Can radical skepticism be refuted?

Question

The conclusion of an epistemology course I took a few months ago was that radical skepticism can never be refuted because the skeptic chose the radical approach. We can never prove him wrong because he can just doubt in the validity of method we use to prove him wrong. That's why the ancient proof by contradiction 'if the argument of radical skepticism was true, then at least it would be a truth, so the argument contradicts itself' doesn't hold against it.

The skeptic can claim that we can't know anything, that truth and falsity themselves don't exist, so the premise of the counter argument already fails because it tries to refute it within a system that the skeptic transcends. He doesn't care if he's right or not, for him it's just another sentence, or maybe not even a sentence, an articulate or non articulate order of sounds he just spit out, and the burden of proof is on you, since the argument makes sense in your system, and you can't give it in a way that would transcend your system.

Is there anything that could be said against this? Would this be considered proof that radical skepticism can't be refuted?

Answer 1

Aside from the absolute impracticality of the radical approach, there really is no way to refute the argument. If I told you that green is a flavor, you would correct me by reminding me (first of all, that the first step to recovery from drug addiction, is admitting I have a problem) that green is a color not a flavor. As the skeptic, my argument would HAVE to be, "To your knowledge green is a color only, but your knowledge is limited to what you know. Perhaps somewhere in the other end of the universe, green is actually a flavor. You don't know." Ultimately, the only clear basis for radical skepticism is what you can't possibly know. I would assert that, while there is no argumentation to refute it, it holds no place in a conversation. The skeptic does not transcend, rather he falls to the bottom of the barrel where the irrelevancy of his argument belongs. It's not hunting if the deer pulls the trigger itself.

Answer 2

There is no argument to refute.

The skeptic can claim that we can't know anything, that truth and falsity themselves don't exist

In order for there to be an argument, there must be a proposition. Propositions are true or false. But the skeptic doesn't accept the existence of propositions. Hence, he has no argument and no position to refute.

The radical skeptic has to borrow propositional truth to even talk.

Answer 3

Radical skepticism can be stated as:

1. Nothing can be trusted, or
2. Nothing is certain, or
3. There are no universal truths, or
4. Some other such thing...

Note, all of the above are self-contradictory. Thus radical skepticism is self-contradictory.

Nothing is certain... eh... except for this very statement...

Nothing can be trusted... eh.. except for this statement...

There are no universal truths... eh... except for this truth...

You're welcome ;)

Answer 4

It is impossible to dismiss the hypothesis of living in a dream (or a nightmare) dominated by rules that would seem absurd to a further awakening - just as dreams' logic is meaningless in the wake world, and viceversa.

Skepticism is a philosophical current transversal to epochs and thinkers, and it's impossible to provide a synopsis that does not present fatal inaccuracies; it can, however, roughly be divided into two strands (I follow Richard H. Popkin, The history of skepticism).

The first (called Academician) argues that no knowledge is possible, while the second (called Pyrronian) says that there is no adequate evidence to decide whether knowledge is possible, and therefore we should suspend our judgment on all the issues. The first is an incomplete skepticism, because it does not apply to itself: it doubts about everything but not the doubt itself. The latter, however, is also problematic, because it exposes itself to contradicion. Against the skeptical hypothesis, in fact, we can observe that it must also refer to itself: even the doubt itself should be questionable.

If everything is a deception, why shouldn't be a deception the very mental process that leads us to this belief? Just as it's possible that everything is a deception, it's also possible that that "everything is a deception" is a deception. Faced with this limit, the Pyronian tries to escape from language and defines his skepticism as an "attitude", a belief limited in time (now I don't believe anything, in the future we'll see) and a method of research. Sesto Empirico defines his skepticism like as a medicine that, while healing the body, also eliminates itself - a metaphor that recalls the Buddhist parable of the raft to be abandoned once we reach the other side of the river, or the quote by a modern skeptic such as Wittgenstein, who writes:

My propositions serve as elucidations in the following way: anyone who understands me eventually recognizes them as nonsensical, when he has used them—as steps—to climb beyond them. (He must, so to speak, throw away the ladder after he has climbed up it). He must transcend these propositions, and then he will see the world aright.

Even if we assume skepticism like an attitude, however, the skeptical question is condemned to a deadlock, because a skeptic can't be persuaded that her attitude toward truth is the right one. Although the confidence in our means of knowledge is often overestimated, radical skepticism has deep wounds caused by its tendency to eat himself. If I suspect that we can't know anything true, why this assertion should be the only exception?

Thought cannot decide whether to trust itself or not. So, even if we can't properly refute skepticism, we can't also embrace it.

Answer 5

In short: this sort of radical skepticism cannot be refuted because it cannot be stated; the radical skeptic parasites on our epistemological discussions raising objections to any claim to knowledge, without stating any thesis of their own. That's the only reason why their skepticism holds.