Skepticism as a Way of Life - Livestream

When people talk about “scientific skepticism,” certain names almost inevitably arise: David Hume, Carl Sagan, and (of course) CSI. But its lineage dates back to 44 BCE, when the first systematic attempt to separate genuine inquiry from nonsense - and to give ordinary people the tools for doing it themselves - was written by the Roman lawyer, statesman, and philosopher Marcus Tullius Cicero. 

Cicero’s De Divinatione (On Divination) dismantles astrology, dream interpretation, augury, and portent-reading using arguments that any modern skeptic would recognize: absent causal mechanisms, cherry-picked hits, unfalsifiable vagueness, mutually incompatible traditions that cannot all be right. 

Join us for a Skeptical Inquirer Presents livestream with CSI Fellow Massimo Pigliucci. He’ll discuss recovering Cicero as skepticism’s founding ancestor, describe his five demarcation criteria, and explain why the Academic Skepticism Cicero adopted was never merely an epistemology. It was a way of living that offers a cure for the exhaustion that comes from a skepticism defined only by what it rejects.

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