Agrippan Skepticism (Humans)

by dhw, Monday, October 24, 2011, 13:33 (4778 days ago) @ xeno6696

MATT: David has on a few occasions pointed to psychic phenomenon as some level of evidence for *something* out there that can't/doesn't have a materialistic explanation. In my world, I hold to a form of Agrippan Skepticism, notably, "The only thing we can know is that we don't know anything." This means that I deny, as knowledge, those things that we cannot verify or replicate. So far this agrees wholly with the materialistic position. In fact, we can say it underpins my materialistic slant.

Back to epistemology. After much debate, we agreed to define knowledge as “information which is accepted as being true by general consensus among those who are aware of it.” We distinguished between that and absolute truth, which is unattainable. I think Agrippan scepticism refers to what we have called truth, and your own to knowledge as we have defined it. We also agreed to define belief as: “information which individuals accept as being true although there is no general consensus on its truth.” Clearly, then, psychic phenomena cannot be characterized as “knowledge” since there is no general consensus. They come under the category of belief.

MATT: What is it about "psychic phenomenon" that proves an Agrippan Skeptic is not on firm ground? Why shouldn't we deny unproven claims outright? Why should we even entertain them?

We need to decide what claims we’re being sceptical about, and at what stage our scepticism sets in. I suggest we confine the discussion to those instances in which people obtain information not normally available to them and verified by witnesses or by circumstances. We’ve discussed examples given to us by BBella, David’s wife and DragonsHeart, and published by Pim van Lommel. If you don’t believe the information was obtained (“unproven claims”) and are convinced that they’re all liars or deluded, the discussion ends at the first stage. If you accept that they obtained the information, your scepticism applies to non-materialistic explanations – the second stage.

MATT: This comes as the core of my own philosophy of "utility." An explanation, that lacks some level of "provability," is not useful. Not if our goal is to advance knowledge.

Virtually all the major issues that we discuss on this forum are linked to phenomena that can’t be proved. We can’t prove that there is/isn’t a god, that life originated by chance/design. On a human level of everyday life we can’t explain love or imagination or aesthetic beauty in provable materialistic terms, but do we deny their existence or “utility”? Interestingly, I don’t think Pim van Lommel, BBella, David’s wife or DragonsHeart have actually offered any definite "supernatural" theories. But since no-one has yet succeeded in finding a materialistic explanation for such phenomena, and since the examples can be multiplied millions of times over, why reject outright the explanation that there may be “something out there”? You don’t have to accept it, but why make up your mind to reject it before you’ve been offered proof of a materialistic explanation? Agrippan scepticism – according to my sources – calls for a suspension of judgement, i.e. neither to affirm nor to deny.