Skeptics and Nihilists

 

Almost everyone today who is bright and well-educated claims that Parmenides, Zeno, Protagoras, Gorgias, Pyrrho, Sextus Empiricus, Berkeley, Hume, Kant, and Hegel are serious philosophers who should be studied respectfully, carefully, and lengthily. But in fact all are foolish and lowly skeptics of reason. They doubt or deny the power of rational thought to comprehend reality. These skeptics and nihilists are all irrational, ignorant, contemptible, wicked spouters of largely empty nonsense. They use their strong minds and educations to maliciously attack nature and reality, essentially in order to destroy all understanding, knowledge, and truth. Their claims and conclusions are generally worthless, meaningless, fatuous, and absurd. They wage war on relatively innocent and good mankind by turning philosophy and reason against themselves.

But almost every person today of quality and wisdom argues that these evil clowns are "worth studying". They all "have something important to say" as they "advance human knowledge". Many relatively impressive intellectuals will even claim that these thinkers are "fun" to read and think about. But, in fact, they're a pain and misery to slog and puzzle thru. They almost invariably make one hate philosophy, and give up on truth-seeking, and the use of reason, logic, and science.

So it isn't mindless dogmatism or knee-jerk reactionism to harshly reject or furiously loath them.

People frequently point out that every now and then these deviants state the truth or have a genuine insight. But so what? That doesn't make them tolerable, decent, personally respectable, or morally upright. That doesn't make them worth the time and effort to dully struggle thru and unbeneficially semi-comprehend. That doesn't make these poor and heinous philosophers anything but what they plainly are: ridiculous and poisonous.

The fact is: pure evil doesn't exist. It can't, by nature. If it did, it would instantly destroy itself. So no philosophy or philosopher in history is ever entirely ignorant or guilty of spewing nothing but lies. Thus what these twisted demons write and teach isn't a tissue of pure fatuity and utter depravity. But so what?

Parmenides, Zeno, Protagoras, Gorgias, Pyrrho, Sextus Empiricus, Berkeley, Hume, Kant, and Hegel come close. They are the enemies of reason, understanding, truth, greatness, nobility, health, prosperity, and happiness. They need to be seen as the destroyers and monsters that they are.