Machuca, Diego
Senior Fellow: April–August 2023
Research Project: On Refuting Pyrrhonian Scepticism
Is it possible to refute Pyrrhonian scepticism? At first blush, the question may sound silly, given the common view among both philosophers and non-philosophers that any kind of radical sceptical stance is patently absurd, untenable, or false. Moreover, the fact that a view yields radical sceptical consequences is all too often taken to be a reductio of that view. This allegedly obvious weakness of extreme forms of scepticism notwithstanding, it seems that a present-day Pyrrhonist (i.e., a neo-Pyrrhonist) could deploy at least three different—and apparently sufficiently strong—defensive strategies against attempts at refutation. The strategies in question appeal (i) to the fact that the suspension of judgment is experienced as a mental state that imposes itself on the Pyrrhonist when he is confronted with conflicting arguments that strike him as equipollent, (ii) to the phenomenon of widespread and entrenched disagreement among non-sceptics, and (iii) to the seemingly aporetic or self-defeating nature of reason. The purpose of the present research project is to explore and assess these three sceptical strategies.
Diego E. Machuca is an associate researcher in philosophy at CONICET, Argentina.