The Demands of Reason: An Essay on Pyrrhonian Scepticism by Perin Casey

Author:Perin, Casey [Perin, Casey]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Published: 2010-04-21T16:00:00+00:00

4

Appearances and Action

Sextus presents Scepticism as a kind of philosophy but also, and no less, as a possible way of life. And since antiquity the claim that Scepticism is a possible way of life has seemed especially suspect. For the Sceptic can live only if his Scepticism permits him to act. Yet, it is claimed, there is a feature of Scepticism as Sextus describes it—a feature that makes Scepticism the kind of philosophy and the way of life Sextus says it is—that is incompatible with action or activity of any sort. This claim is the apraxia or inaction objection to Scepticism.

There are a number of different but equivalent formulations of the apraxia objection. This is so because there are different ways of describing that feature of Scepticism that is supposed to be incompatible with action.1 We can formulate the apraxia objection as the claim that the Sceptic cannot act because he suspends judgement about everything. But the Sceptic does not suspend judgement about everything in the sense that he has no beliefs at all. For, as I argued in Chapter 3, it is clear from PH 1.13 that according to Sextus the Sceptic has some beliefs. These are beliefs of the kind I called non-dogmatic. The Sceptic suspends judgement about everything in the sense that he lacks all beliefs of some other kind—all dogmatic beliefs. So the formulation of the apraxia objection in terms of the Sceptic’s suspension of judgement is equivalent to its formulation as the claim that the Sceptic cannot act because he has no dogmatic beliefs. Each of these formulations, in turn, is equivalent to a formulation of the apraxia objection in terms of the kind of assent the Sceptic withholds universally. Sextus at PH 1.13 tells us that there are some things to which the Sceptic assents, and he indicates there that by assenting to these things the Sceptic acquires non-dogmatic beliefs. Call the kind of assent the Sceptic gives to some things non-dogmatic assent and the kind of assent he withholds universally—the kind of assent that yields dogmatic beliefs—dogmatic assent. We can formulate the apraxia objection as the claim that the Sceptic cannot act because he fails to give dogmatic assent to anything. But the Sceptic fails to give dogmatic assent to anything just insofar as he suspends judgement about everything in the sense that he has no dogmatic beliefs. So the formulation of the apraxia objection in terms of the Sceptic’s failure to give dogmatic assent to anything is equivalent to its formulations in terms of the Sceptic’s suspension of judgement about everything or his lack of dogmatic beliefs.

Of course by itself none of these formulations of the apraxia objection is informative. The apraxia objection claims that Scepticism has a certain feature and that this feature of Scepticism is incompatible with action or activity of any sort. But the apraxia objection misses its target unless the feature of Scepticism it claims is incompatible with action or activity of any kind is in fact a feature of Scepticism as Sextus describes it.

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