What then, do these two things have in common? In common usage, these two viewpoints have little in common. The mystic is usually seen as a religious extremist, someone who eschews the ordinary and the mundane in favor of the occult or hidden dimensions of reality. On the other hand, the skeptic according to common usage, is someone very firmly rooted in the ordinary and mundane aspects of life. The skeptic eschews all that is hidden or occult in favor of what can be rationally proven. In the Pyrrhonian tradition, there are even guidelines on how behave if no rational certainty can be provided as a basis for behavior, and one of these guidelines instructs the skeptic to behave according to the customs of his land. But what these two groups have in common is an uncommon relationship with rationality.
The mystic has been taught or has determined in some way that rationality can not get them what they want, often conceived as something like union with the Divine. As a result they forego rationality in hopes of stumbling upon another path. Some examples of this from the West are St. Francis and William Blake. Other examples might be the Zen Buddhist, the Yogi, or the Eastern Orthodox Hesychast.1 The skeptic does not forego reason and rationality but instead leans on it heavily. Every dispute is brought before the court of reason, and as it turns out every single case is a hung jury, with no definite ruling. Something that has always fascinated me is whether or not there were skeptics who, for lack of a better phrase, passed through their skepticism. Or another way of saying the same thing, were there skeptics who became skeptical even of skepticism?
On the face of it, skeptics have no beliefs. That means they make no definite judgments about the nature or reality of things, and so there is nothing to be skeptical about. But it is also true that the skeptics lean heavily on reason, bringing all disputes before reason. The skeptic does seem to have some faith in rationality as the standard by which to judge disputes. To follow up with the court of law analogy I used before, it seems as though the skeptic claims to not be a partisan or citizen of any particular nation, with all of their legal judgments and customs, yet when some issue is in dispute, the skeptic is the first to bring the issue in front of a legal court for settlement. It would seem the skeptic does this because of his confidence that no decision will actually be met in said court of law (a belief, surely, and one that the skeptic would deny). But it remains to be seen why we should trust the dictates of reason over something like strong feelings or a majority consensus. What reason does the skeptic have for thinking that this is a good way to settle disputes?2
Following this line of reason, we can see that the skeptic who is skeptical even of the skeptical method has exhausted reason, in a way similar to the mystic who has foregone reason. I am not suggesting that this thoroughgoing skeptic will become a mystic, although that is not implausible. Rather, the skeptic is left with a question of what standard should be used to settle disputes and make decisions generally. We have examples of something like this in historical philosophers who are skeptical in one way or another, although none that I mention ever claimed to be Pyrrhonians. For example, Zhuangzi, the Chinese Daoist, is skeptical of dialectic and the ability for people to know the true nature of things. Instead he opts for a sort of harmony between himself and nature. Similarly, Richard Rorty who is skeptical about objective truth opts to pursue what he calls solidarity. Even someone like Wittgenstein, who is certainly not a Pyrrhonian skeptic, displays mystical tendencies at the end of the Tractatus, wherein he has stripped reason of most of its traditional power, and ends up saying "Whereof we cannot speak, thereof we must remain silent." To my mind, this sounds very much like something an Eastern Hesychast or a contemplative Zen Buddhist would say.
What all of these people have in common is a tendency to downplay the role of reason even while practicing philosophy or religion. I would argue that skeptics (as I have presented them) and mystics are but two of the best examples of a discontinuous philosophical tradition that does not see man as a purely rational animal, and does not see the hegemony of reason as a path to the good life. In this light, skeptics and mystics can be seen as bedfellows in the pursuit of a philosophy that might be described as a-rational, yet not necessarily irrational.
1Although not particularly relevant here, some argue that the Zen Buddhist, the Yogi, and Eastern Hesychast are not true mystics because they follow a method lined out for them, which, if followed properly, will lead to the goal sought after. This is in contrast to the Holy Fool like St. Francis, or the Visionary Poet William Blake, who do not have a path or process laid out for them, but instead follow the subtle pullings and longings of their soul in a sort of blind (rationally speaking) adherence or acceptance.
2 Perhaps the reason is that ultimately the skeptic is after is peace of mind (ataraxia), and suspension of judgement leads to this goal. If one already has their sought after goal, it would not make sense to "pass through their skepticism." If the goal is something like a good life, or God, or truth, however, than it would indeed make sense for the skeptic to move beyond skepticism in pursuit of their goal.
On the face of it, skeptics have no beliefs. That means they make no definite judgments about the nature or reality of things, and so there is nothing to be skeptical about. But it is also true that the skeptics lean heavily on reason, bringing all disputes before reason. The skeptic does seem to have some faith in rationality as the standard by which to judge disputes. To follow up with the court of law analogy I used before, it seems as though the skeptic claims to not be a partisan or citizen of any particular nation, with all of their legal judgments and customs, yet when some issue is in dispute, the skeptic is the first to bring the issue in front of a legal court for settlement. It would seem the skeptic does this because of his confidence that no decision will actually be met in said court of law (a belief, surely, and one that the skeptic would deny). But it remains to be seen why we should trust the dictates of reason over something like strong feelings or a majority consensus. What reason does the skeptic have for thinking that this is a good way to settle disputes?
ReplyDeleteI think the Pyrrhonian is going to say that he isn't committed to the importance of reason. It's you who's committed to it. He's just adopting your position “dialectically” to turn it against you.
I'm not sure the Pyrrhonian is being totally honest here. His whole notion of suspension of judgment seems to tacitly assume the law of non-contradiction. He might say (as Sextus often seems to) that suspension of judgment "just follows" (i.e., in terms he might avoid for fear of committing himself to a belief, that he's trying to bring us into a certain psychological state that just follows when our reasons for and against something are equipollent). But I doubt that is actually the case. We have tonnes of anecdotal evidence (and some even have introspective evidence) that people choose to believe theses (e.g. "God exists") in spite of being in evidential equipoise over them.