Abstract
Ancient skeptics, both in the West and East, suggest their philosophy as a form of life. One reservation about living as a skeptic is that it turns us into political conformists—this is also Jonathan Ichikawa’s (2024) objection to philosophical skepticism. Skeptics take their own perspective on the world to be limited, and in this sense they will be hesitant to fully embrace a conservative ideology. But the Pyrrhonian skeptic Sextus Empiricus recommends that in their actions, skeptics will follow existing laws and common moral beliefs. In this paper, I want to develop a different conception of skepticism based on the ideas of perspectivity and naturalness in the Daoist Zhuang-Zi. A skeptic can observe that there are a multitude of equally legitimate perspectives on a subject matter, with their own being only one among them. This viewpoint diversity makes it plausible that different subjects are also different in their nature. Skeptics can opt to simply follow his or their own nature; and if they are compassionate, they can feel an urge to allow others to follow their respective nature
Recommended Citation
LOSSAU, Tammo
(2026)
DOI: https://doi.org/10.31979/2151-6014(2026).170209
"Can Skepticism be Politically Progressive? An Approach from Zhuang Zi,"
Comparative Philosophy: Vol. 17:
Iss.
2, Article 9.
Available at:
https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/comparativephilosophy/vol17/iss2/9
