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By Root 769 0

recognized it as a part of a larger problem of how skeptics can do much of anything given their outlook on belief and knowledge. Non-skeptics thought Pyrrhonian suspension of judgment would lead a person to completely stop doing anything. Most non-skeptics, both in Sextus’s day and our own, assume that there is some kind of connection between belief or knowledge and action. Having a particular belief or bit of knowledge seems to cause you to act in a certain way. For instance, your belief that Stephen’s adopted eagle son, Stephen, Jr., has flown to Canada might cause you to stand on the border in Bellingham, Washington waving salmon to entice Stephen, Jr. back to America. If we trust Sextus when he tells us Pyrrhonian skeptics have no beliefs, it’s hard to see why skeptics would do anything at all.

Sextus responds to this objection by pointing out that skeptics do have a standard for action: appearances. Skeptics may not have anything like firm convictions or strong opinions about how things really are, but they do have a way things appear to them, and these appearances are enough to go on. It might appear to Pyrrhonians that Stephen, Jr. has flown to Canada, based on data from the San Francisco Zoo, but if you ask Pyrrhonians a more robust question, “Did Stephen, Jr. really go to Canada?” they will respond by suspending judgment. To pick one side or the other on the question of whether Stephen, Jr. really did go to Canada or not would create mental disturbance, while going along with your appearances, not holding on to any of them too tightly, is a perfectly good way to go through life as a happy Pyrrhonist. A Pyrrhonist may well go to the border to lure Stephen, Jr. back to America by waving a salmon, but a Pyrrhonist will not be disappointed if Stephen, Jr. doesn’t show up. A Pyrrhonist will shrug, say, “Oh well,” and move on to the next appearance.

Concerning politics, non-skeptics thought that if a tyrant tried to compel Pyrrhonians to do something despicable and unjust, the Pyrrhonists would not be able to resist. Sextus says that skeptics may well resist the tyrant on the basis of their appearances and their political customs; in fact, skeptics will be able to withstand suffering and cruelty at the hands of a tyrant better than most people, since skeptics will not feel resentment when comparing their treatment to the way things really are or really should be. So, skeptics surely can act politically, but they do so non-dogmatically by going with their appearances and following political customs.110

Truthiness of the Appearances

But what does truthiness have to do with all this? If I’m right (and my gut tells me I am), truthiness is a reaction to political skepticism, which is no doubt why the back cover of The Best of The Colbert Report DVD claims, “In this age of skepticism and not getting it, Americans want the truth … iness.” Truthiness allows us to recognize that we can’t really be sure of anything, but we can nonetheless be committed to a political position. Sextus talks about “following the appearances”; Stephen could talk about “truthiness of the appearances,” in this case, the appearances of the gut. Where facts cannot lead you, allow your gut to be your guide. This is all you need.

Consider the political debate about whether creationism should be taught in public school science classes. Stephen tells evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, “If I just think that God just did it, that I can understand.”111 Your head might tell you that there’s evidence for evolution and elitist biology textbooks might even call evolution a fact, but doesn’t it feel right—in the gut—that the world and all of its species must’ve been created by God less than ten thousand years ago in exactly the way they exist now? This is certainly a lot easier, since your gut is a portable reference source (it’s always with you!) and doesn’t require elitist things like study and education.

Or consider immigration. If you think about it with your head, it’s extremely complicated. Most Americans are the descendents of immigrants