Scepticism

Introduction

In any society, there are individuals with different personalities and experiences belonging from different backgrounds. Hence, conflicts and disagreements are bound to occur. Any such event where all the participants involved will agree to a concept or theory is very rare. Therefore, any fact, knowledge or theory will always be challenged or disapproved by a group of individuals even if the theory is approved and practiced by the majority. This phenomenon can be termed as Scepticism or Skepticism and can be defined as an attitude meant to question or criticize any knowledge, belief or opinion declared as a doubt or fact regarding claims that are taken for granted elsewhere.

Discussion

There are a number of types and forms of Scepticism be it Philosophical skepticism, Classical philosophical, Religious skepticism etc. However, a scepitic in any field though acknowledges the possibility of any existing theory based on proofs, however, believes that any further new evidence can challenge the credibility of these findings. Therefore, a sceptic first raises his appeal on any theory and then initiates an argument by presenting his opinion and facts on the subject (Stroud, pp. 38)

Arguments for Scepticism

The presented Argument therefore holds a central position in Scepticism. These arguments can be categorized in to three distinctions. These include,

Brain in a Vat

Brain in a Vat, in philosophy, is a methodology utilized in a many thought experiments meant to sketch features of human ideas of reality, knowledge, truth and meaning. It is based on the idea, that a person's brain is suspended in a vat filled with a liquid, where its neurons are linked to a supercomputer receiving electrical impulses similar to the brain receives normally. The responses of the “disembodied" brain to different activities is displayed by the computer. Since the suspended brain is assumed to work as a normal human brain, it is impossible for it to distinguish whether it lies in a vat or a skull (Hankinson, pp.85).

Relating this concept to humans and human psychology, the argument concludes that one cannot know for sure if he is a brain in a skull or vat. Hence, he cannot be sure whether most of his beliefs, opinions, feelings and experiences towards the outer world and its entities are practical, real and true. By principle, ruling out oneself as a brain in a vat is impossible; there exist no good grounds for a person to declare any of the things he believes are true. Hence, this skeptical argument promotes that one cannot be certain while rising issues with the definition of information he posses.

Argument from Error

This argument of Sceptisim is supports the suggestion that an individual cannot declare a proposition to be true if or/and until he finds he was mistaken about his belief. The argument supports the idea that, happy accidents and lucky guesses cannot be given the status of authentic and credible knowledge or fact. If the belief turns out to be true by accident, then there also exists a possibility for the belief to be inaccurate and ...