
	Where results make sense

Topic: Scepticism

In the News (Mon 13 Feb 12)

EXECUTIVE POWER

Iran

ANALYSIS

Pakistan

Family compact

	CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Scepticism
		Scepticism is then a systematic denial of the capacity of the human intellect to know anything whatsoever with certainty.
		Scepticism was the Socratic doctrine of the concept.
		Scepticism the neo-Platonists sought refuge in the immediacy of a
	www.newadvent.org /cathen/13516b.htm (2022 words)

	Scepticism
		They use the same type of logical errors, unverifiable anecdotes, lack of predictive ability, and post hoc interpretations of unrepeatable events, as are often used in support of religious claims.
		Scepticism is opposed to all totalitarianism, and is a far better defence against such than religion, which has a long history of collaboration with totalitarianism and killing on its own behalf.
		To teach our children to question authority, to read forbidden books, to distrust political and religious movements and leaders, and to regard faith (belief without evidence) as an intellectual failing, is the best thing we can do to ensure the future of human civilization.
	markhumphrys.com /scepticism.html (1731 words)

	SCEPTICISM - LoveToKnow Article on SCEPTICISM (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-07)
		For, indeed, scepticism with regard to the senses is considered in the Inquiry to be sufficiently justified by the fact that they lead us to suppose an external universe which depends not on our perception, whereas this universal and primary opinion of all men is soon destroyed by the slightest philosophy.
		Scepticism with regard to reason, on the other hand, depends on an insight into the irrational character of the relation which we chiefly employ, viz, that of cause and effect.
		Scepticism is deprived of its persistent argument if it is seen that, while our nandvidual experiences are to be judged by their coherence with the coiitext of experience in general, experience as a whole does not admit of being judged by reference to anything beyond itself.
	66.1911encyclopedia.org /S/SC/SCEPTICISM.htm (5431 words)

	20th WCP: Cognitive Scepticism Of Nagarjuna
		Nagarjunian scepticism may be considered as a caution that points to the inadequacy of such soteriological claim on the basis of their epistemological stand.
		A cognitive sceptic of Nagarjuian type might react to such questions by saying that it would be an exercise of dogmatism if something with reference to actual state of practics is introduced as the ultimate resort when somebody is engaged in purely theoretical discourse with his philosophical opponents.
		Though a sceptic like Nagarjuna may say that in 'theoretically oriented' debate it is irrelevant to introduce the element of pragmatic efficacy; a Nyaya cognitivist may remind his sceptic friend here that without accepting the validity of some common principles even no 'theoretically oriented' debate can begin at all.
	www.bu.edu /wcp/Papers/TKno/TKnoMoha.htm (5113 words)

	Glossary of Terms: Sc (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-07)
		Scepticism is the philosophical current which over-emphasises doubt and the relativity of human knowledge, while Dogmatism underestimates the relativity of knowledge and lays claim to knowledge of absolute truths.
		Kant was himself working towards scepticism in opposition to what he saw as the dogmatism of materialists such as Diderot when he was shocked by reading Hume’s scepticism, which seemed to show that science was impossible.
		Scepticism is commonly dominant during periods of social crisis when the old systems of thinking break down; dogmatism on the other hand is frequently associated with the immature stages of development of a movement.
	www.marxists.org /glossary/terms/s/c.htm (1027 words)

	Bloomsbury.com - Research centre
		Scepticism (from Greek skepsis, 'questioning'), in philosophy, is the doctrine that one cannot attain knowledge.
		Global sceptics may allow that one may know a very few things such as: (1) that one currently exists; (2) what one's own current mental states are; (3) that one knows nothing else.
		Global scepticism is made plausible by the point that the evidence one has for almost any of one's beliefs is compatible with the falsity of that belief.
	www.bloomsburymagazine.com /ARC/detail.asp?entryid=102849&bid=2 (371 words)

	Books in Review: The Politics of Faith & the Politics of Scepticism
		The politics of scepticism rejects the view that it is government's task to improve or perfect humanity, sometimes because the very idea of perfection is thought to be absurd, but predominantly on the grounds that government is far too blunt an instrument to use in the pursuit of something so complex and elusive as perfection.
		The "scepticism" in the politics of scepticism is not in the first place scepticism about God or morality, but doubt-sometimes driven by strong faith and high moral principle-about the capacity of government officials, human like the rest of us, to wield power efficiently and justly.
		In its scepticism about principle and its faith in practice, Oakeshott's thought can resemble such fashionable contemporary schools of thought as postmodernism and pragmatism, but it must not be confused with either.
	www.leaderu.com /ftissues/ft9704/reviews/berkowitz.html (1519 words)

	Philosophy Department - David Owen Scepticism with regard to Reason
		The sceptical threat of the negative arguments of 1.4.1 is not that the beliefs we have may turn out to be unjustified; it is that the beliefs, by losing their force and vivacity, may not survuve as beliefs, but only as mere ideas.
		This sceptical doubt, both with respect to reason and the senses, is a malady, which can never be radically cur’d, but must return upon us every moment, however we may chace it away, and sometimes may seem entirely free from it.
		We save ourselves from this total scepticism only by means of that singular and seemingly trivial property of the fancy, by which we enter with difficulty into remote views of things, and are not able to accompany them with so sensible an impression, as we do those, which are more easy and natural.
	phil.web.arizona.edu /faculty/extra/dowen/dowen_swrtr.htm (10703 words)

	James' Essays: Scepticism
		The label of 'sceptic' is inauspicious for a philosopher, as it implies a belief that leaves us with a universe which seems very unfamiliar, and so the philosopher's task of accurately describing what he sees, appears to have been unfulfilled, if that philosopher is labelled a sceptic.
		The task of avoiding the trap of scepticism, and removing that label from many great philosophers, seems to be the task of many contemporary philosophers.
		The main problem with this method of countering scepticism is that these a priori assumptions are not logical in origin, and therefore the sceptic will have the complaint that knowledge based on these assumptions is unreasonable.
	interconnected.org /matt/archive/james/Scepticism.html (1124 words)

	Scepticism @ indigoblind.bravehost.com - A Bravenet.com Hosted Site (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-07)
		It is impossible for the Sceptic to know they are right if they do not have an argument, and unless one is proving a tautology one needs to have true premises to arrive at a true conclusion.
		The Sceptic would like to show that all claims to knowledge are synthetic rather than analytic, because it has already been shown that our experience of the external world is unreliable as an accurate guide to its nature.
		A Sceptic might ask what exactly is the point of writing the book if it relies upon a definition of Grayling’s that only he agrees with, but that is the nature and attitude of the Sceptic.
	indigoblind.bravehost.com /scepticism.html (2403 words)

	Sweet, "Scepticism and Its Costs: Hemans's Reading of Byron" - _The Sceptic_: A Hemans-Byron Dialogue - ...
		The press's post-war attacks on Byron as a dangerous moral and religious sceptic were part of Tory consensus-building, and Hemans's growing participation in these attacks paid bills for her and, as well, expressed her reading of history's liability for the widows and orphans that it makes.
		Scepticism and syncretism alike are the Romantic results of this engagement with Greece; I discuss Hemans's experiment with syncretism elsewhere (Go to Romantic Circles Praxis Series essay) and speak only of scepticism here.
		The sceptic's "vain philosophy" thus "mocks" love—mocks, that is, the promises made to women and to children, a group that after all includes everyone, including Byron, subject to marital and parental accident.
	www.rc.umd.edu /editions/sceptic/costs.html (2527 words)

	Scepticism, Rationalism and Externalism (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-07)
		This is a fairly weak kind of scepticism, and I suspect many philosophers who are generally anti-sceptical are attracted by this kind of scepticism.
		If she is not a sceptic about justification, she thinks that there are certain classes of introspective properties such that necessarily, anyone who instantiates those properties is justified in believing certain things.
		The inductive sceptic now raises the spectre of Winter Wonderland, a kind of world that usually has the same meteorological cycles as ours, and has the same history, but in which it is sunny every day in Ithaca next winter.
	brian.weatherson.net /sre.htm (7944 words)

	<< Journals Division of UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS >> (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-07)
		Scepticism is arguably the most influential philosophical movement in the history of Western civilization.
		It is ironic that Scepticism, which was in the first instance a protest against dogmatic philosophers and their influence on the gullible, should have itself become the single most effective tool of those preying upon the same victims.
		Groarke adopts the Sceptics' own strategy of trying to show that Scepticism is not Pyrrho's innovation, but rather that it is a tendency to be found even in the earliest philosophers.
	www.utpjournals.com /jour.ihtml?lp=product/utq/612/612_review_Gerson.html (634 words)

	Scepticism - How Far Can Scepticism Go?
		However, we now come to the thorny question of to what extent it is possible for there to be such a thing as "global" scepticism - that is, doubt about everything which we experience.
		Ordinary doubt - or local scepticism - can usually be tested - and even when it can't, there may well come a time when it can.
		Firstly, make a list of what you think are sceptical arguments (you can base them on the examples I have already given, but try to think of your own - 3 or 4 should do).
	www.philosophyonline.co.uk /tok/scepticism4.htm (543 words)

	Contemporary Skepticism [Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy]
		The sceptical philosopher's conception of our position and of his question for an understanding of it [...] is a quest for an objective or detached understanding and explanation of the position we are objectively in.
		What is seen to be true from a detached ‘external’ standpoint might not correspond to what we take to be the truth about our position when we consider it ‘internally’, from within the practical contexts which give our words their social point.
		Philosophical scepticism says the two do not correspond; we never know anything about the world around us, although we say or imply that we do hundreds of times a day.
	www.utm.edu /research/iep/s/skepcont.htm (15771 words)

	Ancient scepticism and ancient religion
		His claim at PH III 2 that the sceptic will live a religious life ‘without opinions’ (adoxastos) is joined there and in the M passage by the claim that he will avoid the rashness of the dogmatists and the philosophers.
		Hence it is hard to see what sceptical force this material is supposed to have, since no worshipper of Heracles thought that worshippers of Sarapis ought to do exactly what he did.
		Translations from PH are from Sextus Empiricus: Outlines of Scepticism, translated by Julia Annas and Jonathan Barnes, Cambridge University Press 2000.
	www.u.arizona.edu /~jannas/forth/Assos1.htm (7128 words)

	On The Value of Scepticism
		Except in China, a man is thought a poor creature unless he has strong opinions on such matters; people hate sceptics far more than they hate the passionate advocates of opinions hostile to their own.
		When people are challenged as to why scepticism in such matters should be wicked, the only answer is that myths help to win wars, so that a rational nation would be killed rather than kill.
		Having achieved that, we could begin to build a new morality, not based on envy and restriction, but on the wish for a full life and the realization that other human beings are a help and not a hindrance when once the madness of envy has been cured.
	www.positiveatheism.org /hist/russell4.htm (4217 words)

	“Dreams, Dramas, and Scepticism,” 29 Philosophical Quarterly, 1979
		To see why Descartes considered this an astonishingly powerful ground for scepticism, we must be clear about several points in the way he frames the problem.
		For it is by illicitly comparing the facts of the dreamer with the beliefs of the character representing him that Descartes is led to his conclusion that mistakes in dreaming are ubiquitous.
		And so, by analogy, we may allow the possibility that a person—while he is dreaming—has similar beliefs, the sorts of belief which would account for his subsequent ability to recall the story of the dream.
	www.lawrence.edu /fast/boardmaw/Dreams_Dramas.html (4159 words)

	Scepticism and Irreligion in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-07)
		Scepticism and Irreligion in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries
		This volume deals with scepticism and irreligion in the 17th and 18th century.
		Alan Gabbey, "A disease incurable": Scepticism and the Cambridge Platonists.
	www.brill.nl /product.asp?ID=2416 (470 words)

	Scepticism (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-07)
		To be sceptical is not to deny anything, but to doubt, to be in a state of suspense between knowing or not knowing, believing or not believing.
		Sometimes when philosophers and others are talking about scepticism it seems that they are taking the definite position that something is not the case, e.g., that we cannot know.
		While your assertion would be correct, it would not in fact be a counter to the sceptic's argument, for the sceptic does not need to prove their scenario(s) true, only show that they are possible, and indeed they seem to be possible.
	www.ccaurora.edu /phi111177/scepticism.htm (2158 words)

	PH29A Modern scepticism
		The ancient sceptical strategy was unqualifiedly general: any claim to knowledge is vulnerable and any kind of defence is undermined, since whatever defence you offer will either be a matter of going on for ever, or refusing to go on, or going on in a circle.
		To get something worrying, the sceptical position must say, not merely that certain alternatives have not been ruled out, but that these alternatives are as well justified as the views that we actually adopt.
		Williams' point is that the kind of sceptical hypothesis on offer (which emphasizes the totality condition) is not a way of tightening the standards of what will count as knowledge, but a way of changing the subject.
	www.cavehill.uwi.edu /bnccde/ph29a/ph29ascepticismmodern.html (1148 words)

	PH29A Cartesian and later scepticism
		It is important that the sceptic is using know like the rest of us; the argument is that on our own terms, using standards we actually endorse, we are mistaken in thinking we know the things we claim to know.
		Sceptical positions arise out of reason but cannot be controverted by it.
		Sceptical hypotheses are designed to be "verification-transcendent" — they preserve everything we currently have to go on, but they suppose that the reality we are confronting is radically different from what we take it to be.
	www.uwichill.edu.bb /bnccde/ph29a/ph29ascepticism.htm (2024 words)

	PH29A Scepticism: ancient
		And the aim of sceptical argument need not be to arrive at any conclusion but rather to incline one to suspend judgment.
		But the sceptic wants a much stronger reading in which each proposition must be established by taking positive steps to support it.
		Another way of putting Williams' point is that the sceptic assumes it is appropriate to challenge any claim at any time, without having a reason to challenge it in particular.
	www.cavehill.uwi.edu /bnccde/PH29A/ph29ascepticismancient.htm (969 words)

	Blogging for Change (4) - Scepticism to Conviction: Blog Tips at ProBlogger
		Having got the attention and peaked the interest of your reader it is now time to help them come to of place of conviction.
		Scepticism might have set in by now and your reader might be thinking ‘this is interesting - but it doesn’t really apply to me’.
		Stage 3 - Scepticism to ConvictionHaving got the attention and peaked the interest of your reader it is now time to help them come to of place of conviction.
	www.problogger.net /archives/2004/09/23/blogging-for-change-4-scepticism-to-conviction (458 words)

	Promiscuous Sacred Sites: Reflections on Secrecy and Scepticism in the Hindmarsh Island Affair (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-07)
		For those touched by scepticism, such claims are never only for the sacred but always also against development ("progress"), as if these two things are necessarily incommensurable with each other.
		For the sceptics, secrecy obscures (rather than secures) the validity of the sacred and suggests a possible future in which there might be endless unverifiable Aboriginal claims for it.
		It was an inquiry which, for sympathisers and sceptics alike, soon came to be emblematic of the nation's contemporary condition.
	www.lib.latrobe.edu.au /AHR/archive/Issue-June-1997/gelder.html (2951 words)

	Amazon.ca: Books: Sextus Empiricus and Pyrrhonean Scepticism (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-07)
		The subsequent sceptical tradition in philosophy has not done justice to Sextus: his views stand up today as remarkably insightful, offering a fruitful way to approach issues of knowledge, understanding, belief, and rationality.
		It is widely supposed that any form of scepticism that arrives at a global denial of the availability of rationally justified beliefs is self-refuting and unliveable.
		Bailey shows that the former objection can be disarmed by distinguishing between the mature Pyrrhonean sceptic's assessment of his negative epistemological arguments and the assessment forced upon his philosophical opponents by their own rationalistic code.
	www.amazon.ca /exec/obidos/ASIN/0198238525 (301 words)

	Scepticism - Lecture 6
		The Cartesian sceptic, in contrast, struggles through an act of will to suspend belief in order to clear the way for the reconstruction of his beliefs on a foundation of certainty, and this temporary suspension of judgement brings with it not tranquillity but mental distress.
		Descartes’ scepticism is insulated from the dangers of dialectical self-refutation and the charge that it cannot be lived.
		Cartesian inferential scepticism generates a whole family of problems that parallel the problem of the external world: other minds, the past, the future, distant, unobserved places.
	www.webspawner.com /users/alanbailey/sceptic6.html (1832 words)

Try your search on: Qwika (all wikis)