Skepticism is considered to be a negative side of our consciousness. Some philosophers think that skepticism can only be interesting as a challenge of our common-sense knowledge. The author offers some methods of skepticism defense which are not considered to be traditional. He provides with the arguments that our everyday communication leads to the false utterances though we always speak of real objects.
A lot of sophisticated philosophers do not perceive skepticism seriously because they consider that it involves some unacceptable things. The usage of the notion “knowledge” in our speech leads to systematic error of information we say. Our inner beliefs are not false but strong views are responsible for the facts we say. The word “knowledge” is related to absolute terms because it is persuasive and categorical in comparison with relative ones. The line between these two groups of terms is paraphrase that should be comprehensive and used within a context. Any basic absolute term can be defined with the help of certain relative terms.
Some terms we use in speech are followed by prepositional clauses, but it is impossible to think that all such terms are followed by them. The process of paraphrase can be seen on the example of the word “confident” which is considered to be absolute. People speak indifferently of the confidence of a person as well as of his certainty. But there is a difference between a confident and a certain person: a certain person is more than confident of the fact and confident one is not very much certain of it.
The only explanation of the notion being absolute is the logical necessity in it being so. Our understanding of the process makes us be sure in its absolute character. If a person is certain of one thing more than of another, so the first thing he is certain of is considered to be absolute for him.
The modern philosophy tends to believe that knowledge needs being certain. It explained by the fact that a person knows something only in case of being certain. Some philosophers think that belief is quite enough for knowledge; there are some contradictions among thinkers who consider that if a person believe in something, he knows it for sure and is strongly certain about it. According to their thoughts people use in everyday speech facts they believe to be true, that is why it is not important for them being certain about something. But just the opposite opinion is proved by an example: if a person knows that it is raining but he is not certain of it, we see the contradictions of his belief. So, knowledge compulsory requires certainty.
Such arguments may strike almost every philosopher even those who take skepticism seriously. The defense of skepticism is based on the notion of certainty, because this notion should never be apart of any other and be closely connected with all the views. One cannot remain sure whether these statements are true and analysis can be a background for future investigations, but this skepticism defense is adequate and is proved by facts and deductions.
As a way of summarizing one cannot but notice that many scholars do not believe in the importance of skepticism and consider it to be of no importance. One can hardly connect this procedure with such notion as certainty and make it to be an integral part of skepticism. But it is really true as proved by the philosophers. We always say what we know and consider our facts to be true though they may appear to be false. One cannot say that he really knows something without being certain of it. Let us imagine that we know such obvious things as existence of fossil fuel but we are not certain of it. We surely know why we need it but have no certainty whether it is true or not. The only we have is a slight belief in our theory. But what it means?.. We have inner contradictions with what we know and what we are certain of. So, it says that we cannot surely know something without being certain of it. But only absolute notions bring this certainty to us; one should remember that absolute notion is different for everyone. If one is certain about something more so this thing is considered to be absolute for him.
If I were to examine the notion of skepticism I would definitely back up the view of the author of the article Peter Unger. Certainty should be present in every methods of investigation as well as in usual life. Great thinkers avoid the serious character of this notion and its importance in everyday communication, but we have just been proved the opposite point of view and can use it as a background for future deductions.
References
Unger, Peter. “A Defense of Skepticism”. The Philosophical Review, Vol. 80, No. 2, (1971), pp. 198-219.