Aristotle on Metaphysics(2004) - Bibotu.com

PHENOMENALISM AND RELATIVISM 175apparently we cannot know whether the wine itself really is sweet or notsweet, still we need not conclude that the wine is at once sweet and notsweet (i.e. the conclusion required by phenomenalism). For we mayinstead conclude that the wine itself is either sweet or not sweet, but notboth; but that apparently we cannot know which it is. In general, supposewe think that sense perceptions and beliefs conflict, and that apparently wecannot resolve such conflicts. From these two claims we may conclude notthat all sense perceptions and all beliefs are true (i.e. phenomenalism), butrather that although, at most, some sense perceptions and beliefs are true,apparently we cannot know which are true and which are not. So we mayrather conclude that:4. The truth is hidden from us or not evident to us.(See 1009 b 9–12 for this claim. The term adēlon here may mean either‘hidden’ or, what is more likely, ‘not evident’.) We may naturally call thisclaim ‘scepticism’, i.e. the claim that:5. Things have certain qualities as opposed to others (they are thusand so, as opposed to not thus and so), but apparently wecannot know what qualities they have. (=scepticism)So the point is that claims 2 and 3 need not generate phenomenalism, forthey may instead generate scepticism. In other words:6. (2 and 3) entails either phenomenalism or scepticism.This line of argument in support of scepticism, we may note, becameespecially prominent much later in ancient scepticism, and in particular inthe synthesis and summary of scepticism that we find in the sceptic SextusEmpiricus (second century AD). For it became standard for the ancientsceptics to argue that because appearances and beliefs conflict, and becauseapparently there is no way of resolving such conflict, we should ceasemaking claims about how things really are and should limit ourselves toreporting how things appear to us—we should suspend judgement aboutthe things themselves (epechein, hence epochē, ‘to suspend judgement’).(See Annas and Barnes 1985 for a good introduction to ancientscepticism, and especially for this argument in support of scepticism: theargument from conflicting appearances and in general conflicting beliefs.)For our present purpose, however, it is important carefully todistinguish scepticism from phenomenalism and relativism. Scepticism