The Hyper-Skeptic, Descartes, and Traveling to Town

In a recent posting from Apologetics 315, Bill Pratt offered an investigation to the question, "Is There Ever Enough Evidence for the Hyper-Skeptic?"  Critiquing the view of an atheist James Croft who had disputed the Resurrection on the Unbelievable? broadcast of April 7th, he had disagreed with the criterion to gain such a flat refusal.  He concluded, " Anybody who would say that no amount of eyewitness testimony from the past should ever convince anyone that a person came back from the dead is arguing not from a position of neutrality, but from an extreme philosophical skepticism in the tradition of David Hume. "

The seed of skepticism that permeates modern thought had its initiation in the writings of Rene Descartes, who came to disbelieve the whole of reality up to the famed maxim Cogito Ergo Sum.  I think, therefore I am.  From this, Descartes could broaden the realms of what is possible, real, and substantial.  But it centers on ones perceptions based on rationalistic grounds.  A form of Cartesian doubt should guide such perceptions.

While Descartes laid a foundation in skeptical doubt which Hume could exploit in matters non-physical, it is at the core not too pragmatic.  There is a degree of invalidity to a foundational doubt.  I would attempt to explain such in this brief analogy.

THE ANALOGY OF THE DRIVE TO TOWN 

I live a distance of six miles from the town where I tend to conduct my affairs, shop, visit, and the like.  I tend to motor to town by the same route.  Over the years, I have come to be so used to the route that I tend not to note those things I have passed frequently.  Anything novel would be noticed.  It was such a structure, a stable, that I came to notice at one point.  Where did it come from, or, thanks to Descartes, was it truly there?  How could its existence be verified?  I pondered the issue and thought that if I were to drive my car off the road and collide with the building, that might well accomplish that test.  So I mused, but passed by on the road to town.

The issue rests.  But, if such a diverted route would have been attempted and followed through to impact, would this actually satisfy philosophical doubt, or would the effort be deemed as illusory and subject to further doubt?  All skepticism aside, such an effort would be rash, insane, presumptive, and most likely fatal.  Still, whether the action had been taken or not, the stable still stands at the side of the road, and is available for viewing as I pass by on my journeys to and from town.  To be seen or ignored, to be precise.

Thus it is with skepticism, as Pratt further noted: The critical point to take home is this: hyper-skeptics are usually only skeptical about a small number of select topics, and are thus hopelessly inconsistent in their skepticism. Their skepticism is, in most cases, just a philosophical cover for being anti-whatever-they-don’t-like.

There is another term for the matter:  closed mindedness.  If this be the case, shall society persist in its pursuit of fashionable skepticism, or see it for what it truly is?