Neo-Pyrrhonism, Empiricism, and Scientific Activity

Abstract

Pyrrhonism involves the inability to defend claims about the unobservable world, or, more generally, about what is really going on beyond the phenomena (SEXTUS EMPIRICUS, 1994). As a result, the Pyrrhonist is not engaged in developing a philosophical doctrine, at least in the sense of defending a view about the underlying features of reality. The issue then arises as to whether the Pyrrhonist also has something positive to say about our knowledge of the world, while still keeping Pyrrhonism. In this paper, I develop a positive neo-Pyrrhonist attitude, indicating that we can use this attitude to make sense of important aspects of science and empirical knowledge. To do that, I explore the connection between this revived form of Pyrrhonism and contemporary versions of empiricism, in particular constructive empiricism (VAN FRAASSEN, 1980, 1989, 2002, 2008). Although constructive empiricism is not a form of skepticism, there are important elements in common between constructive empiricism and Pyrrhonism. The resulting form of Pyrrhonism suggests that there is something right about the original stance articulated by Sextus Empiricus, and that suitably formulated it provides an insightful approach to think about empirical knowledge (PORCHAT PEREIRA, 2006, for the original inspiration behind neoPyrrhonism).