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Philosophy Then

Come Together

Peter Adamson on agreement in philosophy.

A favorite move of skeptics through the ages has been to point to the diversity of opinion among philosophers to show that there is no one truth. In fact, the original Skeptics of classical antiquity formalized this move into one of the ‘modes’ they used to undermine dogmatic belief. They introduced doubt on some issue by pointing out that people have disagreed about it – for example, although most people say that there is motion, Parmenides argues that motion is an illusion. Then they show that considerations can be adduced on both sides, ultimately yielding a stalemate

Indeed, the history of philosophy can seem to be the history of people disagreeing with one another. Almost any position you can imagine on any philosophical topic has been held by someone, and supported with arguments that they at least found plausible.

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