Are there any Pyrrhonian skeptics in the group? [View all]

[GliderGuider]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrrhonism

Whereas academic skepticism claims that "Nothing can be known, not even this", Pyrrhonian skeptics withhold any assent with regard to non-evident propositions and remain in a state of perpetual inquiry. They disputed the possibility of attaining truth by sensory apprehension, reason, or the two combined, and thence inferred the need for total suspension of judgment (epoché) on things. A Pyrrhonist tries to make the arguments of both sides as strong as possible. Then he asks himself if there is any reason to prefer one side to the other. And if not, he suspends belief in either side.

This is the philosophy I'm now following, in my ongoing efforts to combat what I see as the pernicious effects of belief in my worldview.

I use a generic definition of belief, in order to separate the act of belief from the proposition being believed.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/belief/

Contemporary analytic philosophers of mind generally use the term “belief” to refer to the attitude we have, roughly, whenever we take something to be the case or regard it as true. To believe something, in this sense, needn't involve actively reflecting on it: Of the vast number of things ordinary adults believe, only a few can be at the fore of the mind at any single time. Nor does the term “belief”, in standard philosophical usage, imply any uncertainty or any extended reflection about the matter in question (as it sometimes does in ordinary English usage). Many of the things we believe, in the relevant sense, are quite mundane: that we have heads, that it's the 21st century, that a coffee mug is on the desk. Forming beliefs is thus one of the most basic and important features of the mind, and the concept of belief plays a crucial role in both philosophy of mind and epistemology.

In this sense both evident belief-propositions like "Electricity comes out of wall sockets&quot share belief-quality with non-evident propositions such as "Christ died for my sins." When see in this way, beliefs may be considered as the assumptions on which people base their worldviews and value systems.

In essence, Pyrrhonian skepticism is a position of agnosticism on issues of belief. I tend to believe obvious propositions based on immediate personal sensory evidence far more than non-obvious ones that are based on logic or hearsay.

This leads to some interesting conclusions about the nature, possibility and trustworthiness of abstract knowledge. It also leads to a steep reduction in psychological turmoil, since there is no longer a requirement to defend any particular proposition. This leads to a state of ataraxia or lucid tranquility, similar to what the Buddhists call "equanimity".

This philosophical stance has proven very useful in terms of reducing the amount of belief-driven conflict I find myself in with others.

Is anyone else investigating such a stance?

Regarding the purpose and operation of beliefs in the human mind, I speculate that the associated neural/mental process flow might operate something like this:

» Perceptions provide the primary data input to the organism;
» Perceptions trigger unconscious emotional responses that mediate those perceptions, transforming their raw sensory data into mental activity;
» Beliefs then frame the emotions, giving the emotional activity a defined ideational structure, aka meaning;
» The structure allows us then to apply reason to those beliefs, and thus to the original perceptual data that they frame.

From this point of view, the ability to form beliefs is a prerequisite for reason, because without the belief there is no abstract but well-formed mental structure against which to apply reason. It also implies that much (most) of what we consider rational thought amounts to post-hoc explanation for the emotion/belief structure that was triggered unconsciously by the incoming data (this is in agreement with recent findings in neuropsychology.)

It also speaks to the finding that it is difficult or impossible to alter an entrenched belief by presenting the believer with opposing facts or logic.