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"Skepticism"
The word "skepticism" seems to engender misunderstanding. People want to hear, "Yes!" They want affirmation and
approval. And I suspect that when they hear the word "skeptic," many people think of someone who says, "No. No."
But skepticism isn't the adoption of a negative attitude toward life or toward people. Skepticism is an epistemic
attitude, not a personal one. Skepticism is an attitude toward belief. It is the "Show me" attitude of the
Missourian. The skeptic demands that beliefs about reality be supported by good justification; in the absence of
such justification, the skeptic withholds belief.
When the skeptic criticizes a belief for being unjustified or for being poorly justified, he isn't thereby saying that
the holder of such a belief is a bad person (see here or here).
If someone believes in astrology, the skeptic will question the basis of his belief; and, lacking good justification for
it, the skeptic will tell him that his astrology-belief is an epistemic mistake. But the skeptic might still think
that the believer is a perfectly nice person and a perfectly likable person, and the skeptic might still think that
the believer is an intelligent person, and the skeptic might still be the believer's friend, and the skeptic might still
live and laugh and love with the believer. Holding a mistaken belief doesn't make one stupid or unworthy of respect--it
doesn't make one a bad person--and the skeptic doesn't say that it does. (At least, not by virtue of his being a
skeptic; individual skeptics can, of course, say unpleasant things sometimes, just like anyone else.)
The skeptic isn't someone who never smiles, or who never encourages children, or whose attitude toward living life or
toward other people is negative. A woman who spoke to me by phone told me that she was surprised at how much I
laughed! Well, skeptics laugh, and smile, and smell the roses, and enjoy living; skeptics tell their wives how beautiful
they are and how much they love them; skeptics sing songs and read stories to children and say, "Yes, let's have fun."
A skeptic might be just as cheerful and optimistic and upbeat in his attitudes toward life and other people as anyone
else. He simply insists on being realistic in his beliefs about reality, seeking to believe only truths, and knows
that the best way to ensure that he believes only truths is to demand that statements be well-justified before he
accepts them as true.
(© 2007 by Keith Brian Johnson)
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