“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.
