the practical applications because their reason­ableness is easier to spot and easier to agree with and because it is a common error that skepticism is impractical. Also, we contribute to the correction of two great, widespread, expensive mistaken views: that philosophy is barren and that all disputes (especially philosophical) are practically harmful. Engaging in philosophical disputes about any activity can improve that activity, we claim, even if the dispute about it will never be settled. For any dispute may eliminate some perceived errors and thereby help remove waste of efforts in wrong directions. And, arguing that people waste their lives on worthless activities may help prevent wasting lives on worthless ends even though we will never know for sure what ends are worthy.

In our presentation, we follow the traditional rules of discourse, the ones that Bernard Russell and Karl Popper have stressed and fol­lowed:

1.      In philosophical (as any other) activity, one should say why it matters.

2.      Philosophical (as any other) texts can and should be as clear and understandable as possible, hopefully well enough to be open to criticism. This runs contrary to the opaque style of many philosophers, particularly the existentialists among them and particularly if it is a means for escaping possible criticism.

In line with these precepts, this book addresses all curious readers; basic training in philosophy suffices.

We advocate skepticism quite openly. We consider no statement certain, demonstrable, plausible, or otherwise justified in the epis­temological sense of these terms. We present repeatedly alternative versions of reasonability that, we contend, are both skeptical and com- monsensical. We apply this thesis to epistemology, ethics, politics, and aesthetics.

We reject offhand the relativist position that all theories are equally serious (or equally unserious) so that anything goes, for we deny that skepticism implies relativism in any way. Clearly, by its own light, rela­tivism is not serious. Nevertheless, some philosophers take it seriously and with great regret - only because they erroneously consider rela­tivism a corollary to skepticism. Others try hard to refute skepticism and they are very sad to admit that they have failed; however, they remain convinced that skepticism is false simply because relativism is. Yet the truth remains: skepticism is true and relativism is false.

There are three ideas that people often consider together: skepti­cism, the idea that no position is demonstrable; relativism, the idea that there is no absolute truth; and nihilism, the idea that all ideas are of equal value.

Indeed, we consider relativism and nihilism versions of irrational­ism: their advocates oppose rationality or, at least, they judge rational­ity to be insignificant. But perhaps this is not so; perhaps relativists are not skeptics and they use skepticism only to prove their point, for skepticism is used quite often as a weapon in the hands of people who do not advocate it in the least. This is true of irrationalists in gen­eral and of some relativists in particular: they employ skeptical argu­ments although they do not consider skepticism to be true. Most of them are committed to one dogma or another and are even proud of it, considering open-mindedness frivolous and any expression of skepticism sheer levity, the lack of commitment based on flippancy. Therefore, they limit their use of skepticism to their struggle against reason: if rationalism were true, then its adherents could refute skep­ticism; but, indeed, they cannot. Nevertheless, everybody can try to be open-minded and invite criticism, and this we heartily recommend.

We try to come as close as possible to relativism without the loss of rationality and without falling into nihilism: we should not forget how very important and responsible it is to use our brains, poor as they admittedly are.

This policy we apply not only to relativism but also to all other ideas that we criticize throughout this book. Consider psychological reduc- tionism, the idea that all thinking can be fully reduced to psychological concepts. We come as close as possible without losing rationality; we do acknowledge that psychology is largely responsible for our sense of what is true, good, and beautiful; but we reject the idea that the meanings of these concepts can be reduced to pure psychology.

Thus, our view is closest to what David Hume wanted his philoso­phy to be; moderate skepticism, he called it. We achieve his aim with ease because we employ tools that were not available to him. He was unable to free himself from the traditional, classical idea that ration­ality equals proof. As long as we do not explicitly reject the classical identification of rationality with proof (or with proof-surrogates), the slightest concession to skepticism makes us (unwittingly, perhaps, or even against our expressed wish) vulnerable to the charge of rela­tivism and its allure. Yet, insistence on the idea that proof is possible is dogmatic, especially in the face of Hume’s criticism. This intoler­able dilemma has hounded philosophy between Hume and Popper. Even Russell admitted in the eve of his life that he was caught in this dilemma, having (rightly) found relativism too tolerant and classical rationalism too rigid. All his life he searched for a middle ground and he finally admitted that he could not find it. It is thus no surprise that Popper’s philosophy stands out so. Even Russell could not stomach it because he found it too pessimistic. In this, he was in error: we must judge it pessimistic if we cling to the view that only the demonstrable is valuable. But, if we consider the vast progress that science has achieved without proof, then we may very well opt for optimism.

If one tries to find another philosophy that resembles Popper’s to some degree, one has to go as far as the theology of the great medieval thinker, Moses Maimonides, who said it is impossible for mere humans to know what the Lord ls, only what He ls not, but lt behooves us to try repeatedly. Taking seriously the modern move from theology to nat­ural sclence, hls so-called negatlve theology translates lnto negatlve natural philosophy. This takes us even further back, to the Socratic idea that even though we cannot find out what is true, we are able to find out what is false and try to avoid it. This way of thinking annoys some, perhaps because of the fear of becoming irrationalist. It seems to others just right, particularly for science: laws of nature preclude some states of affairs (for eXample, bodies lighter than water cannot sink by themselves, or, energy of a closed system cannot increase). The state of affairs that does eXist is a window of opportunity that at times we make use of but not necessarily with any understanding. Indeed, action usually precedes thinking, at least such actions that are as essential to life as the intake of air and nourishment. Scien­tific research is the effort to eXplain these opportunities, and the eX­planations often point to new opportunities for us to try. But, the whole venture is as much due to our good fortune (usually called the grace of God) as it is to our very presence on this Earth. Some like this because it sounds religious; others hate it for the very same reason. We ourselves are indifferent to such similarities - until and unless we find ourselves too naive or credulous.

Scientific eXplanation links events - happy or unhappy as they may be; hence, windows of opportunity - to their ostensible causes. We can imagine which opportunity has led to the cause by assuming another causal eXplanation. Suppose that we could, in this way, regress in time as far as possible; we still assume some cause that together with the laws of nature links certain current events to other antecedent events. But can we ever similarly hope to explain any and all events? Alas, no, our current theory of eXplanation does not allow this. To echo Albert Einstein, our model of causal explanation leaves unanswerable the question: Why is there anything in this world of ours?

Again, some like this idea very much because they find in it license for their religious preferences; others hate it for the very same reason. We find both these responses excessive. As Immanuel Kant said, our ignorance is no ground for any specific speculation; at the very best, it is compatible with too many.

Finally, we offer a word about the systematic engagement through­out this book with the psychological aspects of philosophical problems. Traditional philosophy developed the theories of scientific method and scientific knowledge as a psychology of learning and of knowl­edge. This begs the question, of course, because psychology should be a science proper, not the foundation of science. The great advance in twentieth-century philosophy was the move from psychology to soci­ology; from the traditional questions of how do I learn and how do I know to the questions of how do we learn and how do we know. This change opened new vistas touched on often throughout this work. Indeed, the new circumstance begs question no less than the old because we want our sociology to be scientific as well. Hence, such progress makes sense only if philosophy becomes fallibilist; that is, if it admits that we can claim that no theory is error-free. Also, the major defect of the traditional theory - namely, that its psychology is not sophisticated - does have a parallel in the new theory: fortunately, the necessary part of the sociology of the new philosophy is trite and asserts hardly more than that the funds of knowledge are not individ­ual but rather social (institutional). In any case, the change invites a replacement from the old to the new style of both the psychological and sociological aspects of learning. This change in sociology is easy and it has led to the growth of a new scientific field: the sociology of science. This change in psychology is still waiting its turn, although it is clearly both significant and challenging. In this book, we undertake a beginning in this direction, and we differ from tradition at least in our stress on the limitations within which we conceive this project. We suggest that it is at least useful for philosophers who find the transition from the traditional to the new to be a difficult one. And, because they are still in the majority, we hope that this book speaks to them as well.

The first draft of this book was written by Abraham Meidan, and was partly based on his previous book, Skepticism is True. Joseph Agassi then broadened and elaborated on it, with the manuscript going back and forth in the usual manner of co-authorship.

TelAviv, Fall 2007