Philosophical Skeptism

Scepticism in Philosophy

Philosophical scepticism is a school of thought where we examine if we actually have any true knowledge and perceptions. It can range from doubting philosophical solutions to our existence, to rejecting the reality around us, and suspecting that nothing is real.

Philosophical scepticism can be traced back to ancient times. Sophist Gorgias claimed that nothing exists, and if something does exist, I cannot be known. Gorgias suggest this around 2599 years ago, showing that this is not a modern philosophical view. However, Gorgias is more referred to as a “Sophist” and most philosophers believe that Pyrrho was the first real philosophical sceptic in the western world around 80 years after Gorgias. A very famous philosopher who was a sceptic was Socrates, he frequently said “skepteon” meaning to investigate, and claiming that the only thing he knew was that he knew nothing. Another philosopher who is renowned for his sceptic think is Descartes, and that’s who we will focus in this essay as he had a very interesting way of defeating his scepticism.

In Descartes first meditation, he begins to break down life as he knows, he states he wants to “start again from the foundations” and test himself and his senses to establish “something firm and constant”. To do this he sweep away all prior knowledge, and subject all his beliefs to doubt in order to uncover beliefs which cannot be doubted. What Descartes proposed to do was a very new and interesting tool; he thought that if he doubted everything, his surroundings, his senses, his knowledge, even his God, that he would find something certain, something that is defiantly true.

Descartes has a very harsh way of dealing with classifying which of his beliefs are false, he says that he doesn’t not need to prove that something is 100% false in order to make it false, instead he says that anything that he can doubt even in the slightest will be treated as false. This meant that he would reject...