Notes on Pyrrhonism and Disagreement

In The Toils of Scepticism, Jonathan Barnes presents the following argument on behalf of Sextus Empiricus:

(1) If someone is aware that there is an undecided dispute about ?Q, then he ought not to accept or reject any proposed answer to ?Q.¹
(2) On every issue ?Q, there has been (or might be) disagreement.
(3) If a disagreement is to be decided, we need a yardstick (a criterion, a standard) to decide it.
(4) On any question of the form “Is Y appropriate for ?Q?” there is undecided disagreement.
(5) If we are to use a yardstick Y for issue ?Q, we must (a) believe that Y is appropriate to ?Q and (b) be justified in believing that Y is appropriate for ?Q.
(6) Hence, there is no Y and no ?Q for which we're justified in holding that Y is appropriate to ?Q. (1, 4)
(7) Hence, for no Y and no ?Q may we use Y for ?Q. (5, 6)
(8) Hence, no issue is decided. (2, 3, 7)
(9) Hence, we should suspend judgment on every issue ?Q. (1, 8)

It entails radical skepticism about the world.

I'll start my defense of the argument by summarizing Barnes on it.

Premises (1), (2), and (3)

Barnes first lays out definitions for attitude and dispute. He says that someone takes an attitude to a question ?Q if he either accepts some proposition as the answer to ?Q, rejects some proposition as the answer to ?Q, or suspends judgment over ?Q; and that two people dispute the answer to a ?Q whenever they take conflicting attitudes to it.

He also distinguishes historical decisions and rational decisions. Historical decisions concern the attitudes people take towards an issue; in contrast, rational decisions concern only the arguments for and against the issue. The dispute over the authenticity of the Magna Moralia is historically decided when everyone involved takes the same attitude towards its authenticity; it's rationally decided only when an argument determines the text's authenticity one way or the other. I'll use “decision” to mean “rational decision” in this post.

Barnes then argues for (1). Suppose (1) false. Then I could be aware of the dispute over the Magna Moralia's authenticity, decide for or against that authenticity, and still maintain that the dispute is undecided. But that is absurd. If it's rational or warranted for me to decide against the text's authenticity, then whatever warrants my decision also decides the dispute over the text's authenticity; if the dispute is undecided, then it must be irrational or unwarranted for me to decide against the text's authenticity. There is therefore good reason to accept (1): it's incoherent to both decide a dispute and maintain that it's undecided.

Next, Barnes points out that even if we reject (2), there has, as an empirical fact, been disagreement over almost everything interesting or important. In other words, he points out that even if (2) fails something close enough succeeds.

He then argues for (3). He argues (i) if we didn't need a criterion to rationally decide an issue ?Q, we would be able to rationally decide it by arbitrarily deciding it; (ii) we can't rationally decide something by arbitrarily deciding it; hence (iii), we need a criterion to rationally decide ?Q. In short, he argues that we need criteria to rationally decide questions because rationally deciding (at least in part) means deciding based on criteria.

He thinks the foregoing entails (1), (2), and (3).

Premise (4) and (5)

Next, Barnes suggests that Sextus means for us to take (4) as an empirical premise. He, however, doesn't think it's clear that it succeeds as such. (He would if we were talking about historically undecided disagreement, but not rationally undecided disagreement.) He ultimately concedes that (4) needs the support of other Pyrrhonian modes to stand².

He then argues that it's unclear whether (5) succeeds. Suppose, for instance, that someone uses the law of non-contradiction to resolve a dispute. Does he also need to hold a belief in its appropriateness to the dispute to be justified in using it? Barnes doesn't think it clear that he does. In brief, he thinks that it's unclear whether (5) succeeds because non-skeptics may be able to reject (5a).

He thinks the foregoing suggests that it's unclear whether (4) or (5) succeed.

But, Barnes adds, the skeptic isn't finished yet. For even if it turns out that the non-skeptic is right, it's still the case that if he ever stops and (to return to the last example) reflects on the law of non-contradiction and comes to a conclusion other than belief in its suitableness to the dispute, he can no longer be justified (or at least no longer feel justified) in using it to resolve the dispute. A modified version of the argument therefore succeeds for any yardstick the non-skeptic reflects on and doesn't come to believe appropriate.³

Conclusion

Barnes thinks that (1), (2), and (3) are well-supported, (4) requires the support of other Pyrrhonian modes, and (5) remains poorly supported even with other modes. He doesn't think that the argument is probative.<sup>4

1</sup>Barnes calls (1) the principle of disagreement.
²A “mode” is an argument-form.
³Barnes promises that this “form of reflection […] will turn out to be the final cunning thought in the Pyrrhonian philosophy”.
⁴There is one further consequence of the argument worth flagging—that of self-refutation. I have nothing to say about this charge here, except that a proper defense against it will take us straight to the heart of the Pyrrhonian way of life.

Like a Purge

The other statement, "Every saying, etc.," equally compels suspension of judgement; when facts disagree, but the contradictory statements have exactly the same weight, ignorance of the truth is the necessary consequence. But even this statement has its corresponding antithesis, so that after destroying others it turns round and destroys itself, like a purge which drives the substance out and then in its turn is itself eliminated and destroyed.

Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers 9.11.

The Ladder

Just as it is not impossible that a man who has used a ladder to climb up to a high place should overturn the ladder with his foot, so it is not unlikely that the Skeptic, having used the argument that shows that there is no proof as a kind of scaffolding to establish his thesis, should then destroy that argument itself.

Sextus Empiricus, Against the Logicians. Translated by Striker.

Review: Maximal God by Yujin Nagasawa

Reader's Note: Next week I will publish a follow-up entry giving more of my own thoughts on the book's central thesis. Since this review, like all of my Ontological Investigations reviews, was partly written with Amazon in mind it was neither desirable nor feasible to an in-depth technical response within the review itself.

In Maximal God Yujin Nagasawa presents an ambitious, fascinating and frustratingly sketchy development of perfect being theism. The book also contains a wealth of material on the ontological argument, including an overview of its history and a comprehensive discussion of the normally disregarded epistemic version originally given by Anselm. Nagasawa’s prose is admirably lucid and relatively free of technical jargon or the complex semantics of formal logic. Although the book requires a basic knowledge of analytical philosophy it will be accessible to anyone interested the topic and willing to put a bit of background reading in.

The Aim of the Sceptic

It will be apposite to consider next the aim of the Sceptical persuasion. Now an aim is that for the sake of which everything is done or considered, while it is not itself done or considered for the sake of anything else. Or: an aim is the final object of desire. Up to now we say the aim of the Sceptic is tranquility in matters of opinion and moderation of feeling in matters forced upon us. For Sceptics began to do philosophy in order to decide among appearances and to apprehend which are true and which false, so as to become tranquil; but they came upon equipollent dispute, and being unable to decide this they suspended judgment. And when they suspended judgment, tranquility in matters of opinion followed fortuitously.

Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Scepticism. Translated by Annas and Barnes.

A Standstill of the Intellect

A Pyrrhonist's researches do not end in discovery; nor yet do they conclude that discovery is impossible. For they do not terminate at all: the researches continue, and the researcher finds himself in a condition of epoche. 'Epoche is defined as 'a standstill of the intellect, as a result of which we neither deny nor affirm anything'. The Sceptical investigator neither asserts nor denies, neither believes nor disbelieves.

Jonathan Barnes, "The Beliefs of a Pyrrhonist".

Ού Μάλλον

'No more this than that' makes clear our feelings: because of the equipollence of the opposed objects we end in equilibrium. (By 'equipollence' we mean equality in what appears plausible to us; by 'opposed' we mean in general conflicting; and by 'equilibrium' we mean assent to neither side.) Thus, although the phrase 'In no way more' exhibits the distinctive character of assent or denial, we do not use it in this way: we use it indifferently and in a loose sense, either for a question or for 'I do not know which of these things I should assent to and which not assent to'. Our intention is to make clear what is apparent to us, and as to what phrase we use to make this clear we are indifferent. Note too that when we utter the phrase 'In no way more' we are not affirming that it is itself certainly true and firm: here too we are only saying how things appear to us.

Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Scepticism. Translated by Annas and Barnes.

One Blog, Three Bloggers

Ontological Investigations is one blog, but three bloggers. We aren't a hive mind, and what one of us posts shouldn't be taken as indicative of what all of us think.

The Explanatory Power of Thomist Aesthetics

One way to judge a theory is by its explanatory power. A theory that is able to account for more of the relevant phenomena is prima facie better than its rivals. In this short article I would like to bring to your attention the strong explanatory power of Thomist aesthetics, an area often overlooked by both popular and professional Thomists. One of the typical problems that aesthetic theories run into is not being able to adequately account for different types of art. Specifically, many theories of art account for classical or realistic art, while failing to comprehend modernist art or vice versa.

Before I begin, let me explain the fundamental idea behind Thomist aesthetics. According to Thomism unity, goodness, truth, and beauty are all transcendentals. Roughly, this means that wherever we find being, we also find unity, goodness, truth, and beauty, because all of these concepts point to one aspect of the notion of being. Thomist aesthetics, unlike other theories, begins with being, and not with a formalized and restrictive definition of beauty or art.

The naive aesthetic theory that I will call “realism” holds that art is an imitation of something real. This makes sense when looking at much of classical art and the history of painting, but utterly fails to explain why an impressionist or expressionist painting (by Claude Monet and Julius Evola, respectively) is considered good, despite that fact that art from the impressionist and early expressionist periods is almost universally loved by non-specialists. Similarly, a popular theory by Arthur Danto, often called “institutionalism” claims that art is whatever artists, galleries, and art-institutions can get away with calling 'art'. This definition seems to bypass the problem we are discussing, namely being able to comprehend a variety of different art styles, but it does so by ignoring the problem, not by answering it. This answer is unsatisfactory, because we want to know why some art seems good, beautiful, or satisfying, while other art does not. These two trends of realism and institutionalism represent most attempts at aesthetic theorizing. Theories that tend towards realism look for some objective feature of art that relates to the world, and all art can then be judged by whatever standard is put forward as the essence of art. Theories that tend towards institutionalism make all aesthetic judgment subjective by saying art is merely a sociological category, or is merely the cause of a subjective emotional response. Thomist aesthetics finds the middle road between these two paths by pointing to being as the foundation of beauty. By recognizing that beauty is an inherent aspect of being, Thomists can make sense of classical realistic art, an impressionist painting, and an abstract expressionist painting.

In a realistic painting or a portrait, a clear depiction of an object or person is the being dsplayed. For example, a young shepherdess is the subject of this painting by William Adolphe Bouguereau, and it is her beauty that is grasped, through her being, when we see the painting. In an impressionistic painting, like this one by Erin Hanson, what is portrayed is a subjective impression of some scene or object. According to Thomism, however, our feelings, emotions, and experiences all have being, and it is this being that is displayed in impressionist paintings. We can follow this logic even further to make sense of an abstract painting that consists two red and blue triangles, or even a painting consisting of one single black line, both by artist Ellsworth Kelly. Triangles and lines have a type of being (often called 'conceptual being' by Thomists), although it is not the exact type of being encountered in physical reality. In abstract paintings like these what is being displayed is the conceptual being of abstract objects contemplated in our minds. The beauty of modern art consists of the beauty contained in conceptual being. It may even be useful to think of the beauty of modern abstract art as more akin to the beauty one finds in the truth of a well-formed, true syllogism or a mathematical formula than to the beauty of a realistic portrait. But no matter how we think of it, it is beauty nonetheless.

Whatever its other virtues or vices as a theory, Thomist aesthetic theory manages to explain a vast array of different types of art, and for this reason alone it should be considered a strong and interesting theory, well worth the time of those looking into aesthetics.