Gospel & Universe 🏛 Skeptics & Stoics
Not Quite Skeptical 1
Suspension of Belief & Disbelief - Pyrrho of Elis - Deep Water
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Suspension of Belief & Disbelief
In ❤️ 3 Little Words, I’ll look at various philosophic, psychological, and poetic techniques which allow the mind to free itself from fixed ideas and stubborn dichotomies. One of the most helpful techniques — suspending judgment — has a long history, going back at least to the 4th-3rd C. BC Greek philosopher Pyrrho. I’ll begin my discussion of Pyrrho and his relation to agnosticism below, yet prior to this I’d like to note that my use of the term suspension of belief doesn’t directly derive from Pyrhho, but from Coleridge’s famous term, suspension of disbelief.
In literature suspension of disbelief is routinely applied to the reading of fiction in general, yet the passage in Coleridge’s Biographia Literaria (1817) gives it a more specific context. Coleridge encourages a “poetic faith” or suspension of disbelief when encountering a supernatural or romantic character:
…my endeavours should be directed to persons and characters supernatural, or at least romantic, yet so as to transfer from our inward nature a human interest and a semblance of truth sufficient to procure for these shadows of imagination that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith.
Just as Coleridge argues for a suspension of scientific disbelief in order to read about the supernatural, agnosticism argues for a suspension of scientific disbelief in order to consider and experience the supernatural or spiritual world investigated by religion. Agnosticism also argues for a suspension of religious belief in order to consider the natural world investigated by science. Coleridge suggests a temporary suspension, while agnostics suggest making a double suspension that’s accessible at all times, in order to explore either side at any moment.
Agnosticism not only offers us a way to get beyond the dichotomy of theism and atheism; it also allows us to explore the possibilities of each. We may of course decide to remain permanently on one side of this divide. In agnosticism there’s no compunction whatsoever to remain agnostic. Or, we may decide to go back to a general agnostic state of double suspension, knowing that we have at least explored the possibilities. We remain open to further exploration, should circumstances arise.
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Pyrrho of Elis
The only means of strengthening one’s intellect is to make up one’s mind about nothing — to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts. Not a select party. (John Keats, 1819)
Agnosticism might be defined as 1. a philosophy of doubt, 2. a conviction that we can’t be sure about the ultimate meaning of life, and 3, a belief system that lies between theism and atheism. Agnostics argue that we can’t arrive at the overall meaning of existence because 1. everything changes, including our notions of meaning, 2. we don't fully understand our brains, 3. we only understand a fraction of the universe, and 4. we can’t verify abstract ideas about metaphysics or the essence of things. In this sense, agnosticism shares a great deal with skepticism, which Chamber’s dictionary defines as “relating to the philosophical school of Pyrrho and his successors, who asserted nothing positively and doubted the possibility of knowledge.”
Whereas the skeptic (to quote Chambers again) is like the agnostic in that he is “a person who doubts prevailing doctrines, esp in religion,” the agnostic isn’t exactly “a person who tends to disbelieve,” at least not in the active sense of the atheist. Rather, the agnostic doubts and leaves it at that. He doesn’t go so far as to say he disbelieves, for that would be to conclude that belief is illusory, rather than doubtful. For the agnostic, doubt is similar, yet not the same as disbelief.
Skepticism — or Pyrrhonism, after Pyrrho, the 4th-3rd C. BC Greek philosopher — contains three sub-divisions, the first of which applies most closely to agnosticism:
Pyrrhonists can be subdivided into those who are ephectic (engaged in suspension of judgment), aporetic (engaged in refutation) or zetetic (engaged in seeking). An ephectic merely suspends judgment on a matter, "balancing perceptions and thoughts against one another." It is a less aggressive form of skepticism, in that sometimes "suspension of judgment evidently just happens to the sceptic." An aporetic skeptic, in contrast, works more actively towards their goal, engaging in the refutation of arguments in favor of various possible beliefs in order to reach aporia, an impasse, or state of perplexity, which leads to suspension of judgement. Finally, the zetetic claims to be continually searching for the truth but to have thus far been unable to find it, and thus continues to suspend belief while also searching for reason to cease the suspension of belief. (From “Pyrrhonism” in Wikipedia, Nov. 27, 2023).
Ephectic suspension of judgment is an open state of mind, a mode of critical thinking that’s crucial to agnostics. This mode of skepticism is very close to both the temporary state and the more habitual state of the agnostic. Because this is by definition a casual or temporary state, it isn’t necessary to try to maintain it, as an aim in itself. The individual is free to remain in suspension, or to shift toward or away from belief.
The other two sub-divisions of Pyrrhonism are also relevant to agnosticism, yet differ from agnosticism in subtle ways.
Agnostics may tentatively disbelieve something, yet they aren’t aporetic or searching for refutation. They don’t specifically try to refute or to confirm, although their reasonings and their testing of situations may lead to them to refute, confirm, or remain in doubt. The reason they don’t try to refute is that they don’t see suspension of belief or ataraxia — a form of release from polarities and endless debate — as an aim in itself. However, they may, like the ephectic, end up in suspension by chance. They may also find it pleasant “to float / Like Pyrrho on a sea of speculation,” as Byron puts it in Don Juan 9.18.
Agnostics are also both similar to, and different from, the zetetic who continues to search for truth in order to end the suspension of belief. Agnostics entertain the notion that there might be a truth out there which would end their search, and they’re willing to find such a truth. Yet they also entertain the idea that there’s no such truth. Again, there’s a subtle difference between Pyrrhonists and agnostics here: zetetics search “for reason to cease the suspension of belief,” yet agnostics don’t aim to end the suspension. Nor do they aim to continue it.
Agnostics don’t hold on to aims, be they to suspend judgment (ephectic), to refute belief (aporetic), or to cease suspension of judgment (zetetic). Agnostics consider suspension of judgment crucial in argument, and they are, as members of a philosophical group, in suspension between theism and atheism. Yet the notion of suspension doesn’t hinder them from engaging in new experiences and new reasons. And if these reasons and experiences lead them to refutation, to confirmation, or to continued suspension between the two, they’ll go where these reasons and experiences lead. If they remain in refutation or confirmation, they become skeptics or believers. If they come back to that suspension, they remain agnostics.
Another way of seeing the relationship between stoicism and agnosticism is in terms of the two types of agnostics I outline in Types of Agnosticism and Between Science & Religion, and also later in Unlimited Agnosticism: 1. hard, closed, restrictive, or limited and 2. soft, open, inclusive, or unlimited. Both suspend belief and disbelief (like the ephectic), yet the hard agnostic is more like the aporetic stoic who aims to refute, perhaps even to defeat arguments which claim to have reached a higher or more fundamental truth. Soft agnostics on the other hand are more like the zetetic in that they are eager and actively searching to find truth.
If one were to combine a less sporadic form of ephectic suspension with a more relaxed zetetic search for truth, one would get pretty close to the soft, open, inclusive, unlimited agnostic.
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While there are fine differences between agnostics and skeptics, they both believe that there’s no ultimate point of view and no holy book that sums up truth. In terms of language getting at truth, agnostics often use paradoxes and metaphors to express the impossibility of attaining ultimate truth — for instance, the pathless path, rivers that constantly change, oceans that contain infinity, and stars that point to the endless reaches of outer space. In this study, Gospel & Universe, I return again and again to rivers of change and oceans of infinity (especially in ♒️ A River Journey and 🧜🏽♀️ The Mermaid) and to the depths of outer space (especially in 🔭 The Sum of All Space and 🔬 Science & Mystery), arguing that in such changing and murky depths it’s impossible to construct a gospel about the ultimate meaning of existence. There may be an ultimate meaning, and there may be people or beings who have grasped this meaning, but the agnostic doubts it.
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Deep Water
The Paranà and Iguazú rivers at first seemed so charming, when I saw them from the stern of a tourist riverboat, and when I saw the white sheets falling into the lush jungle at the famous Iguazú Falls.
Yet the water didn’t look quite so charming when I looked down into it, and imagined myself down there swimming. I wondered about the relation between paranà and piranha, about how dark it would be down there, and about what would happen when it flowed into the sea.
Since the beginning of recorded history the river has symbolized change in our lives — including the change from life to death. From Gilgamesh and Heraclitus to Charon, Conrad, Eliot, and the bodies burning on the ghats of the Ganges, the symbolic power of rivers is dwarfed only by the power of the ocean — which is dwarfed only by the power of the Earth as it spins in the flow of the hundreds of billions of stars in the Milky Way — which is dwarfed only by, etc.
In the two photos below (the first I took from a plane just north of Buenos Aires), the water that flowed over the rocks in the Iguazú River flowed into the Paranà River, which flowed into the Río de la Plata, where the Paranà meets the Uruguay, and both lose their names in the 354 million cubic kilometres of the Atlantic Ocean.
