Pyrrho and the Skeptical way of life: ignorance is bliss
Skepticism is the philosophy that there’s very little that we can know with any certainty, and we should suspend judgment on all those things to which we can never find an answer. By giving up the dogmatic pursuit of some kind of resolution, we can be at peace with ourselves and stop getting wound up.
Radical Skepticism
Pyrrhonism: we waste so much time and effort seeking and demanding answers or resolutions where there’s only doubt and ambiguity, that we’re destined to be unhappy.
- There’s no possible way to determine what’s true or “actual.”
- The key to living a fulfilled, happy, and flourishing life is to stop the pointless pursuit of resolution.
Everything is an opinion
Pyrrho took things a bit too far, and his students had to stop him from walking off precipices or into busy streets because he said he couldn’t entirely trust his senses
- It took a few centuries for Skepticism to develop, and it found its voice again in the Roman, Sextus Empiricus
- He thought everything we might claim to know was always open to doubt or challenged, and there could be no possible way to resolve such a challenge
- We should live only according to how things appear, but this isn’t the same as trusting our senses
The consolation of Skepticism
Recognizing the very clear limits to our understanding brings great benefit
- We can give up trying to defend views that we have no way to know for sure are correct
- Skeptic is to say, “I’ll probably never know the answer to this, but I’ll try to find out anyway.” It’s to give up the false hope for easy answers and to find peace in our own experiences, alone.
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