The limits of philosophy - skepticism and eclecticism -

[Vincent]

First my appologies for not being a philosopher myself. I have taken a few philosophy courses at a minor university, so my education is insufficient for addressing philosophy susinctly.

On the interernet there are many persons claiming to be skeptics, and they usually make other parallel claims as atheists, and supporters of Darwinian evolution.

Skepticism began in ancient Greece, I believe, with Pyrronius ascerting that since all philosophers disagree with each other, human knowledge is impossible, and all human knowledge must be doubted.

So, skepticism is anti-philosophical, and self contradictory since skeptics don't doubt, their knowledge, that all knowledge should be doubted....

There are milder modern versions suggested of skepticism, like scientific skepticism, which is actually empiricism, and not skepticism at all. I read an article on what is called pseudoskepticism which was very refreshing. Here is a blurb from wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudoskepticism#Pseudoskepticism

He makes the case that the skeptic point of view is an agnostic point of view, which makes sense to me. And, the term pseudoskeptic unfortunately characterizes many of the sad dogs on the net, who plague religion forums everywhere.

Most philosophers are not so happy with skepticism, and I read on philosopher who had written that even skepticism which denies the possibilty of knowledge, is a better philosophy than eclecticism.

Eclecticism was introduced by Victor Cousins, and he stated eclecticism as 'all philosophies are true but incomplete'. I am not sure whether cousins proposed this before the incompleteness theorem was established or after, but I believe they should be thought of as having an affinity.

Well, I like eclecticism even though it makes philosophers seem a little foolish in their differences. And, I have had some very pleasant mystical experiences, where all things were true, for a time...

Here is an article from the Catholic Encyclopeadia:

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05276a.htm

The article closes with a remark that eclecticism can not be used to form doctrine, and I could not be more delighted, because I am skeptical of dogma...

[Nabil Naser]

Oh my love
What if I tell you that you are describing the light

We have learned to add
And then to speak
We are learning to understand
upon death. we will

Love and peace
Nabil

[Brian Leslie]

Skeptic's are a thorn in the intellictual pursuit of knowledge. I've ran into many skeptics in my travels, I see them all the time in books and television and they're all essentially the same. But I will not discredit thier lives anymore than I would discredit someone in the pursuit of knowledge. They are who they are, and I've done my best to understand them, to see the world as they see it...
I've come to the conclusion that they simply don't like to be challenged. What I mean by that is that they have created for themselves a set of rules and guidlines and anything that goes against those greatly upsets them. They go out of thier way to disprove and discredit anything that doesn't make sense to them, they never take a moment to see the other person's view, they just see a threat that needs eliminated.
We will never rid ourselves of skeptics cause they are on the understanding that they're doing the world a favor by keeping the walls of reality intact and inplace and until society as a whole comes to a conclussion of understanding they will be the guard dogs of the majority.
They say there's a comfort in not knowing the truth, I disagree, but again, I'm not in the majority.
Anyways, don't know if this contributed any to your original thought, but it was really just a long winded way of letting you know that sometimes you have to look through someone else's eys and view the world as they see it to understand why they are the way they are...
Thanks for listening to me.

[James]

Very interesting Vincent. Pseudo skepticism reminds me of Nihilism. Nihilism tells that nothing truly has value, but more it is falsely placed. "The Nihilist"(Friedrich Heinrich) claimed that science, philosophy, and such were false, and God was killed. But it was more the idea of God was killed. The problem with This form of nihilism is that it in itself is a contradiction because it is a philosophy; In addition, The Nihilist did not believe in giving evidence to support it.

I couldn't say whether Darwinism exists or not. It's like me telling a historian that Atlantis existed. Ancient civilizations spoke of it, but yet I have no actual concrete evidence. I believe we got here somehow, but I need to see concrete progress of actual physical evolution, or data. This when it comes to science a very objective, and concrete philosophy.

[Konstantin Zaitzev]

The evidences are many, the problem is that they are ignored and not spoken about by TV.
Skepticism is like a disease. I've understood it still when I was a schoolboy. I was in a hospital, and as there were not much entertainments, I began to retell to my room mate the book which I've recently read, "The Buccaneers of America" by Exquemelin. He told me that I'm a liar and such a book could never exist.

[Svaha]

Why preface the discussion that you are not a philosopher? Are you not a lover of wisdom?

[Vincent]

Well I have read very little of philosophy, so I would not like to be mistaken for a western philosopher. I would not mind being thought of as a theosopher, as long as it is understood that I trust that the domain of wisdom is eclectic. Because there is no one universal logic we can not depend on any single closed system of ideas.

I may be fond of wisdom, but that does not make me a teacher. I have never found anything that promises to be more profound than love. If the love is there the reality will unfold. Love brings forth new reality. At least this has been for me the most successful.

It is said that one should be careful what one prays for. But if you, like me, don't heed that advice, you will need God to protect you in your negotiations with God...

[Mark Newbold]

"Viveka" or as it's often translated into English as "discrimination" is a quality/virtue too often disparaged now. This is due to the unfortunate implications that the word "discrimination" has taken on in parlance based on societal abuses. This is tragic as all too often in these days of intellectual relativism too many people will adopt anything in the search for personal meaning and ultimately fall prey to schools of thought that "require" a group mind that discourages critical thinking and questioning of the groups short-comings & and; failures.

Nothing could be further from the truth in Theosophy. Many leave the Theosophical Society due to becoming disillusioned by not finding a group that tells them what to think, believe and do. The roots of Theosophy are in free & critical thinking by its adherents. All too often critical thinking disguises itself as cynicism; and again this is a philosophical trap to avoid. I think the greatest wisdom is often expressed by admitting "I don't know...but I will investigate and study."

[Konstantin Zaitzev]

> due to the unfortunate implications that the word "discrimination" has taken on in parlance based on societal abuses

Yes, it's a general problem with the theosophical literature, as when "newspeak" more and more takes hold over the western society, many theosophical terms are more often misunderstood.

[Mark Newbold]

So here we have the on-going debate, do we compromise our tradititional theosophical language/symbols or make ourselves more acceptable by adopting "newspeak"? Or maintain our linguistic heritage? I am still struggling with this, and can argue both sides of the fence. Language like all things evolve, thus do we as theosophists wish to adapt our language for acceptance and education to younger generations approaching Theosophy for the first time? Or we become Guenonian-like traditionalists and require the masses to rise to our linguistic standards? Adaptation is survival. On what path do we go?

[Konstantin Zaitzev]

It's hard for me to reply this question as not being a native English speaker. Here in Russia there were not much changes in language for the last 100 years, so we find old theosophical books still suitable; moreover we have an advantage of making new translations. There are several words which should be somewhat corrected but anyway it's the minor editorial changes.
Probably a reasonable compromise would be to write new books and articles in a new language, especially from scientific perspective, in order to popularize theosophy, leaving the classical literature for the more serious students.

[Nathan]

I think that Western Philosophy is like a big book. All the different philosophers, and their philosophies are chapters in that book. They are all trying to get at the same thing: Truth. I see nothing wrong with Skepticism as a Philosophy. It is an intricate, and important chapter of "the Book." It is not a disease, but a sign of healthy inquiry and intellect. The first step in skepticism is questioning. There is nothing wrong with this, for with out questioning where would we be? One could argue that some philosophers are skeptical of skepticism because it make them uncomfortable. I was uncomfortable when I read David Hume. But it's just a way of looking at the world. Some philosopher will come out and say, "see look at this, this is Truth." The Skeptic will say, "but look at all the holes in it." There are no limits to philosophy. It will keep going as long as people can think. It is in the holes that the philosophies of tomorrow will bud forth.

[Jack Donaldson]

No matter the concept or the object perceived, I 'almost' completely believe that in a group of ten people, there will be ten different illustrations arising from them.

Many of the posts within this thread seemed to be describing blind disbelief rather than skepticism. "I can't prove it true or false" is all an honest skeptic would submit. I've been attempting to understand non-Aristotelian logic, and it seems there is a lot of reading involved. I was hoping it was sort of concise. The knee-deep probing I've made so far is interesting, for instance, words should be used for pointing, don't say look at the house, but rather direct attention toward the building. We each one of us are perceivers and we do not possess telepathy, and as perceivers we each one of us have our own level of distinctiveness, and speaking for myself, I might say number and variety of poisons that I must transform into elixors. IMO angst against skepticism is that it does not really seem to be skepticism, but more like disagreement without the desire by this person to study your position.