The Goal Of The Skepticism: Appearances And Detergments

Skepticism is the “ability to place into antithesis…appearances and judgments” (pg. 435) no matter what form or order they appear in. Appearances and judgments can be described as the way we perceive things through our senses and how we react to that perception. The goal of the Skeptic is to keep those reactions, or judgments, as ambiguous as possible. This is referred to as the “suspension of judgment” (pg. 435) or simply the refusal to believe or disbelieve anything. The Skeptics suggest that once you reach the suspension of judgment you achieve “mental tranquility” (pg. 435) because you no longer distress yourself with frivolous attempts at searching for an absolute good. Nothing is absolute, good or otherwise, and it is pointless to argue …show more content…
Honey appears to be sweet when we experience it and therefore we concede that honey possesses a sweetening quality. Emotions are very similar in that a smile appears to display happiness because when many are happy they smile and therefore we concede that smiling possesses a quality or motivation of happiness. This idea however, is not completely true in the mind of a Skeptic. As mentioned above the appearance of something is not questioned, but what we expect of that appearance is questioned. Since an emotion does not have a physical appearance it is identified through the displays associated with that emotion. However, even those displays are not completely truthful because a person can very much appear to be happy even if they suffer from a doleful state of mind. In this situation, the Skeptic would advice to not take emotional displays at face value because there could be ulterior motives. To do so one must question whether the emotional display they see “is in reality as it appears to be” (pg. 437) or if its appearance in reality is a deception. To discover where someone’s true emotions lay one must understand what an emotion is. Skepticism says that feelings, at least physical ones, are compulsions to fulfill physical needs. Therefore, one could hypothesize that an emotion, such as loneliness, could lead one to seek companionship in the same way hunger would lead one to seek sustenance. Where physical feelings are activated to fulfill our physical needs, emotional feelings are activated to fulfill our mental needs. A Skeptic would take the feeling of sadness as an indication that they need to seek that in which makes them feel happy, which will be different for each person. Therefore, a skeptic views emotions as indicators that certain needs require attention or that others are being fulfilled. A normal person however, views emotions