Sextus Empiricus

[Anonymous No.19727987]

>Imagine still thinking you can have knowledge after being disproven thousands of years ago

I read some of his work and is he actually the final stage of philosophy? I just can't see how skepticism can be disproven, even modern 'skeptics' grant some knowledge just so they can hide the fact that they've dedicated their lives to nothing

[Anonymous No.19728003]

>>19727987
The Outlines of Skepticism aren't actually very rigorous, you can poke holes at his reasoning and it's all pretty shoddy.
He's still based though, and I have more respect for genuine skeptics than I do for ideologues and proselytes.

[Anonymous No.19728206]

>>19727987
>I know nothing.
Do you know that you know nothing?
>Fine then, I know nothing except that I know nothing.
Do you know that "you know nothing except that you know nothing"?
>Fine. I don't know that. But I believe that I know nothing, despite the fact that I don't know it.
To believe that you know nothing is to believe that you know something, ie. that you know nothing.

[Anonymous No.19728237]

>>19728206
Based

[Anonymous No.19728259]

>>19728206
Nice strawman you set up there for you to "refute" afterwards.

[Anonymous No.19728284]

>>19728206
>I know nothing
>I don't know I know nothing
>therefore I know nothing

Well done for proving skepticism right

[Anonymous No.19728285]

>>19728206
Of what you say is real I know nothing. There is nothing to to be said or known about that which is non-discursive.

[Anonymous No.19728300]

I have read absolutely zero skeptic literature or philosophy, but I think you're missing the point. The point isn't to prove knowledge exists: it's to avoid being fooled by false knowledge. And before anyone tells me to actually read skeptic philosophy think about it for a second.

[Anonymous No.19728307]

>>19728300
Who is anyone? What is reading? What is a skeptic? What is literature? I only know quiescence.

[Anonymous No.19728341]

>>19728300
I don't see that as a skeptics goal; the skeptic's goal is to split 3 types of truth
>laymen truth
>philosopher truth
>skeptic truth
Laymen just take thinks for granted, assume about the world around them and have no methods to see if something is true. A philosopher realizes that some of his beliefs were wrong and that there must be a way to examine knowledge on if it's true or not, so he develops methods of inquiry and ways of testing out theories through logical and real life loop holes. The skeptic goes right to the heart of knowledge and see's if we can even have knowledge - the philosopher asks what are the limits of knowledge while the skeptic asks what is knowledge and if we can have any of it at all. This is the logical conclusion of the three layers of knowledge-wanters as each see what the 'truth' is depending on what their goals are - a skeptic who doesn't try to disprove knowledge is just a normal philosopher

[Anonymous No.19728366]

>>19728206
It just happen you feel in a state of not being convinced. This is one of the differences between ancient and midern skepticism : a medical purge that happen to make you feel good vs a tool to actively find error and consolidate what remains ie Descartes

[Anonymous No.19729002]

>>19728206
extremely based

[Anonymous No.19729012]

>>19728206
My reply to this is: why are you gay? Does your mom know your gay?

[Anonymous No.19729258]

>>19728284
>therefore I know nothing
it's "therefore it might not be true that i know nothing, meaning that i know something", you fucking retard

[Anonymous No.19729296]

>>19728206
This dosent disprove skepticism too. The fact that not even skepticism know anything it said it true it's the best prove of their key point: secure knowledge is fundamentaly impossible
All proper skeptics from Sextus to Montaigne know and accepted this paradox

[Anonymous No.19729352]

>>19729258
How is it so?

[Anonymous No.19729362]

>>19728206
>Do you know that you know nothing?
Yes

[Anonymous No.19729523]

>>19728341
>and if we can have any of it at all
It is self-evident that we can at least to the extent we can live in the world. Newtonian physics may be "wrong" but it's still "correct" enough to build a lot of cool stuff and predict a lot of natural phenomena.

[Anonymous No.19729591]

>>19729523
correct≠knowledge, I do not claim that there is no truth but that simply it is impossible to know the truth - it seems to me that, for example, my senses give me accurate information about the world but I do not say I have knowledge of this, and know for certain that it is how the world really it is - maybe I'm right, maybe I'm wrong - what's important is that I didn't proclaim for certain I have knowledge on if it's right or wrong

[Anonymous No.19729624]

>>19729591
You've defined yourself into a corner. Knowledge isn't binary true or false, correct or incorrect. It can be a gradient. I see skepticism as an attempted defense against overestimating the correctness of what one knows.

[Anonymous No.19729640]

>>19729296
The problem is that Augustine was a giga-brainlet and completely misunderstood the basics of what Sextus Empiricus and the Skeptics actually though. No, the Sextus Empiricus wasn't a Skeptic, he was a radical empiricist who thought that the only meaningful information was that which came from an empirical source (or was conveyed, in which case it's second hand empiricism). The Skeptics held to an extreme form of idealistic rationalism that only logic and that which could be proved as rational were real. Augustine never read a word of Sextus Empiricus and just lumped him in with the Skeptics.

[Anonymous No.19729800]

>>19729640
Augustine was critiquing Academic Skepticism. It's the title of his book on the subject. Idk why that guy thinks he's demolishing Sextus considering St. Augustine would probably have been in agreement with him if not for his commitment to neoplatonic illuminationist theories of knowledge. His theory of mind is pretty instrumental to modern skepticism and it's silly to create an artificial tension between them when we could study them both without being autistic fanatics.

[Anonymous No.19730015]

>>19727987
>disproven
Sextus suspends judgement on whether knowledge is possible, like he does on all philosophical topics. He specially rejects the view that knowledge is impossible as dogmatic.

[Anonymous No.19730042]

>>19727987
Sextus appears so modern, he might have been quite at home in our age.

[Anonymous No.19730059]

>>19727987
Are you that windows guy from reddit?

[Anonymous No.19730337]

>>19730015
>Sextus suspends judgement on whether knowledge is possible, like he does on all philosophical topics.
Can’t believe it took so long in the thread for someone to say this. All the tards debating on false premises

[Anonymous No.19731042]

>>19727987
what did he say?

[Anonymous No.19731608]

>>19729624
How have I backed myself in a corner, this is one of the main tenets of sextus's skepticism

[Anonymous No.19731628]

>>19727987
I took a course on epistemology in college. When we got to skepticism the professor said that there was no refuting the positions of Sextus or Pyrrho, but he said epistemology would be very boring if we accepted them.

[Anonymous No.19731643]

>>19729624
Knowledge is generally defined in contemporary epistemology as justified true belief that is believed for the right reasons. Probability is a separate matter.

[Anonymous No.19731658]

>>19731628
Exactly, he's among the most modern of the ancients

[Anonymous No.19732341]

>>19729362
Then you don't know nothing, idiot.

[Anonymous No.19732551]

>>19731042
That all knowledge is unknowable, even the fact of knowing everything is unknowable is unknowable so we must suspend judgment and never claim we know something as we only appear to know it

[Anonymous No.19732558]

>>19731628
Why do philosophy then? If the only difference between philosophy and science being philosophy is supposed to be more objective then why not just approximate everything with science if philosophy has failed at it's job

[Anonymous No.19732653]

>>19731628
> When we got to skepticism the professor said that there was no refuting the positions of Sextus or Pyrrho,
neither of them refutes the self-evident existence of our own consciousness, which demonstrates its presence in the act of knowing and, without which, we couldn’t even debate skepticism to begin with. So their skepticism is not all-embracing.

[Anonymous No.19732906]

>>19732653
They're more refuting the concept of having knowledge at all, it doesn't mean things can't seem like the way they are, I seem to be thinking but Pyrrho and Sextus show us that I should never claim that I'm thinking

[Anonymous No.19733360]

>>19732558
Not all questions are empirical lmao.

[Anonymous No.19733363]

>>19733360
How so?