TèchnoSophìa 6.3 The Skeptics: The Suspension of Progres

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The Skeptics, from Pyrrho to Sextus Empiricus, radically question the very possibility that the human mind, or its technical instruments of validation, can grasp the ultimate truth of things. Faced with the proliferation of dogmatic theories (and, we might say today, of definitive technological "solutions"), the Skeptic activates Epoché: the suspension of judgment.

Such suspension proves effective when it is not limited to passive ignorance, which allows for no evolution of thought. Epoché is a technique of active arrest; it is the refusal to assent to any dogma that claims to explain the invisible or the absolute. The Skeptic observes that for every powerful thesis, there exists an opposing thesis of equal force (isostheneia). This attitude is the perfect antidote to techno-solutionism—the blind faith that for every human problem, there exists a tool capable of solving it.

The Skeptics live by following phenomena (phainomena)—laws and customs—but they do so without belief, much like following a useful convention. They use téchne in a purely instrumental way, rejecting the ideological narrative that accompanies it. This position introduces an epistemological critique of technocracy. If absolute truth is inaccessible, then no predictive model, no AI, can claim to be an oracle. They are merely probabilistic tools, useful (or likely indispensable) for navigating appearances, but fallible if mistaken for reality. Sextus Empiricus attacks mathematicians (understood as dogmatic theorists) precisely because they build logical castles that detach from lived life. Today, the Skeptical critique could be directed at the "black boxes" of artificial intelligence—networks that produce results but not necessarily truth.

Skepticism can be described as a form of intellectual hygiene against technical absolutism. It allows us to use the tools of our time without being possessed by them, maintaining that mental flexibility which the dogmatist—he who has totally espoused an operating system, a platform, or an ideology of progress—has fatally lost. The objective remains, once again, ataraxia: the peace of one who has no need to always be right, nor to possess the latest model of reality to feel secure.