Skepticism in philosophy: concept, principles, history, representatives

Skepticism is a philosophy that, by its principles, is the opposite of dogmatism. Obviously, this direction of philosophical science was created in view of the fact that some ancient scholars have accumulated a lot of claims to existing at that time currents.

One of the first representatives of skepticism, Empiricus, in his philosophical work explained that in this direction, in essence, the basic tools of thinking are comparing the data of the mind and these feelings, and also the opposition of these data to each other. Skeptics questioned the very quality of thinking, especially the doubt about the existence and validity of dogmas - the truths that must be accepted as given and should not require for themselves any evidence.

However, skepticism as a direction of philosophical science by no means views doubt as a fundamental principle - it uses it only as a polemical weapon against dogma proponents. The philosophy of skepticism, however, professes such a principle as a phenomenon. In addition, one should clearly distinguish between skepticism everyday (everyday), scientific and philosophical.

In everyday terms skepticism can be explained as a person's psychological state, his situational uncertainty, doubt in something. A skeptic man always refrains from expressing categorical judgments.

Scientific skepticism is a clear and consistently built up opposition to those scientists who, in their judgments, did not rely on empirical evidence. In particular, this concerns axioms - theorems that do not require proof.

Skepticism in philosophy is a direction whose followers, as already noted above, express doubts about the existence of reliable knowledge. With a moderate form of skepticism, it is limited only to the knowledge of facts and displays restraint in relation to all hypotheses and theories. For them philosophy, including the one they follow, is something like science-like poetry, but not science in its pure form. It is with this connected famous statement: "Philosophy - this is not science!"

Skepticism in philosophy: how the direction evolved

The history of skepticism is a decline, an exhaustion of a gradual nature. This trend originated in Ancient Greece, in the Middle Ages played a very minor role, and was reborn in the era of the Reformation (at the time of the restoration of Greek philosophy), when skepticism degenerated into milder forms of the new philosophy, such as subjectivism and positivism.

Skepticism in philosophy: representatives

The founder of the Greek school of skeptics is Pirron, who, according to some opinions, generally studied in India. In addition, antique skepticism as a response to metaphysical dogmatism is represented by such philosophers as Arkesilaus (middle academy) and the so-called "late" skeptics Agrippa, Sextus Empiricus, Enesidem. In particular, Enesidem at one time pointed out ten trails (principles) of skepticism. The first six are the difference between people, individual states, living beings, sense organs, positions, places, distances, phenomena and their connections. The last four principles are the mixed existence of the perceived object with others, relativity in general, dependence on a certain number of perceptions, dependence on laws, morals, the level of education, religious and philosophical views.

The most important representatives of the skepticism of the Middle Ages and the New Times are D. Hume and M. Montel.

Skepticism in philosophy: criticism

Criticism of skepticism, in particular, dealt with Lewis Vaughn and Theodore Schick, who wrote, since skeptics are not so sure that knowledge requires self-confidence, then how can they know that this is really so. It is logical that they can not know this. This question gave a serious reason to doubt the assertion of skepticism that knowledge necessarily requires certainty. According to the laws of logic, skepticism can not only be doubted, but it can also be challenged as a whole. But since our reality consists not only of logical laws (there is in our life a place for unsolvable and inexplicable paradoxes), such criticism was preferred to listen with caution, because "there are no absolute skeptics, therefore it is not at all necessary that the skeptic begin to doubt the obvious things."