Scepticism

My thinking about scepticism has been very much 'native' or naive up to now.  If anything it had its start in Zhuangzi's dream of a butterfly (conversely the butterfly's dream of Zhuangzi dreaming of the butterfly) and was led down the path of IT incertitude to Hume.  Now I find - admittedly with some satisfaction - that I appear to have washed up quite some time ago at a known location - 'Constructive Scepticism'.  Hookway suggests Mersenne and Gassendi (and John Wilkins) had a something to say on this in the 1500's.  Best way I can put it at the moment is that it is disbelief in the possibility of belief tempered by a notion that there is some utility in 'theories' as long as one doesn't put too much faith in them.  So it is reasonable to plants crops today on the assumption that the sun will rise tomorrow, but foolish to assert that it 'must' rise.  Hookway observes that the problem of scepticism is how to live in the world in a manner consistent with it.  Pyrrhonists (100BC or so) supposedly disregarded speculation and enquiry into 'anything' as futile and lived quiet tranquil lives by following natural paths rather than principles etc.  Other's argued that one's view of what was a 'natural path' is in itself a belief system (take for example the mumbo jumbo that hippies carry on with), but Hookway suggests that Pyrrhonists were awake to this.  Here it comes around to the mountains are mountains at the beginning and end parable (Chinese Zen) - echoed in Hookways's observation that the 'problems of scepticism' are really only a problem to folk who (used to) think too much (and that scepticism was largely a reaction to overly rational philosophy).  Living naturally could be achieved most easily in a rural setting where the cycles of nature made themselves 'evident' and the behaviour of plants and animals followed natural paths presumably without the benefit or hinderance of philosophy.  Constructive scepticism sits more comfortably in the 'modern' complex world where one is surrounded by (and dependent (?) upon) systems and ideas (food is a 'process' and a 'concept' as much as it is a 'thing').  Whereas a purist sceptic couldn't but see the absurdity in a mortgage, the constructive sceptic balances out the utility of it against the enslavement that (he/she knows) lies behind it. Even so, the parable of the bum who left the beach to make a fortune so that he could finally retire (to the beach) comes to mind...