One of the three branches of philosophy is epistemology, otherwise know as the theory of knowledge is related to the philosophical scope and nature of knowledge. Epistemology relates to examining how the theory of nature relates to beliefs truth and justification, the three elements that make a means ‘knowledge’. Without belief, truth or justification, a thought simply cannot be known. The core of epistemology is skepticism.
The contemporary issue of partisan dealignment is extremely prevalent in recent politics. Since 1974, UK political parties have been suffering from an increase in partisan dealignment, where the electorate no longer associates themselves with a party, and decides to vote rationally on current economic and social issues. Aristotle engages with the meno problem (the question of why knowledge is more valuable than our belief), you must know the knot to untie it. He see’s skeptics as an investigator, and one anti-skeptical charge says that if a skeptic knew nothing, they wouldn’t be able to formulate the questions they investigate.
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The famous Scottish philosopher David Hume targets scepticism that tends to operate at a later stage - consequent to science and enquiry’, this uses scientifically produced results that cast doubt on our beliefs about the nature of our surroundings. Hume develops his theme of the power of human nature against abstract philosophical reasoning by indicating that ‘nature is always too strong for principle’, Hume argues that when we withdraw from the philosophy class and proceed with the ‘occupations of common life, we become solely exempt from the abstruse reasonings of the utmost sceptics, the ‘pyrrhonians’. Pyrrhonism aims at tranquility; and it assigns pride of place to appearances.
Philosophical skepticism, according to David Hume, is asking whether human beings can perceive the world around us with any degree of accuracy. Practising this school of thought means that a person initially never believes anything to be true, but at the same time, does not say everything is necessarily false; instead, he maintains a position of doubt. Ancient Greece is the home of two skeptical traditions; academic skepticism and Pyrrhonian skepticism. Academic skeptics argue that sensory impressions don’t actually enable you to know anything. Descartes developed a powerful skeptical scenario, designed to make you doubt everything, including your grasp of abstract facts. Descartes argues that the challenge of skepticism is the challenge of proving that you’re not in the hands of a deceptive demon, this is a global skeptical scenario.
Skepticism is prevalent in our society today, we feel as if we should, by a chain of reasoning, assure ourselves, presupposed from a patterned assumption cannot conceivably be disingenuous or fictitious. Hume argues that this is simply just Human nature, however, over the period of the last 100 years, human nature and society has progressed further to live in a much more atomistic and rational society. Philosophers such as Ayn rand would agree that the actions that we take are to benefit our owns selves within our community
The rise in partisan dealignment in modern day society leads us to question why society is so much more skeptic about our future, and why there is no longer any trust towards politicians, or it could be that we are moving closer to Ayn Rands idea of an atomistic society, and therefore not feeling the need to stay loyal to a party, whatever their manifesto may be. However, John Coleman argues that an indispensable question of partisan politics is to whether the mass public can be integrated and mobilised into the democratic process by political parties.
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