Monday, December 21, 2009

Philosophic Skepticism

Philosophic Skepticism or Doubt is based on the premise that man is incapable of knowing all things (lack of omniscience), necessary to categorically ‘know’ anything absolutely. Man, in his short duration on earth, cannot master the knowledge of the quadrillions plus pieces of datum within that duration. Any conceptual truth man asserts may be found wanting by some unknown piece of datum that he has yet to have digested. For instance, we know not if the laws of physics apply inside a Black Hole or any other physical phenomena, encountered or constructed by scientific speculation. Therefore, we cannot ascertain with certainty that any law of physics, so discovered, is indeed a universal law, true at all places, in all times and under all conditions. Unless every i is dotted and every t crossed, we cannot be sure of anything.

Even the verity ‘man is incapable of knowing all things’ itself needs to be a qualified assertion under Skepticism. According to this thesis, we will not know that even this truth; that of man’s finiteness to knowledge, will hold out before species annihilation; that is, until the last man breathes their last. Even then, we may speculate that perhaps there was such a man with omniscience but who was too modest or for reasons of his own, declined to make that attribute known.

Omniscience itself becomes suspect. How would an omniscient person know that they know everything that is to be known; know that he was indeed omniscient? Would it not be necessary to have evaluated an infinite number of possibilities of untruth as well as that of truth? Ought he not be suspicious that his claim to infinitude was itself suspect? That is, he does not know what he does not know. Even omniscience would have reason to doubt its capacity for certainty of knowledge of the truth.

Thereby does Philosophic Skepticism become the perfect sophistry.

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