The Skeptical Phrases: Reality, Representation and Reports

REINOSO, GUADALUPE

SKEPTICAL STUDIES

UFRN

Lugar: Natal; Año: 2019;

In Contributions to a Critique of Language (1903), Fritz Mauthner presents his commitment to a nontheoretical, Pyrrhonian, style of skepticism. Even so, he also wrote that skeptics have, in their fight against philosophical dogmatism, ??again and again become negative dogmatists even though they wanted to remain critics? (Cf. Sluga 2004: p. 102). For Mauthner, as for Kant, the mission of philosophy is a critique of the conditions of possibility of our knowledge, but this criticism is now understood as a critique of language (Sprachkritik). However, at the center of Mauthner?s thought, stands the conviction that language is an ultimately unsatisfactory tool for philosophical thought because language creates superstitions. Philosophy must fight against and resist this linguistic seduction. Consequently, the final purpose of philosophy must be a freeing from words, from the tyranny of language: ??the critique of language must teach liberation from language as the highest goal of self-liberation?? (1.713), (Cf. Sluga 2004, p. 103). I think that Mauthner, beyond his own way of thinking about language, allows us to see two Pyrrhonian problems about the language against which skeptics must fight if they want to free themselves from word-dogmatism ?or word-superstition as Mauthner calls it: on the one hand, the accusation of self-contradiction that was made to the skeptics due to the use of arguments; on the other hand, the typical characteristic of language that Sextus remarks, its affirmative character. Therefore, as Mauthner, we could think that the goal of Pyrrhonian skepticism regarding language, if skepticism wants to be considered a coherent position, is the ideal of aphasia or total silence. However, was it Sextus Empiricus?s goal? His approach to language is determined by the way of understanding the guidance of phenomena, which leads Sextus to address the language problem in at least three different ways: 1- What we can call ?the discursive fasting?, since he avoids elaborating theories because they are beyond the phenomena. 2- The idea of ?reporting descriptively? as istorikos does (PH I. 4), without dogmatic commitments. 3- The ?apology? of daily speech to express what they feel. According to this, I believe that, although Sextus presents a critical perspective on dogmatic assertions, in particular, and on the assertive character of language, in general, his philosophical goal is not aphasia or total silence and this does not imply that the skeptic falls into self-contradiction, as Mauthner understood. Definitely, Sextus did not understand philosophy as a criticism of language, as Mauthner did, nor philosophical problems as linguistic problems. Nevertheless, the reflection about language is central in its orientation. For that reason, he presents alternative uses of language to avoid the problem of assertion through the skeptical phrases such as ?No more?, ?Perhaps?, ?Maybe?, ?Possibly?, etc. They are presented as uses that describe and report how the skeptics feel (PH I. 197) in a non-assertive way of using language (PH I. 192). In a critical aspect, against dogmatism, these uses could be considered: purgatives, they disappear once their use is over. In a positive way, daily speech, without philosophical dogmatic pretentions, represents the possibility for skeptics to communicate with others about how they feel, how they think, etc. Hence, total silence is not Sextus Empiricus?s goal.