. In a famous passage he asserted that if oxen could paint and sculpt, they would depict gods who resembled oxen. He felt that humans should reject polytheistic ascribing of human motivation and characteristics to inanimate objects, animals, and phenomena and recognize instead a single non-human deity underlying and unifying all worldly phenomena. 117A parallel to Xenophanes' philosophy is that which was expressed by Gorgias, a famous Sophist. The Sophists consisted of experienced debaters and speech writers who popularized the ideas of various early philosophers; but based on their understanding of this prior philosophic thought, most of them concluded that truth and morality were essentially matters of opinion. Gorgias's philosophy was a nihilistic one, expressed in three propositions: Nothing exists; if anything did exist, it could not be known; if anything existed and could be known, it could not be communicated, hence the parallel.Total skepticism was brought about by Sextus Empiricus. Although his writings were extensive and stated nearly every every skeptical altercation, little is known about his life. Sextus Empiricus was considered to be the last great Pyrrhonist and emphasized observation and common sense as opposed to theory. He did not say that nothing could be known but in turn suspended judgment on issues whether he had examined them or not, and claimed that he did not know whether or not knowledge was possible.With these arguments, it is an easy task to take on the view of a skeptic doubt anything in this world in some degree or another. If we are not religious, then we may be skeptic about the religious beliefs and teachings of others. If we are going into a major surgery, we can become skeptic about the outcome. As humans, we are prone to have our doubts about ourselves, other people, situations, and the world around us. We are brought up to not be gullible and take things at face value, but are taught to thi...
