On Refuting Pyrrhonian Skepticism

DIEGO E. MACHUCA

Hamburgo

Workshop; Internal Workshop; 2023

Maimonides Centre for Advanced Studies, Universität Hamburg

Is it possible to refute Pyrrhonian skepticism? At first blush, the question may sound silly, given the widespread view among both philosophers and non-philosophers that any kind of radical skeptical stance is patently absurd or untenable or false. Moreover, the fact that a view yields skeptical consequences is all too often taken to be a reductio of that view. Such allegedly obvious weakness of extreme forms of skepticism notwithstanding, it seems that a present-day Pyrrhonist (a neo-Pyrrhonist) could deploy at least three different, and apparently strong enough, defensive strategies against attempts at refutation.