{"id":7852,"date":"2021-03-12T08:30:00","date_gmt":"2021-03-12T08:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/?p=7852"},"modified":"2021-03-12T08:30:00","modified_gmt":"2021-03-12T08:30:00","slug":"lets-hear-it-for-scepticism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2021\/03\/12\/lets-hear-it-for-scepticism\/","title":{"rendered":"Let's hear it for scepticism"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I've lost count of the number of times that I've had to argue that scepticism is a positive process. \u00a0In part this is clearly because some people conflate scepticism and cynicism which they regard as negativity whereas it is also a positive phenomenon, albeit in a different way to scepticism. \u00a0It's also, for some, because if you're sceptical about something which other people think is absolutely fine, then you're seen as agin it and your motives are questioned. \u00a0Sometimes, however, the sceptic just wants to make things a bit clearer, or better, even.<\/p>\n<p>We've David Hume to thank for an emphasis on scepticism as Freddie Sayers pointed out in a <a href=\"https:\/\/unherd.com\/2021\/01\/we-need-scepticism-more-than-ever\/\">column<\/a> for Unherd. \u00a0It begins:<\/p>\n<p>\"For much of human history, doubt was considered a personal vice. \u00a0Status and advancement was generally conferred on believers and cheerleaders for the prevailing orthodoxy. \u00a0Questioning the\u00a0<em>status quo<\/em> was regarded as sedition and, as a result, discussions of \u201cdoubt\u201d were confined to pedantic philosophers determined to discover whether anything in the world could <em>really<\/em>\u00a0be known. \u00a0It was not really until David Hume, writing during the Scottish Enlightenment, that an attempt was made to reconcile Scepticism with the real world. \u00a0Frustrated at the \u201cinsipid raillery\u201d of those who claimed mankind could know <em>nothing<\/em>, he dismissed their obscure thought experiments as \u201cmere Philosophical Amusement\u201d, and instead chose to reclaim Scepticism as a critical mindset. \u00a0To put it simply, for Hume it was important to be \u201ca philosopher; but, amidst all of your philosophy, be still a man\u201d.\"<\/p>\n<p>Hume wrote\u00a0in his\u00a0<em>Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding<\/em>, to be sceptical is \u201ct<em>o begin with clear and self-evident principles, to advance by timorous and sure steps, to review frequently our conclusions, and examine accurately all their consequences<\/em>\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>I sometimes felt that, as an academic researcher, I was paid to be sceptical. \u00a0It was certainly a necessary position to take as there is no neutrality here with the only alternative option being credulity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I've lost count of the number of times that I've had to argue that scepticism is a positive process. \u00a0In part this is clearly because some people conflate scepticism and cynicism which they regard as negativity whereas it is also...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7852","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comment","category-news-and-updates"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7852","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/237"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7852"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7852\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}