Introduction
Skepticism is a philosophical position that implies distrust of received knowledge or statements. In other words, skepticism is the habit of not believing in something for which there is no indisputable evidence or facts. According to Nichols and Pinillos, a skeptic follows this way of perceiving information (399). Skepticism has its advantages and disadvantages. On the one hand, this force field protects people from pseudo-facts, bad ideas, excessive gullibility, and manipulation. But a skeptical look can manifest passivity, cynicism, suspicion, and fear of losing one’s point of view.
Reliability of Normal Sources of Knowledge
Any point of view is based on information obtained from some source of knowledge. However, the critical characteristic of any source is its limitation. Moreover, the source may be unreliable, which creates the risk of believing in a lie. Non-skeptical persons will consider various sources of knowledge reliable, resulting in erroneous reality and ideas. (Nichols & Pinillos, 2018). On the contrary, skeptics question the reliability and validity of knowledge sources due to their limitations. The four sources of knowledge include perceptions, memory, introspection, and reasoning, but each is unreliable.
Perceptions as a Source of Knowledge
A person receives information about the world through a variety of perceptions. On the one hand, through perceptions, people receive confirmation that things and phenomena that correspond to these perceptions exist. On the other hand, perceptions do not always reflect what exists in the real world. First, visual and auditory illusions do not correspond to anything real. Secondly, perceptions are subjective since they are perceived by a person based on the personal characteristics of the mind. According to Nolder and Kadous (2018), perception is one of the consequences of perceptual reliance. Thus perceptions are the source of knowledge.
Memory as a Source of Knowledge
Memory is also an unreliable source of knowledge. First, there is the possibility of remembering individual aspects of information instead of the complete data set. Secondly, people can forget new information while retaining old information. Memory distortions are also quite common. Nolder and Kadous (2018) assert that memory fails everyone from time to time. Therefore, memory can be misleading, making it a poor source of knowledge.
Introspection as a Source of Knowledge
Introspection is a highly inaccurate source of knowledge. Most people believe that the perception of themselves is more accurate than the perception of others. Aspects such as cognitive distortions, biases, and the unconscious challenge the reliability of introspection as a source of knowledge. Moreover, a key characteristic of introspection is subjectivity. Thus, all of the above points to the unreliability of this source of knowledge.
Reasoning as a Source of Knowledge
Reasoning is also a source of knowledge, with several shortcomings that make it unreliable. Nolder and Kadous (2018) note that a person’s reasoning about the environment depends only on his position, past experience, and future expectations. For example, a person concludes that all black people are breaking the law after witnessing a black person committing a crime. Therefore, the reasoning is not enough to obtain sufficient and reliable knowledge.
Reliability of Sources and Deception
Thus, such sources of knowledge as perceptions, memory, introspection, and reasoning often turn out to be unreliable. In this regard, they are capable of leading to false knowledge. However, this does not always happen, but it happens from time to time. If people make mistakes sometimes, it does not mean they always make them. Sometimes a person, relying on the sources of knowledge described above, can be deceived and sometimes may be right. This is because all of the sources have a subjective aspect. However, personal perception, recollection, introspection, and reasoning can often be relatively objective.
Conclusion
Therefore, skepticism is a tendency to abstain from peremptory and categorical judgments, a critically distrustful attitude towards any generally accepted phenomenon or information imposed from outside that is not confirmed or proven. That is, skepticism encourages not so much doubt as studying and investigating. Being a skeptic means having a healthy dose of distrust and common sense to tell the real from the fake.
References
Nichols, S., & Pinillos, N. Á. (2018). Skepticism and the acquisition of “knowledge”. Mind & Language, 33(4), 397-414.
Nolder, C. J., & Kadous, K. (2018). Grounding the professional skepticism construct in mindset and attitude theory: A way forward.Accounting, Organizations and Society, 67, 1-14.