| | Just to basically finish this era, here's the notes to the Skeptics, the rest of Lecture 8......
The third philosophy after the Epicureans and the Stoics was the Skeptics. The former two had given up this world, and agreed no values were achievable on earth. But they both believedin the efficacy of the human mind. Knowledge was obtainable from sense experience by the use of reason. They didn't demand strict faith, or appeal to revelation, so they weren't really religious. The ability of man to gain knowledge was all that was left. The skeptics attacked reason.
The movement started in Greece, then went to Rome. One prominent skeptic was Pyrrho, who lived from 365 - 274 BC. These thinkers lasted across the centuries. Their basic position was that knlwledge as such of anything was impossible. They assaulted the possibility of any knowledge. To be consistent, many said they weren't even sure of this, it was only probable. The verb 'skepticy' means 'to inquire into something'. However, the skeptic never acquired any answers. They had a battery of arguments, based mainly against the senses. The skeptics used the arguments of the sophists and Protagoras. We didn't perceive reality, we only 'saw' it through our senses. They said perception depended on the species of the perceiver, man or dog, the bodily condition of the individual, and also the relationbetween the individual and the object, whether up close or way back [railroad tracks 'converging', etc.]. Also, sense perception depended on the medium, since we perceive through air. Their conclusion was we never perceive things as they are, our perception was distorted. Reality was unknowable. Some added - Is there a reality? Maybe there was only subjective sense impressions. As for reason, it was based on the senses, so reason couldn't give us knowledge.
Most skeptics pointed to disagreements among people with varying views. This approach, borrowed from the sophists, has been used over and over again in philosophy. Therefore, they said, no truth was possible. Some skeptics attacked self-evident truths or first principles, as not objective. You couldn't know what was self-evident, because everybody disagreed. Knowledge was an infinite regress. Some, like Anesedemos, denied the Law of Cause and Effect, anticipating David Hume. He said he watched two events, but saw no causality between them. The skeptics also attacked the procedure of induction, the basis for Cartesean doubt. "How do you know you're not mistaken and not dreaming or crazy?" How could you induce universal truths from particular instances? A whole battery of skeptical arguments was raised. Professor Stace gave a modern summary of the skeptic position. "Our attitude to things should be a complete suspension of judgments". They were certain of nothing. Skeptics never said "It is so", but carefully prefixed their pronouncements with 'perhaps' or 'maybe' or 'it seems to me'. If knowledge was impossible, how could man live? Plato said that knowledge was needed for ethics. Skeptics said no ethics or rational action was possible for a human being. There were no rational grounds to prefer one action over another. All the wise men could do was resist action, and resist inducements to being involved in the world. Since right or wrong actions stemmed from right or wrong ideas, and there were no certain ideas, you suspended judgement and didn't commit yourself to any definite action. This giving up the world was the same basic withdrawal of Epicurus or the Stoics. You should withdraw to yourself, in quiet, calm indifference, not funtioning, because you didn't know what you were doing.
Some skeptics said you must act to some extent, and when you do, you must adjust yourself to the mores, traditions, consensus, customs, and beliefs of the time. You must get along with people. Some skeptics became priests, since the idea of religion was as good as the next, and seemed convenient. Social metaphysics resulted. By suspending any independent judgments and philosophical principles, they adopted whatever surrounding people thought. Thus, philosophy had progressively given up the views that 1] values were achievable in life on earth, and 2] reason could acquire knowledge - we're intellectually hopeless. Their conclusions, stemming from this, was that life on earth was unlivable. Maybe there was another realm where true happiness was achievable, and there was a supreme being who gave us knowledge, told us what to live for, and one day will open up this world for us to live. This was the keynote theme for the religious period. This was a return to Platonism, with two realities, a supreme principle, namely the form of the good becoming God, and immortality in another world. The religious development of Platonism began, as Christianity came to dominate.
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