Question

Consider the skeptic’s charge that we can never be confident about the reliability of our normal sources of knowledge (perceptions, memory, introspection, and reasoning). Does it follow from the fact that we are sometimes mistaken when we rely on these sources that we are always mistaken? How would you respond to the skeptic?

Answer 1

Everyone tend to make mistakes and this doesn’t mean that they are born to make mistakes. Perceptions never make mistakes but it’s the one who perceives makes mistakes because beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder. It largely depends upon one’s personality, attitude, cultural background, socio-economic status and religious beliefs. A skeptic will always look for the negative aspect of life even though things seems to improve whereas an optimistic will look for the good in everything by approaching it positively. Only human beings can alter their way of life by altering their attitude, so the way one perceives the stimuli from the environment depends upon one’s attitude. Skeptics cannot look at things positively and they would always look at the negative side of the stimuli. The stimuli present is always neutral and it’s we who construct meaning and reaction out of it. They want them to be guided that way, so would tell a skeptic to change the way he/she looks at the world.