About Skepticism

[anthony]

It has received some attention lately, which got me thinking more about it.

Some are quite painful insights for me, having been skeptical/agnostic for

a period of my life, way back when... I've also conversed with self-appointed skeptics I know personally.

What psychology, psycho-epistemology and cognition take one to this position,

and what is the outcome of it on oneself? I've wondered, but can't answer completely.

The base cause of skepticism is a string of fallacies: Man does not know everything. Man cannot know everything. I cannot know everything. Who am I to know anything at all?

Who am I to act on what I am not certain of? (Who am I?)

Enter Rand, with her concept-building and knowledge-formation: We are never omniscient, individually or as species, but we must act according to the

full extent of what we know - right now. If - when - that knowledge faces new knowledge, we each bear the responsibility of integrating it into previous concepts. If the two don't fit, then one of the two is wrong, and something must be discarded.

(Roughly summarized.)

Skepticism is cognitive and evaluative paralysis.

It is non-egoist and comformative, in that one can never hold an original thought which has not been ratified and passed by some authority or collective.

It is mental laziness, in that it implies that if one can't receive all knowledge in one lump sum, well then, why bother to start?

It is timidity in cognition and action: never making a stand on one's convictions, since who knows what might be discovered tomorrow? Which becomes outright fear, eventually.

It's cynically anti-intellectual in that it shows to the world that one is much

too "clever" to fall for any ideology.

The marvellous thing about being wrong, is that one won't stay there long.

Reality will take care of that, if one's corrective thinking doesn't.

"The man who is wrong still retains some respect for the truth."[AR]

And, some respect for himself, probably.

Skepticism is nihilistic, self-abnegating and self-ironic.

I think its philosophic consequence is post-modernism. (Or is it post-post-

modernism, now?)

[Selene]

Tony:

Now that is a very interesting approach that you have laid out.

I have "struggled" with skepticism also.

Well worth thinking about. Thanks.

Adam

recovering skeptic

[Guyau]

Yes, Tony. This is an excellent topic.

Here are some remarks on agnosticism from Nathaniel Branden in his 1960’s lectures The Basic Principles of Objectivism, as transcribed in The Vision of Ayn Rand. His remarks are around the issue of belief in the existence of God, but they would also apply to another belief of importance: belief that oneself and one’s loved ones will not end at death.

Remember that no theist has ever been able to adduce evidence in support of his belief in God, that all the theist’s alleged proofs . . . have been refuted by philosophers many times; that no theist has succeeded even in providing an intelligible and non-contradictory definition of what he means by “God” and that, as a consequence, one can believe in God only as an act of faith. Faith is the acceptance of ideas without sensory evidence or rational proof.

A man of reason does not accept ideas on faith. . . . His position is this: “I accept or consider only that for which there is rational evidence. . . .”

. . . The atheist, in the absence of rational grounds for believing in God, does not believe in God. . . .

. . . Consider the argument that the agnostic offers in self-justification. He states, in effect: granted that the existence of God cannot be proved, neither can it be disproved. One cannot prove that God does not exist. All we can say is that we do not know whether or not God exists, and perhaps we can never know. . . .

. . . An agnostic does not distinguish between, but, rather, he treats as equally valid, an atheist’s demand for reasons and a theist’s assertion of his feelings. . . .

. . .

. . . In the pursuit of knowledge, there is no place for whims. Every claim, statement, or proposition has to be based on the facts of reality. Nothing may be claimed causelessly, groundlessly, arbitrarily.

Even a hypothesis has to have some factual basis, some factual evidence indicating that it might be true. A hypothesis based on nothing but a blind guess is not admissible into rational consideration. Reason deals only with that which exists. . . . Rational demonstration—an appeal to facts—is necessary to support even the claim that a thing is possible. It is a breach of logic to assert that that which has not been proven to be impossible is, therefore, possible. . . .

The theist believes in the existence of God without reason. The agnostic believes in the possibility of God’s existence without reason. . . .

. . . The agnostic grants respectful consideration to the assertion of God’s existence, not because he has any rational grounds for doing so, but—usually—because millions of people profess theism, and he dreads to assume the responsibility of judging them as entirely wrong.

When a person makes an assertion for which no rational grounds are given, his statement is—epistemologically speaking—without cognitive content. It is as though nothing had been said. This is equally true if the assertion is made by two billion people. (107–10; also in The Objectivist Newsletter, April 1963)

[anthony]

Thanks Adam,

I don't believe anything goes to total waste in life - for what happened then,

and what one can learn from it,now - but that is one time I regret, somewhat.

I suppose skepticism will affect us each in different ways, and for me it was a

kind of 'freezing' in expression, and of my capabilities - and an amount

of hedonistic behavior. There wasn't much I gave a damn for, for a while.

Nathaniel's books helped turn me round. (I then revived my earlier

conviction/enthusiasm for O'ism.)

Tony

[anthony]

Stephen,

Yes, indeed, an eternally valid and fitting commentary by NB.

I first thought it coincidence that we have both referred to

him in this context (and at the same time) but like they say, there

is no such thing as coincidence!

Thanks for posting it.

[Mikkel]

Well, you asked whYNOT.

So here is the answer, as skeptics go we are as different as Christians are different. We have one thing in common, we use doubt, falsification, Agrippa's trilemma and/or reductio ad absurdum.

We [scientists] wouldn't know truth if it jumped up and bit us in the ass. We're probably fairly good at recognizing what's false, and that's what science does on a day-to-day basis, but we can't claim to identify truth.

Dr. Steven M. Holland, University of Georgia Geology Professor

He is one kind of skeptic, but he shows the core trait of a skeptic; i.e. a skeptic doesn't learn by what goes right, but what goes wrong.

Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in "A Scandal in Bohemia", spoken by the character Sherlock Holmes

So skeptics don't go for truth, we go for false and what is left is the truth.

Example: How to arrive at "I don't know that I exist".

1. If my brain can't misrepresent (hallucinate), but I can misrepresent, then I am ontologically different from my brain. I.e. ontological dualism or idealism. If dualism then I am different from the rest of reality as down to the level of existence exists, so how can I interact with reality; i.e false so that is not the case. If ontological idealism as its strongest, strong ontological solipsism, then I am the only thing that exists. That is easy to test, just try with your mind to change the monitor in front of you into something else. That can't be done, so there exists something else than me or you and that is normally called objective. That which we can't change simply by changing our minds/brains about it. So to sum up part one, you can accept that you misrepresent means that your brain can misrepresent or in general abstract terms; the brain as a part of the primacy of existence and existence exists can be "wrong", "false" or what ever you want to label that.
   
2. So from the specific, the brain, to the general question. I.e. René Descartes, Bertrand Russell's five minute hypothesis and Hillary Putnam's brain in a vat rolled into one! How do you that that you are not a computer simulation started five minutes ago and that you will be turned off in five minutes?
   
3. "I don't know that I exist" means that I don't know that I exist as one to one with the rest of reality, i.e. identity is not one to one identification, because Ayn Rand didn't solve that one with - I can misrepresent, but my brain can't.
   

The cosmological principle is usually stated formally as 'Viewed on a sufficiently large scale, the properties of the Universe are the same for all observers.' This amounts to the strongly philosophical statement that the part of the Universe which we can see is a fair sample, and that the same physical laws apply throughout. In essence, this in a sense says that the Universe is knowable and is playing fair with scientists.

William C. Keel (2007). The Road to Galaxy Formation (2nd ed.). Springer-Praxis. ISBN 978-3-540-72534-3.. p. 2.

My bold. So "In essence, this in a sense says that the Universe is knowable and is playing fair with scientists" means it is taken for granted that we, humans, are not in a computer simulation started five minutes ago and it will be turned of in five minutes.

An axiom is a statement that identifies the base of knowledge and of any further statement pertaining to that knowledge, a statement necessarily contained in all others, whether any particular speaker chooses to identify it or not. An axiom is a proposition that defeats its opponents by the fact that they have to accept it and use it in the process of any attempt to deny it.

http://aynrandlexico...ms.html#order_1

An axiom is a statement that identifies the base of what is taken for granted and of any further statement pertaining to what is taken for granted, a statement necessarily contained in all others, whether any particular speaker chooses to identify it or not. An axiom is a proposition that defeats its opponents by the fact that they have to accept it and use it in the process of any attempt to deny it.

Now it means,

• since you are not the universe (ontological solipsism) nor disconnected from it (ontological dualism)
  
• then I/you/he/she misrepresent means the universe can misrepresent at the core level
  
• thus I don't know that I exist as one to one as per identity is identification.
  

With regards

Mikkel

[Selene]

"...coincidence!"

My two (2) favorite statements, or quotes on "coincidence" are:

Coincidence, if traced back far enough, becomes inevitable. Sanskrit etched in a Hindu Temple...

Coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous.

Albert Einstein

[Xray]

Here are some remarks on agnosticism from Nathaniel Branden in his 1960’s lectures The Basic Principles of Objectivism, as transcribed in The Vision of Ayn Rand. <...>

[N.Branden]:

. . Consider the argument that the agnostic offers in self-justification. He states, in effect: granted that the existence of God cannot be proved, neither can it be disproved. One cannot prove that God does not exist. All we can say is that we do not know whether or not God exists, and perhaps we can never know. . . .

It is no "self-justification" but a simple truth: we do not know whether or not a god exists.

N.Branden:

. . An agnostic does not distinguish between, but, rather, he treats as equally valid, an atheist’s demand for reasons and a theist’s assertion of his feelings. . .

As an agnostic, I don't agree with NB's assessment. For being an agnostic does not mean that one accepts accept as "equally valid" all kinds of assertions by either side.

[Dennis Hardin]

Here are some remarks on agnosticism from Nathaniel Branden in his 1960’s lectures The Basic Principles of Objectivism, as transcribed in The Vision of Ayn Rand.. .

. . .

. . . In the pursuit of knowledge, there is no place for whims. Every claim, statement, or proposition has to be based on the facts of reality. Nothing may be claimed causelessly, groundlessly, arbitrarily.

Even a hypothesis has to have some factual basis, some factual evidence indicating that it might be true. A hypothesis based on nothing but a blind guess is not admissible into rational consideration. Reason deals only with that which exists. . . . Rational demonstration—an appeal to facts—is necessary to support even the claim that a thing is possible. It is a breach of logic to assert that that which has not been proven to be impossible is, therefore, possible. . . .

When a person makes an assertion for which no rational grounds are given, his statement is—epistemologically speaking—without cognitive content. It is as though nothing had been said. This is equally true if the assertion is made by two billion people. (107–10; also in The Objectivist Newsletter, April 1963)

That's Nathaniel Branden talking? How interesting. These are exactly the same words (or very close to it) which Peikoff uses to justify his proclamations regarding the epistemological status of the "arbitrary."

Does Peikoff know he's parroting Branden?

[anthony]

Here are some remarks on agnosticism from Nathaniel Branden in his 1960’s lectures The Basic Principles of Objectivism, as transcribed in The Vision of Ayn Rand. <...>

[N.Branden]:

. . Consider the argument that the agnostic offers in self-justification. He states, in effect: granted that the existence of God cannot be proved, neither can it be disproved. One cannot prove that God does not exist. All we can say is that we do not know whether or not God exists, and perhaps we can never know. . . .

It is no "self-justification" but a simple truth: we do not know whether or not a god exists.

N.Branden:

. . An agnostic does not distinguish between, but, rather, he treats as equally valid, an atheist’s demand for reasons and a theist’s assertion of his feelings. . .

As an agnostic, I don't agree with NB's assessment. For being an agnostic does not mean that one accepts accept as "equally valid" all kinds of assertions by either side.

Angela,

"God" is a metaphysical concept - for atheist and believer, both -

leaving the only valid polarizing question: is it a 'given', or is it man-made?

Empirical proof will never be forthcoming - but contradictorily, as agnostic,

one keeps searching for a definite Yes! or a definite No!

Which requires 'Divine Revelation' - both ways. (In essence, don't you agree?)

Literally, and concretely: "show me You don't exist", or "show me You do".

After time, the assertive enquiries: yes-or-no? true-or-false? become replaced by a hesitant 'maybe'...'maybe not'. As this range narrows and rigidifies, so does I think the intellect and mentality. (Which is inductive conjecture on my part. I'm certainly not going to try to prove that agnosticism makes anyone dumb!)

So, it's a solid impasse which will, self-evidently, never be resolved empirically.

Personally, my solution was psycho-epistemological by nature(I guess, not knowing what that meant then) more than anything else. The nagging question: Can I live in this uncertainty, always? Do I trust my mind, or can I never? demanded an answer, which I found in another question: It's not so much - Does God exist? But: can one share one's mind with the concept of God?

This is an invasive tyrant - this 'God-Concept' - and I think the only sane response

is a private Declaration of Independence from it. For me, the liberation was exquisite.

( A: Just a personal perspective, and I trust it will not appear presumptuous.)

[Dglgmut]

Well, skepticism traditionally means that you go against unproven claims. Society's opinion is not enough to prove a real skeptic. In fact, skepticism is why there is objectivism in the first place. If Rand and those who helped her advance her philosophy believed everything that the public accepted as truth, there would not be this alternative.

A real skeptic is true to himself and keeps a self-correcting mindset like you explained in the bottom part of your post.

[syrakusos]

I agree with Mikkel above that "skepticism" enbraces a range of assumptions and claims. Pyrrho ("Pyrrhus" in Latinized form) founded the philosophy c. 300 BCE. He doubted everything and began sentences with "It seems..." But at root, SKEP only means "to see" because the skeptic demands evidence. Thus, two thousand years later - that's a long time - Robert Boyle wrote The Skeptical Chymist in which he said on page one that experiments must be open to replication. Alchemists hid their processes and just displayed marvelous results. Chemists, said Boyle, explain their processes. Even today, while it is true (as the post modernists claim about physics) that replicating experiments is not how scientists 'really" work, in fact, chemists do replicate the works of others because they seek new tools for their own production. (See The Same and not the Same by Roald Hoffmann, a popular apology for chemistry by a Nobel laureate.)

whYNOT is correct that largely skepticism is a dead end, the denial of knowledge, certainly, as a philosophical school, skepticism is not helpful. However, in our time, in the tradition of Boyle, the Skeptical Inquirer (see here) continues to expose frauds and ask basic questions about extraordinary claims.

That said, though, within that website are facile declarations against interesting ideas simply because the CSI found straw men to whack. For example, I happen to believe that Old World contact with America is evidetiary. Indpendent of the Vikings and long before Columbus people from Europe and Africa and likely also the Pacific came to America. The evidence exists, deny it if you wish. But not every claim for this is evidentiary or logically consistent. CSI only carps on the easy pickings.

Be that as it may, though, skepticism - wanting to see evidence - is not the end of all reason or the abandonment of reality, though, of course, you can find skeptics who claim the impossibility of knowledge and you can refute those claims, sort of being skeptical about skepticism, if you will..

[anthony]

A bit belatedly, it's right that I point out that my knowledge of

skepticism and my explication of it are all derived from basic Objectivism.

I am not, and never claim to be, a well-rounded philosophical scholar. One who has studied skepticism in isolation, from a formal perspective..

Yes, as Mikkel has me know, there's more to Skeptics than meets the eye.

Rightly, Michael and Calvin point out, skepticism is also a methodology.

Rand viewed it at its deepest level: as a philosophical doctrine, and that is

my view too.

Writing of O'ist cognition, in ITOE: "[Man] needs a method of cognition,

which he himself has to discover.[...]Two questions are involved...What do

I know? - and: How do I know it?"

"It is the task of epistemology to provide the answer to the "How" - which

then enables the special sciences to provide the answers to the "What?"[...]

Men have been taught that either knowledge is impossible (skepticism) or that

it is available without effort (mysticism). These two positions appear to be

antagonists, but are, in fact, two variants on the same theme...the attempt to

escape the responsibility of rational cognition, and the absolutism of reality -

the attempt to assert the primacy of consciousness over existence." [...]

"Philosophically, the mystic is usually an exponent of the INTRINSIC (revealed) school of epistemology; the skeptic is a disillusioned intrinsicist who, having failed to find automatic supernatural guidance, seeks a substitute in the collective subjectivism of others." [Consciousness and Identity]

************

So, any ex-religious people you know who now consider themselves skeptics?

I've known several.

More to the point, Rand saw skepticism as a branch of subjectivism.

Calvin had it more accurately than even he may have known: "In fact, skepticism is why there is Objectivism in the first place."

Well said.

[BaalChatzaf]

I thought skepticism was the exercise of careful and critical thinking. The root word in Greek to to look things over before deciding.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Selene]

Bob, et. al., this is from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

"Much of epistemology has arisen either in defense of, or in opposition to, various forms of skepticism. Indeed, one could classify various theories of knowledge by their responses to skepticism. For example, rationalists could be viewed as skeptical about the possibility of empirical knowledge while not being skeptical with regard to a priori knowledge and empiricists could be seen as skeptical about the possibility of a priori knowledge but not so with regard to empirical knowledge. In addition, views about many traditional philosophical problems, e.g., the problem of other minds or the problem of induction, can be seen as restricted forms of skepticism that hold that we cannot have knowledge of any propositions in some particular domain

normally thought to be within our ken. This essay will focus on the general forms of skepticism that question our knowledge in many, if not all, domains in which we ordinarily think knowledge is possible. Although this essay will consider some aspects of the history of philosophical skepticism, the general forms of skepticism to be discussed are those which contemporary philosophers still find the most interesting."

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/skepticism/

I am not sure we are all discussing the same definition/concept.

Adam

[william.scherk]

I am not sure we are all discussing the same definition/concept.

I recommend definitional molasses.

Actually, the last post faces us with the operation of knowledge, its workaday world of reality-testing. The skeptical question is handy and useful to all stages of the scientific endeavor, whatever its stripe. Always welcome is How Do You Know, and of great interest are the limits, the edges of our knowledge enterprises. Some areas are still under heavy fog, but like the face of Venus can yet tell of things that stir in darkness. In darkness we need most the probing questions, and the memory of the correct answers. Whether why how or when, we base our lives on the answers.

Skeptical operations moved in me the first time I asked, "How do you know?" and the same key question opened further doors to inquiry.

Toss out all concepts of skepticism as a thing and a club. Instead think of it in action, questioning.

Funniest skeptical story I have to tell is of a heated argument at SOLO where the guy with no hair was telling me that skeptics (pace the ancients) believe in nothing and that no knowledge is possible. I countered that Kiwi skeptics were meeting in congress in Auckland and was he going? He did not get back to me. Sunk away into the molasses, no doubt. As if.

+++++++++++++++

Skeptical Inquirer is a publication of the CSI conglomerate, which operates Centers (and Centres) for Inquiry internationally out of its headquarters in upstate New York. All those old CSI stalwarts are in cahoots with other arch-skeptics, from Dawkins to Randi to Hitchens, and via friendly association with the other Skeptic (magazine) run by Michael Shermer and Free Inquiry magazine, and Skeptic's publishing cohort Prometheus Books. A budget and reach far beyond ARI is CSI, but off the radar. In the molasses they sometimes dip, but most are far too busy dealing with the (north) American landscape for rational thought and education.

Although the Sasquatch never dies, some of the old stalwarts do, as the (north) American and international skeptical movement turns over the generations, which is why Skeptical Inquirer is still good reading. If a tiresome ghostbusting story, you will also get a rant from Massimo Pigliucci, or a feature from Carol Tavris.

Skeptic is also a good read and contains Junior Skeptic, which is superb -- recommended to any Objectivish parent.

Together the skeptic cronies keep it all together on the international active rationality front, believing yet in something, despite the guy with no hair and his cove of ignorance in New Zealand. Keeping an eye out for bullshit is the watchword there in the skeptic world today, though said more nicely in SI and Skeptic than at places like Pharyngula or SGU (wildly popular Skeptic's Guide To The Universe, also affiliated with the cronies young and old).

Mythbusters! and natural allies of Objectivish currents of thought.

Edited May 27, 2012 by william.scherk

[anthony]

Adam,

Very helpful - thanks for that.

"...within our ken". ha, lovely old Scots word I haven't heard for years.

The distinction is skepticism, as methodology, (in honor of Ba'al, no more

"qua"-s)

AND, Skepticism as philosophy.

For any disgruntled skeptics, it should be made clear that Rand (and me, here)

had less interest in methods of scientific enquiry - those, after all, are self-evidentiary, and prime interest in the influential schools of thought.

(As she should.)

Objectively, Skepticism is a higher concept than skepticism.

How come the first expanded from the second, and what common denominators they share,

is beyond my ken.

Interesting, though, that exactly the same problem has come up with

Empiricism vs empirical method as Michael Marotta and I have raised.

[Mikkel]

Hi all.

As pointed out skepticism is a multi-level methodology and it always involves back to Agrippa's trilemma the following approach: How do I or you know that? In general terms: How is it known? In other words skeptics ought to be able to always use epistemology on everything including metaphysics.

So here it is in my words and some of it will resemble AR's thoughts, but not all. Metaphysics is the meta-cognitive abstraction of all particulars into the most general concepts. I.e. existence exists means for the set of all cases of A is A for all times and all senses all cases have the following in common: They are all known by having at least one sense, property or what ever. In practice any case of A is A have many properties: It is at a given time, location and configuration of energy/matter.

But there is "a snake in paradise". It has to do with difference between that something is and something is known that it is. So here enter the primacy of existence vs. the primacy of consciousness. That I or you are aware of something is not what makes it exists and that includes the case of self-reference: For the case that you are aware of that you are aware, is not so because it is awareness that makes it so. It is so because you exist with the property/faculty of awareness.

So here is the problem of the switched worlds and it is the core philosophical problem. It has two solutions; the dogmatic assertion that it is not so and the skeptical assertion that is not knowledgeable. The problem is this: If it is not so that it is so that it is the fact I know which makes so (the primacy of consciousness) then how do I that I exist as I know it. Yes, that is absurd at some level but here it is as already stated here: http://www.objectivistliving.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=12141entry163594

In short and it goes back to Réne Descartes; I know that something knows that it knows something; i.e. the general abstraction down to the level of metaphysics for what awareness is as part of existence exists, but the moment we switch to epistemology then I don't know that I or anything else exist as per ontological/epistemological realism.

That was a fucking lot of words for:

I agree with Mikkel above that "skepticism" enbraces a range of assumptions and claims. Pyrrho ("Pyrrhus" in Latinized form) founded the philosophy c. 300 BCE. He doubted everything and began sentences with "It seems..." But at root, SKEP only means "to see" because the skeptic demands evidence. ...

In other words I as a Pyrrhonian skeptic don't doubt everything exists, I just doubt what it means to say I know. And I properly ought to start every claim I make with "It seems..." or "I take for granted that...", but I don't, except when we do philosophy as here.

So to whether skeptics are subjective? Yes, we are subjective in that we start with "I know", but go objective on that as without bias and without taking to much for granted and ask "What am that "I" if reality is objective?"

With regards

Mikkel

[anthony]

Mikkel,

"I know" is not a subjective declaration: in my mind it's as objective

as one can be. It implies that "I" am as much an existent as anything which

exists, and "I" possess the existent of consciousness.

And what does "I" know?

To put the statement "I know" in Objectivist terms: "There IS (existence)

SOMETHING (identity) of which I AM AWARE. (consciousness.)"

A question: What does the skeptic think of induction?

It is my impression from dialogue with skeptics, that they think 1. Knowledge is

"out there", to only be proven by the authentic experts - and only after exhaustive testing then available, or of value, to one. 2. That which one induces from personal observation is of zero, or little value to one, and cannot be acted upon.

(E.g. an agnostic, one who refuses to proceed upon the knowledge that he has induced, with overwhelming self-evidence - that God does not exist - clinging to the miniscule possibility that He does.)

Those are the reasons for my thinking that Skepticism, (as philosophy) is authoritarian, collectivist and immobilized.

Thanks for your input,

Tony

[jts]

A psychologist and a chemist and a mathematician were travelling in a train in France. From the window they saw a black sheep in a farmer's field.

The psychologist said: All sheep in France are black.

The chemist said: Some sheep in France are black.

The mathematician said: There exists in France at least one field in which there is at least one sheep at least one side of which is black.

[Selene]

A psychologist and a chemist and a mathematician were travelling in a train in France. From the window they saw a black sheep in a farmer's field.

The psychologist said: All sheep in France are black.

The chemist said: Some sheep in France are black.

The mathematician said: There exists in France at least one field in which there is at least one sheep at least one side of which is black.

And then the citizen from Texas sitting behind behind them took out his pistol and shot the mathematician in the head! Moral of the story is keep philosophical musings to yourself and away from public conveyances.

[Mikkel]

A German, French and Scottish philosopher were commissioned to write a book about the giraffe.

• The German locked himself into the university library and when he came out he had written the monumental work - Die Giraffe an sich.
  
• The French went to the zoo and looked at the giraffes and wrote the essay - My impressions of the giraffe.
  
• The Scottish one equipped an expedition and went out into the empirical reality to observe giraffes - He is still out there.
  

[Xray]

More to the point, Rand saw skepticism as a branch of subjectivism.

This would then be a form of extreme skepticism where it is claimed that everything and everyone is to be doubted. But this premise would include the skeptic doubting his own claim as well.

But labeling skepticism exclusively under this extreme form disregrads the contextuality of skepticism ("Skepticism about what?)

For, as CalvIn (in the post quoted below) has pointed out, one can very well be skeptical about e. g. unproven claims, unverified assertions, etc. without being a subjectivist:

. Well, skepticism traditionally means that you go against unproven claims. Society's opinion is not enough to prove a real skeptic. In fact, skepticism is why there is objectivism in the first place. If Rand and those who helped her advance her philosophy believed everything that the public accepted as truth, there would not be this alternative.

A real skeptic is true to himself and keeps a self-correcting mindset like you explained in the bottom part of your post.

Calvin had it more accurately than even he may have known: "In fact, skepticism is why there is Objectivism in the first place."

Well said.

Well said indeed.

[Xray]

"God" is a metaphysical concept - for atheist and believer, both -

leaving the only valid polarizing question: is it a 'given', or is it man-made?

Empirical proof will never be forthcoming - but contradictorily, as agnostic,

one keeps searching for a definite Yes! or a definite No!

Being an agnostic does not imply searching for a definite answer.

What it can imply though is refuting tenets of religious beliefs that have been exposed as false (like e. g. the claim that the world was created in seven days).

The reason why I wrote "can" imply is because there also exist agnostics who are just not interested enough in religion to get into any discussions about it.

Literally, and concretely: "show me You don't exist", or "show me You do".

It is more theists and atheists than agnostics who tend to get into this kind of debate.

Personally, my solution was psycho-epistemological by nature(I guess, not knowing what that meant then) more than anything else. The nagging question: Can I live in this uncertainty, always? Do I trust my mind, or can I never? demanded an answer, which I found in another question: It's not so much - Does God exist? But: can one share one's mind with the concept of God?

This is an invasive tyrant - this 'God-Concept' - and I think the only sane response

is a private Declaration of Independence from it. For me, the liberation was exquisite.

( A: Just a personal perspective, and I trust it will not appear presumptuous.)

It does not appear presumptuous at all to me, Tony. It is an impressive description of where your philosophical journey has lead you.

[anthony]

A German, French and Scottish philosopher were commissioned to write a book about the giraffe.

• The German locked himself into the university library and when he came out he had written the monumental work - Die Giraffe an sich.
  
• The French went to the zoo and looked at the giraffes and wrote the essay - My impressions of the giraffe.
  
• The Scottish one equipped an expedition and went out into the empirical reality to observe giraffes - He is still out there.
  

Nice one. The Rationalist, the Impressionist, and the Empiricist. Heh.

(And the skepticist says - "Giraffe? What is 'giraffe'? Prove to me it exists!")