The Impossibility Of Total Skepticism

In discussions about human epistemology I do not see central truths about skepticism acknowledged enough.  Skepticism about a matter is impossible without knowledge of why one does not know something about that matter--a person cannot identify what he or she does not know something without knowing something that distinguishes knowledge from what cannot be known and that identifies actual knowledge.

Allow me to provide some examples.  I know that I cannot see into the future because I know that I am a being that inhabits the present moment and travels through time sequentially.  I know that I do not know if other people are really conscious because I know that it does not follow from my perceptions of their outward actions that they truly possess their own consciousnesses.  I know that I am unaware of whether or not my memory holds a perfect record of every event in my life outside of my awareness because I can only access memories I am aware of.  I cannot know that I do not know something without understanding the concept to some degree and knowing that I cannot verify or falsify it, for I cannot know that I have epistemic limitations which prevent me from obtaining some item of knowledge without knowing that I have epistemic limitations.

As I've been telling people for years, there is only one way for humans to be capable of having some knowledge; either there are a handful of truths that cannot be false and cannot be escaped or there is no such thing as human knowledge.  Without a foundation of these axioms, as I call them, that is true by absolute necessity, no knowledge is possible because there would be no starting point for it, and total skepticism would follow.  These axioms do exist and no denial will change their necessary existence and intrinsic veracity.  It is impossible for them to not be true regardless of what else is true [1].  Apart from them, there is no foundation for knowledge and thus humans cannot know anything at all without them.  It is impossible for the foundation of knowledge to be a religious text, an assumption, a preference, or a socially-engrained belief.  This is not difficult to realize.

There are legitimate and illegitimate types of skepticism [2].  Some affirm themselves, some refute themselves.  It is quite easy to distinguish between the two when one grasps logic, for then one can separate demonstrably-true skepticism from that which is self-refuting.  Total skepticism is impossible.  Yet this does not alter the fact that skepticism is the best we can hope for in a great many matters.  But make no mistake: it is axioms, not mere beliefs, that rescue us from an epistemological abyss of nothingness.


[1].  See here:
A.  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/01/the-error-of-presuppositions.html
B.  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/05/the-nature-of-absolute-certainty.html
C.  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/07/the-necessity-of-cartesian-skepticism.html

[2].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2016/10/healthy-and-irrational-skepticism.html