I would like to ask a question (and hopefully receive answers):
To be skeptical (of someone else) do you need to have a set of beliefs yourself?
In other words I wish to explore the statement ‘I’m a skeptic’ because I believe one can be skeptical about something, or in a certain context, but I cannot coherently view it as a locus of being.
Is it possible to coherently use skepticism as an operative psychological system?
Things like skeptisism and atheism don’t entail their own belief system but are always based on one.
Both think that they are scientific. They are immitations of men.
It seems you would at least need to believe in the efficiency of the tools you use to dismantle other belief systems, but you can be a skeptic about the veracity of something without necessarily believing something yourself, in that you can show the argument fails to meet it’s own standards. What’s to say you can’t be a skeptic because you think all arguments you’ve been presented with fail to meet their own criteria for truth or justification?
Or perhaps you think the few conceptions and arguments for justification and truth are internally inconsistent or in some other way internally flawed, so any argument that assumes and tries to satisfy those conceptions is flawed, too. In other words you can be a skeptic about everything because think the foundations upon which all beliefs are based aren’t good enough according to their own standards.
Then again, just because an argument is not good enough according to it’s own standards is no reason for you to disbelieve it unless you believe an argument must be good enough according to it’s own standards if it is to be true or justified.
I’ve used the metaphor many times before, but broadly I think that skepticism ought only be used as a shield and not a sword. When examining our own beliefs, we ought apply a great degree of skeptical rigor to them. In doing so, we can determine whether what we believe makes any sense. But skepticism does not make sense when applied to beliefs that we do not hold since, well, sufficiently applied skepticism can defeat any belief system as human beliefs and human belief systems are necessarily incomplete. So if I wanted not to believe in something, I can always defeat it by applying skepticism. That makes skepticism a meaningless position in that case. When I disagree with someone regarding a particular situation, rather than resort to skepticism, I assert my own world-view and compare it to the one being presented.
Rather than engaging me in a meaningful manner, the other usually resorts to appeals to skepticism, which I generally take as a win. If they have to pull out a card that trumps everything, then they’ve managed to say nothing.
Crap. Guys, I wrote a post at work but I musta forgot to hit send.
Doh.
I’ll try and rewrite it sometime soonish.
Yeah, this is pretty much it. Nobody doubts every claim that lacks undeniable evidence
(“Oh you’re hungry? I haven’t heard your stomach growl.” " ‘The sun IS an orange color right now?’ It takes about 8 minutes for the light of the sun to reach earth, I am skeptical it currently exists’ )
so any use of the word skeptical that doesn’t specify some claim or idea one is skeptical about must
–in order to actually mean anything that doesn’t contradict its primary meaning–
mean skeptical in (certain) areas where A) people are often not, and B) not being skeptical can be counter productive (IE have affects that are at odds with some goal)–skepticism is inseparable from the consideration one should not agree with it.
To be skeptical at a moment is to not (fully) agree or disagree with something
(which can be another’s claim, or one’s own “insight” about something, whether it be an ontological one, a moral one, whatever),
it is to not fully pass judgment of true or false (nor right or wrong), because the mind
–rather than highlighting some “evidence” of good or bad in the claim–
focuses on its (own) uncertainty–one either
A) doesn’t clearly understand what the claim is (doesn’t understand what certain words refer to, or the rational behind the claim), or
B) (thinks it) understand it perfectly well, and doesn’t judge it as contradicting any of one’s operating principles of logic and reality, but sees a certain lack of information (whether that be answers/clarification, or physical evidence) that prevents one from agreeing with the claim.
So, to be a skeptic (without emphasizing specific things one is skeptical about) only holds a coherent meaning if it implies that one believes that there are many situations where a claim–“understood a certain way”
(meaning, all things created equal in terms of past experiences and what comes into the mind after “making sense” of the claim–IE the emphasis is not on person A’s “understanding” of the claim her makes, but person B’s interpretation of it)–
ought to result in uncertainty, rather than agreement or doubt,
and that one has has thoroughly studied and understands common logical fallacies–which they’ve clearly seen in memories of one’s own doing, and is very aware of one’s own continual susceptibility to do so in the future
(and keeps a look out for them by having labeled certain things/topics/emotions/etc. that have activated their defense mechanisms in the past)
, and habitually utilizes this humble, critically thinking mindset (which is just as critical of its analyzations as it is of what which it analyzes), as it seeks to only agree or disagree with a claim once it has thoroughly “checked out” against all “threat to rationality tests”–which above all include the need to actually be able to see the defining aspects of key words, and the logic between them.
HOWEVER, it should be understood that this use of the word “skeptic” has a fundamentally different meaning than saying one “is a skeptic” when it comes to a specific thing.
“When it comes to the question of whether or not astrology can potentially predict the unique behavior of people based on their horoscopes (IE if sun signs and such actually do have real affects, which can be utilized), I’m a skeptic” is to define oneself in light of one’s subjective experience given a certain queue–one is, in those moments, being skeptical. Skeptic, used to describe oneself in this case, is meant epistemologically (describing one as skeptic in such a way is to say one actually is skeptical–one is uncertain about whether or not it is true or false).
To say “I am a skeptic” in such a way it is expressed as a characteristic that defines the person, as an inseparable quality, without limiting it to any specific (kinds of) claims about which one is uncertain, can’t have the same meaning as above (that one is–as an ever-present, inseparable facet of one’s static being–skeptical/uncertain), because one clearly accepts the truth of many things on a regular basis.
It’s meaning is, rather, existential; it’s a recognition that one doesn’t have–and thus can’t judge according to–an infallible knowledge and understanding of an objective world (of a reality that is a certain way outside one’s own mind), so that oftentimes one can be confident that a judgment is (obviously) sound, whilst blind to the irrationality behind them. So, one lives one’s life with a goal of observing their interpreting as relevant aspects of that which is interpreted, in order to avoid letting irrationality have a part in a “rational” judgment; “skeptic”, in this case, most accurately refers to one being skeptical of one’s own interpretive infallibility.
However, I haven’t known anyone to ever say “I am a skeptic” according to that meaning. Nor would I expect anyone with beliefs corresponding to such an outlook to do so (I’d imagine one would understand the likely misinterpretation of such a label, and instead use “perspectivist”, or some other similar philosophy).
When I hear or read people refer to themselves or others as (being, as an ever-present facet of their unchanging self,) a skeptic, I interpret it as something like “I have enough intelligence, reason and common sense to know an irrational claim when I see one”. It doesn’t seem to be used with any notion of questioning one’s own judgments, but rather focuses on their likelihood of disagreeing with something that they don’t (or can’t) see as (potentially) rational.
To have any attitude you need to have a set of beliefs.
I have no idea whatsoever how many illegal immigrants arrive in the US per year (say). However, I can be sceptical of someone’s claims if I think they’re inflating the figure for political purposes, or if I think they’re suffering from a psychotic illness, if the figure sounds suspiciously exact or simply if the figure sounds absurdly high or low: I would be sceptical of 250/year or 100 million/year simply because I know roughly how large the US population is and have an idea what the impact of the two figures would be.
So while I have no firm belief as to what the figure is, I have acceptance criteria. You could describe them as beliefs, or as a stance.
I think Cartesian scepticism is literally meaningless, but as a stance to take when evaluating arguments it’s a useful check.
Immigrants are not illegal. People by nature are not illegal.
An illegal immigrant is a person who arrives in a country illegally, not an illegal person who arrives in a country. The change of country is part of the definition of “immigrant” - there are no immigrants in the US who were born and raised their whole lives there - and the part to which “illegal” is applied. Since there are laws relating to and restricting immigration, this seems fairly obvious. Hope the explanation helps.
Dan said it best.
I’m not quite sure i follow the reasoning “But skepticism does not make sense when applied to beliefs that we do not hold”. In order to determine that this is a belief that we do not hold, have we not already used skepticism? 
I do want to point out that i find a lot of meaning in this interpretation. My interpretation is a little different, but hopefully similar enough: Skepticism only goes so far, however when coupled with assertions, becomes more powerful and lends itself towards consistency in the knowledge of two persons. If you assert and i only use skepticism, it will likely come across as an attack. Furthermore, its a bit selfish in my opinion for me to argue in this manner… i have not put my own belief system out on the lines to be criticized by others. However if we both assert, it gives us both something to apply skepticism to, it potentially gives us both ideas to analyze… it’s win/win
Thanks for that post, Xunzian
The statement “I am a sceptic” is not a very good start for an aspiring sceptic - who is this “I”?
“We set up a word at the point at which our ignorance begins, at which we can see no further, e.g., the word “I” the word “do,” the word “suffer”: - these are perhaps the horizon of our knowledge, but not “truths.”” - (guess who)
It seems to me that to assert oneself as a sceptic is rooted in belief - properly sceptic would be to assert that one is a believer.
I believe it is wrong to use the term “illegal alien” or “illegal immigrant” to describe people. There are other ways of describing people who come here from outside our borders, for instance, undocumented immigrant or something like that.
People are NOT illegal, nor are they “alien” for that matter.
Lawfully unwelcome immigrants?
The first definition of “alien” pertains to logistics. It is a territorial thing, specifically regarding boundaries of a country. “Alien” is not solely intended to mean estranged or extra-terrestrial.
People can be illegal. If I run into my local grocer bare ass naked, I bet I’d get the cops called on me. Public intoxication is another fine example. It’s not so much the person as it is their action, or state of being. However, that is how people are defined. A guy who shoots arrows is an archer, an addictive drinker is an alcoholic – thus, someone who acts illegally, or in an illegal state, he might be referred to as “illegal”.