Reidian Common Sense: An Antidote to Scepticism?

Abstract

Scepticism is in most cases disliked. Much of contemporary epistemology can be construed as a response to the modern incarnation of scepticism, i.e. the view that justification is impossible or that nothing is known, either in general or about a certain area of discourse (say, unperceivable objects).1 In contrast to this, its ancient relative did not preach theory or rely on dubitable premises. The Pyrrhonists2 were concerned with a way of life, the aim of which was ataraxia—tranquility of mind—and its method epoché—suspension of judgement. Whereas it had much influence in the early modern period (due to translations that made the works of Sextus Empiricus, the Pyrrhonist’s chief author, available to scholars at the time), it had not been taken seriously by contemporary scholars of ancient philosophy until a few decades ago, ‘because it was regarded as a patently absurd or far-fetched form of skepticism,’3 and the attention it received outside the ancient philosophy classroom was practically non-existent. One reason for the neglect of Pyrrhonian scepticism is the apraxia objection,4 which states in its evidential mode that sceptical life is impossible and in its pragmatic mode that sceptical life is impractical. The pragmatic mode presupposes that sceptical life (i.e., life without opinion or beliefs) is possible, but argues that