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Full Idea
The three forms of scepticism are cartesian, Humean and Pyrrhonian. The first challenges belief by inventing sceptical scenarios; the second doubts the future; the third aims to suspend belief.
Clarification
Pyrrho of Elis lived in the fourth century BCE
Gist of Idea
Scepticism is cartesian (sceptical scenarios), or Humean (future), or Pyrrhonian (suspend belief)
Source
Robert Fogelin (Walking the Tightrope of Reason [2003], Ch.4)
Book Ref
Fogelin,Robert: 'Walking the Tightrope of Reason' [OUP 2004], p.99
A Reaction
A standard distinction is made between methodological and global scepticism. The former seems to be Cartesian, and the latter Pyrrhonian. The interest here is see Hume placed in a distinctive category, because of his views on induction.
| 22761 | We reveal unreliability in the senses when we cannot discriminate a slow change of colour [Anaxagoras, by Sext.Empiricus] |
| 2243 | Mitigated scepticism sensibly confines our enquiries to the narrow capacity of human understanding [Hume] |
| 5548 | Hume became a total sceptic, because he believed that reason was a deception [Hume, by Kant] |
| 15623 | Humean scepticism, unlike ancient Greek scepticism, accepts the truth of experience as basic [Hegel] |
| 3575 | Scepticism can involve discrepancy, relativity, infinity, assumption and circularity [Williams,M] |
| 7322 | Constitutive scepticism is about facts, and epistemological scepticism about our ability to know them [Miller,A] |
| 6588 | Scepticism is cartesian (sceptical scenarios), or Humean (future), or Pyrrhonian (suspend belief) [Fogelin] |
| 18700 | Cartesian scepticism doubts what is true; Kantian scepticism doubts that it is sayable [Button] |