Can you give assurances, Ichneumon, that the insights of "party-pooper skeptics" cannot in principle be included in that vast category of "bogus knowledge" which includes "visions, intuition, hallucinations, faulty conclusions, jumping to conclusions, fallacious reasoning, prejudices, 'common sense', revisionism, deceit by others, faulty memories, 'recovered' memories, bias, preconceptions, indoctrination, propaganda, emotions, superstitions, rationalizations, bandwagon groupthink, etc. etc.?"
If so, will you demonstrate why the insights of skepticism must be excluded from this nasty category? On what basis are we to rationally accept the skeptic position as not just another of the many "various comfortable presumptions?"
To me, skepticism is a variant of ideological thinking. That suspicion seems justified to me, for its basic premises are hidden as is usually the case with ideologies. If we are to penetrate the mysteries of skepticism, then it seems to me we first need to have disclosure of the hidden premise(s).
Can you help with this?
Why do you feel sceptics hide their premises? It certainly isn't a part of being a sceptic
Can you give assurances, Ichneumon, that the insights of "party-pooper skeptics" cannot in principle be included in that vast category of "bogus knowledge"
Of course not, since it is impossible "in principle" to rule out such a scenario for *any* viewpoint, philosophy, or premise. For example, you cannot "give assurances that" the following "cannot in principle" be true as well:
1. The universe and all in it (and ourselves) was created only last Thursday, but with the appearance and hallmarks of a much longer history (prefab fossils in the ground, houses that look decades old, etc.), and we were created with "memories" of "prior" events/lives that never actually occurred.
2. "Jehovah" and "Lucifer" are just fictions created by Loki, the god of mischief, in a charade maintained for thousand of years, in order to divert mankind from following Odin, the All-Father.
3. We all live in a "Matrix" style virtual reality -- none of what we see and do is real, it's all a hoax maintained by the aliens which enslaved us several centuries ago.
And so on.
If so, will you demonstrate why the insights of skepticism must be excluded from this nasty category?
Sure -- because it works when compared against reality. QED.
The "insights of skepticism" -- i.e. that knowledge is best gained by using reliable methods of determining truth, and that people should avoid believing that which is the result of unreliable methods -- are clearly not only not "this nasty category", they are in fact its antithesis, a vaccination against it.
On what basis are we to rationally accept the skeptic position as not just another of the many "various comfortable presumptions?"
On the basis that it eschews presumptions, comfortable or otherwise, and embraces "rational acceptance" of that which can be actually demonstrated as true.
To me, skepticism is a variant of ideological thinking.
To you, of course it is.
But the only "ideology" of skepticism is that people should not believe that which is derived from unreliable methods. Your mileage may differ.
That suspicion seems justified to me, for its basic premises are hidden as is usually the case with ideologies.
There's nothing "hidden" about skepticism's premises. Those premises are that there are reliable and unreliable methods of reaching conclusions, and that the unreliable ones should be avoided, and the reliable ones should be used. A corollary is that claims and beliefs must be supportable.
If we are to penetrate the mysteries of skepticism, then it seems to me we first need to have disclosure of the hidden premise(s).
Insert conspiracy theory here.
Can you help with this?
I doubt it.