Practical scepticism of life. Theoretical scepticism of fiction in ancient skepticism

Abstract

It is a natural fact that life, unlike judgments, cannot be suspended. We accept that we must decide in life, and that we move, or have impulses, towards certain things. Hence, we act in one way or another, drawing on and assigning a certain validity to impressions detected by our senses, while deeming others unreliable. This is what Sextus means, when he states that the sceptic applies criteria not to distinguish the true from the false, but rather to deal with life. In this article we will contend that the differences between the different types of philosophies, and even scepticisms, occur more on the gnoseological level than on the practical one. Moreover, we maintain that, in most cases, we do not act with established principles. Rather, we act with a certain “socialized” scepticism that we all draw upon, allowing ourselves to be convinced by the data that we have, in a relative way, accepting that the probable, plausible or reasonable in each situation determines whether we act in one way or another, with everything being shaped by what appears to us, by phenomena.