Epistemology Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! ===Skepticism=== {{Main|Philosophical skepticism}} Skepticism is a position that questions the possibility of human knowledge, either in particular domains or on a general level.<ref name="Klein 2015"/> Skepticism does not refer to any one specific school of philosophy, but is rather a thread that runs through many epistemological debates. [[Philosophical skepticism#Ancient Greek skepticism|Ancient Greek skepticism]] began during the [[Hellenistic philosophy|Hellenistic period in philosophy]], which featured both [[Pyrrhonism]] (notably defended by [[Pyrrho]], [[Sextus Empiricus]], and [[Aenesidemus]]) and [[Academic skepticism]] (notably defended by [[Arcesilaus]] and [[Carneades]]). Among ancient Indian philosophers, skepticism was notably defended by the [[Ajñana]] school and in the Buddhist [[Madhyamika]] tradition. In modern philosophy, [[René Descartes]]' famous inquiry into mind and body began as an exercise in skepticism, in which he started by trying to doubt all purported cases of knowledge in order to search for something that was known with absolute [[certainty]].<ref name="Popkin1972"/> Epistemic skepticism questions whether knowledge is possible at all. Generally speaking, skeptics argue that knowledge requires [[certainty]], and that most or all of our beliefs are [[Fallibilism|fallible]] (meaning that our grounds for holding them always, or almost always, fall short of certainty), which would together entail that knowledge is always or almost always [[acatalepsy|impossible]] for us.<ref name="skepticism"/> Characterizing knowledge as strong or weak is dependent on a person's viewpoint and their characterization of knowledge.<ref name="skepticism"/> Much of modern epistemology is derived from attempts to better understand and address philosophical skepticism.<ref name="Klein 2015">{{Citation|last=Klein|first=Peter|title=Skepticism|date=2015|url=https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2015/entries/skepticism/|encyclopedia=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy|editor-last=Zalta|editor-first=Edward N.|edition=Summer 2015|publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University|access-date=1 October 2018|archive-date=23 March 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190323100900/https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2015/entries/skepticism/|url-status=live}}</ref> ====Pyrrhonism==== {{Main|Pyrrhonism}} One of the oldest forms of epistemic skepticism can be found in [[Agrippa's trilemma]] (named after the [[Pyrrhonism|Pyrrhonist]] philosopher [[Agrippa the Skeptic]]) that demonstrates that certainty can not be achieved with regard to beliefs.<ref name="SEP Ancient Skepticism"/> Pyrrhonism dates back to [[Pyrrho of Elis]] from the 4th century BCE, although most of what we know about Pyrrhonism today is from the surviving works of [[Sextus Empiricus]].<ref name="SEP Ancient Skepticism"/> Pyrrhonists claim that for any argument for a non-evident proposition, an equally convincing argument for a contradictory proposition can be produced. Pyrrhonists do not dogmatically deny the possibility of knowledge, but instead point out that beliefs about non-evident matters cannot be substantiated. ====Cartesian skepticism==== The [[evil demon|Cartesian evil demon problem]], first raised by [[René Descartes]],{{Refn|group=note|name=PlatoCaveVsBrainVat}} supposes that our sensory impressions may be controlled by some external power rather than the result of ordinary veridical perception.<ref name="Descartes1"/> In such a scenario, nothing we sense would actually exist, but would instead be mere illusion. As a result, we would never be able to know anything about the world, since we would be systematically deceived about everything. The conclusion often drawn from evil demon skepticism is that even if we are not completely deceived, all of the information provided by our senses is still ''compatible'' with skeptical scenarios in which we are completely deceived, and that we must therefore either be able to exclude the possibility of deception or else must deny the possibility of ''infallible'' knowledge (that is, knowledge which is completely certain) beyond our immediate sensory impressions.<ref name="Descartes2"/> While the view that no beliefs are beyond doubt other than our immediate sensory impressions is often ascribed to Descartes, he in fact thought that we ''can'' exclude the possibility that we are systematically deceived, although his reasons for thinking this are based on a highly contentious [[ontological argument]] for the existence of a benevolent God who would not allow such deception to occur.<ref name="Descartes1"/> ====Responses to philosophical skepticism==== Epistemological skepticism can be classified as either "mitigated" or "unmitigated" skepticism. Mitigated skepticism rejects "strong" or "strict" knowledge claims but does approve weaker ones, which can be considered "virtual knowledge", but only with regard to justified beliefs. Unmitigated skepticism rejects claims of both virtual and strong knowledge.<ref name="skepticism"/> Characterizing knowledge as strong, weak, virtual or genuine can be determined differently depending on a person's viewpoint as well as their characterization of knowledge.<ref name="skepticism"/> Some of the most notable attempts to respond to unmitigated skepticism include [[direct realism]], [[disjunctivism]], [[Scottish common sense realism|common sense philosophy]], [[pragmatism]], [[fideism]], and [[fictionalism]].<ref name="Suber1996"/> Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. 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