Dogmatists

The ancient sceptics labelled their opponents 'dogmatists'. The word 'dogmatist' in contemporary English has a pejorative tone – it hints at an irrational rigidity of opinion, a refusal to look impartially at the evidence. In its ancient sense the word lacked that tone: a dogmatist was simply someone who subscribed to dogmas or doctrines. We shall use the word in the ancient sense. The disadvantage of this practice is off-set by the convenience of having a short label for all those who are not sceptical philosophers.

Julia Annas and Jonathan Barnes, The Modes of Scepticism.

From the Mailbag: The Modes of Aenesidemus

I've been asked to say more about ancient skeptical arguments. An old friend, Charlie Black, writes:

I was wondering when you planned to write more on skepticism. In particular, I am interested in the modes in the early part of Sextus Empiricus' Outlines and whether you can update them into analytic idiom.

Part of the reason I've avoided writing more about the skeptical arguments (in spite of some past posts) is that many are fairly bad.¹ This, for me, makes them less exciting than if they were good. I'm still mainly interested in advancing the lot of philosophy or, at least, showing that it can't be advanced.

The Thoroughly Empirical Science

Metaphysics is the thoroughly empirical science. Every item of experience must be evidence for or against any hypothesis of speculative cosmology, and every experienced object must be an exemplar and test case for the categories of analytic ontology.

Donald Cary Williams. “The Elements of Being”. Principles of Empirical Realism, 1966, pp. 74–75.

The Method of Subtraction

The method of subtraction is simply a useful dodge when attempting logical analysis. In order to see whether a certain condition c is, or is not, a necessary condition for the occurrence of a certain sort of situation s, try conceiving of cases of s where it is given that c does not hold. It may turn out to be fairly clear that the notion of s without c is an incoherent conception, and so fairly clear that c is necessary for s. This simple technique, which resembles the method of reductio ad absurdum in mathematics and logic, and the 'method of difference' in empirical research, can be astonishingly fruitful. The neglect to apply it can lead to a lot of unnecessary beating about the bush.

D. M. Armstrong. Belief, Truth and Knowledge, Cambridge University Press, 1973, pp. 81–82.