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Sanctioning Skeptics (or not lol)

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"A man is likely to mind is own business when it is worth minding. When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs by minding other people's business..."

Philosophical skeptics require claims to knowledge in order to exist. They are mental looters, demanding that others build so that they are able to tear down that which they did not create. Never sanction in any way those that define themselves by what they are not. They run in terror from any conviction or principle that might force them to acknowledge the fact that reality exists and A is A. Never offer up your convictions as a sacrifice to those who have none and can only sense their broken identity by clinging to the negative space of others convictions.

A comprehensive systematic understanding of a philosophy such as Objectivism is a threat to those who desperately seek the reassurance that no answers are possible. Attacks on egoism and arguments from intimidation are geared not so much to throw you off balance, but to insulate the attacker from their own evasions.

Refuse to even acknowledge their deceitful attempts to engage in discussion. My time and effort spent understanding the nature of reality is not available to them. They must suffer in their emptiness alone. Don't even tell them you are refusing. Simply don't engage.

Skepticism is tricky, since it presents infinite contradictory premises which appear to be truths in isolation but stop short of allowing a cohesive argument or proper integration of concepts to be formed, since by nature this would require allowing the possibility of knowledge creation and truth. Skeptics pull their arguments from appeals to authority, mysticism, intuition, prayer, etc...anything but actual perceptions of reality. Skeptics blank out their minds when they are asked to perform integrations on their cherry picked concretes. These integrations are a form of inductive reasoning - the selective, subjective denial of which is what allows a skeptic to exist.

Skeptics frighten me to an extent because the subjectivity they allow in their minds permits them to theoretically justify anything...no commitment they make is too unbreakable, no principle too maleable. As friends or family, their philosophy prevents them from being the people we wish so much for them to be.

According to the "Importance of Philosophy" website, Skepticism represents a flawed and irrational epistemology. In general, since philosophy is a kind of knowledge, an irrational epistemology is the destroyer of a rational philosophy. It makes it difficult or impossible to get other parts of the philosophy right, since it prevents the proper functioning of the mind.

As evidenced when dealing with subjectivists and skeptics closest to you, you will find that their theories and assumptions are not practied consistently. The result would be an inability to deal with the world. Instead, an irrational epistemology like skepticism is practiced inconsistently, further allowing the goalposts to be moved when debating with these people. It impairs the mind when it is used, but is often ignored allowing limited real use of ones mind."

See "Importance of Philosophy" on skepticism. " Inductive skepticism claims that induction does not bestow true knowledge and that we can't know if our senses are valid. Philosophers throughout history have been trying to refute this assertion while granting the flawed premise at it's core. Worth considering is that deduction is no more "certain" than induction - the rules of deduction are not magically bestowed upon us. They are inductively discovered and tested and accepted like all the rest of our knowledge."

My conclusion and strategy: Do not engage in debates with a philosophical skeptic on any topic beyond metaphysics and epistemology, because by doing so you take the risk of granting them the core flawed premise - that deduction can exist without induction, and reality is, in principle, not entirely knowable.

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This is a beautiful post. Very well done.

That means a lot to me, thank you.  I wrote it for myself over the last few months when someone very close to me decided to take it upon themselves to attack my chosen moral philosophy.  They hurt me - not because of the cohesiveness of their arguments, but by revealing the irrational depths to which they were willing to fall in order to justify themselves.

 

Your signature rings true :)

Edited by Reasoner
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Reasoner has laid out the logical contradictions in simple skepticism as well as the correct method to deal with it - that is, move toward basic epistemology and metaphysics, and away from the concrete issue the skeptic used to make their point. 

 

Skepticism, to me, is the current and ultimate debate manifestation and method of Pragmatists, and the person espousing concretes within the context of these philosophical concepts is often not aware of either skepiticism or pragmatism as a cognitive idea.

 

Reasoner's post is a wonderful expansion on a simple idea expressed by Ms. Rand and Dr. Peikoff - arbitrary assertions, based in the mind of a skeptic or pragmatist, without evidence in reality, are not a valid subject of philosophical debate.  The only worthwhile position to take in opposition, is to reduce to fundamentals (concepts vs. concretes), or to walk away.  Thank you for your time in your discovery of these thoughts and the time to express it here. 

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Skepticism, to me, is the current and ultimate debate manifestation and method of Pragmatists, and the person espousing concretes within the context of these philosophical concepts is often not aware of either skepiticism or pragmatism as a cognitive idea.

Historically, and technically speaking, Skepticism is a variant of Rationalism - not Pragmatism.  Skeptics are "skeptical" that the phenomenal/neumonal gulf can ever be bridged.  Pragmatist reject that any such bridge even exists.  As James noted, "You can say of (an idea) either that 'It is useful because it is true' or that 'It is true because it is useful.'  'Both these phrases mean exactly the same thing.' "

 

The only philosopher more anti-Germanic-Rationalism (Skepticism) than Rand, is James (and possibly Pierce).

 

Edit:  I may be seen as nit-picking, but it's important, historically, to understand the undercurrent of the debate that existed between, largely English/Anglo-American Empiricism and German Rationalism.  Too gloss over this, or not understand it, is to make an error.  This is not to say the one side was more "right-er" than the other, but it is helpful to understand the distinction if you want to understand 19th, 20th Century history.

 

Edit two:  For example, Popper was profoundly influenced by Pierce -- but Popper believed that falsifiability would move us, asymptotically, toward the noumena, or "truth".  Pierce never believed that there was a gap needed bridging in the first place.

Edited by New Buddha
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Budda, txs, I agree the historical knowledge of epistemological trends is important in understanding their meaning and your treatment is correct.  I think my error, in the context you presented, was that I was concentrating on the mixed up behavior of the average person with little knowledge of western philosophy, and their way of discussing concrete issues.  But it was a great original post, eh?

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