Skepticism is a philosophy that, by its principles, is the opposite of dogmatism. Obviously, this direction of philosophical science was created due to the fact that some ancient scholars have accumulated many claims to currents that already existed at that time.
One of the first representatives of skepticism, Empiricus, in his philosophical work explained that in this direction, essentially, the main tools of thinking are comparing data of the mind and data of feelings, as well as contrasting these data with each other. Skeptics questioned the very quality of thinking, especially the doubt about the existence and reliability of dogmas - truths that should be taken for granted and should not require any evidence for themselves.
However, skepticism as a branch of philosophical science does not at all consider doubt as a fundamental principle - it only uses it as a polemical weapon against supporters of dogma. The philosophy of skepticism professes such a principle as a phenomenon. In addition, skepticism should be clearly distinguished from everyday (everyday), scientific, and philosophical.
In everyday terms, skepticism can be explained as the psychological state of a person, his situational uncertainty, doubt in something. A skeptic man always refrains from making categorical judgments.
Scientific skepticism is a clear and consistently built opposition to those scientists who in their judgments did not rely on empirical evidence. In particular, this applies to axioms - theorems that do not require proof.
Skepticism in philosophy is a direction whose followers, as noted above, express doubts about the existence of reliable knowledge. With its moderate form, skeptics are limited only to the knowledge of facts and show restraint regarding all hypotheses and theories. For them, philosophy, including the one they follow, is a kind of science-like poetry, but not science in its purest form. The famous statement is connected with this: “Philosophy is not a science!”
Skepticism in Philosophy: How the Direction Developed
The history of skepticism is a decline, a gradual depletion. This trend originated in Ancient Greece, played a very insignificant role in the Middle Ages, and was reborn again in the era of the Reformation (during the restoration of Greek philosophy), when skepticism was reborn 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, ancient skepticism in response to metaphysical dogmatism is represented by philosophers such as Arkesilaus (secondary academy) and the so-called “late” skeptics Agrippa, Sextus Empiricus, Enesidem. In particular, Enesidem at one time indicated ten paths (principles) of skepticism. The six first ones 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 a perceived object with others, relativity in general, dependence on a certain number of perceptions, dependence on laws, morals, educational level, religious and philosophical views.
The most important representatives of the skepticism of the Middle Ages and the New Age are D. Hume and M. Montel.
Skepticism in Philosophy: Criticism
Criticism of skepticism, in particular, was dealt with by Lewis Vaughn and Theodore Schick, who wrote, since skeptics are so unsure that knowledge requires confidence, then how can they know that this is true. It is logical that they cannot know this. This question gave serious reason to doubt the assertion of skepticism that knowledge certainly requires certainty. According to the laws of logic, one can not only doubt skepticism, but also challenge it as a whole. But since our reality is far from being only logical laws (there is a place in our lives for insoluble and inexplicable paradoxes), they preferred to listen to such criticism with caution, because "there are no absolute skeptics, therefore it is not at all necessary that a skeptic will doubt obvious things."
