The Ancient Sceptic Attitude and Disagreement
摘要
In this chapter we argue that a philosophical ‘sceptic attitude’, found originally in the Socratic approach and arguably in the Pyrrhonist’s treatment of disagreement, should be taken to be an epistemically positive attitude in the sense that it fosters a serious philosophical examination of what is considered to be true, without entailing the radical scepticism often associated with it. We claim that if the two sides of a disagreement are equivalent (at that moment, given the evidence available), it does not require one to consider the disagreement as undecidable without qualification and so to suspend judgement indefinitely. If this is so, we hold, the Pyrrhonian disagreement-based position will be significantly restricted as a form of scepticism and should instead be seen as promoting an epistemically propitious sceptic attitude.