Ceticismo e Montaigne: uma apologia dos costumes

Abstract

The following research deals with the investigation of one of the most important questions concerning skeptical doctrine: the possibility of conciliation between the teaching pronounced in school and practical life. By refusing all dogmatic doctrines, due to the skeptical conclusion that they invalidate each other, since each supposes to have reached a truth that opposes the other, the skepticism prescribes the epoché, or suspension of judgment. In this sense, the skeptics take effort, then, to construct a discourse of opposition to all other schools, showing the fragility of each and every position in any subject. Due to the residual indecision after the suspension of the judgment, skeptics are accused of not being able to act because the epoché prevents them from making any decision, however simple it may be. However, skeptics make some recommendations on this, deviating the suspension from this scope and suggesting a maintenance of the common customs of the people to which they belong. We seek to understand, therefore, how these two apparently paradoxical aspects of the skeptical doctrine harmonize: at one side, the consequences of a corrosive discourse, always willing to highlight the present contradictions between the dogmatic affirmations; on the other, the advice of admitting and preserving their own customs and laws, even knowing them to be relative and incomplete. For that, this research covers a series of elements, ranging from the early skeptics, Greeks and Romans, to the Renaissance, Montaigne in particular, as well as a study on the main authors who raised criticisms focused on this specific problem.