Skepticism

As a philosophical school, skepticism was naturally placed in ancient Greece. The reason for creating a new school was laid in existence of many skeptical opinions among Greek Sophists. For instance, some of the philosophers convinced that nothing exists. If there wasn’t anything, people couldn’t be aware of it, and if they couldn’t be aware, they weren’t able to correspond it. Other skeptics reject debating about anything, stating that communication is absurd while all things are uniformly developing.

One of the well-known critics called Socrates once stated that he knew nothing. Skepticism offers to hold out from creating truth opinions and prevent from determination the definitive truth. They exclude the definition of the resulting truth from people’s awareness.

One of the beginners in developing the skeptic ideas was Gorgias. He stated that there isn’t anything in the world that exists and even if there is something, nobody could know. Consequently, if no one could be aware of it, no one could talk about it. Though, if we are speaking of Gorgias, we should mention that he is considered to be more Sophist than a skeptic.

Socrates was proclaiming that he knew only one single thing and this thing consists of knowing nothing. He didn’t reject the possibility of having any knowledge and, on the other hand, never stated that he observed anything even at the end of his life. Philosopher suggested giving questions for those, who stated they knew something.

The first real skeptic was Pyrrho of Elis. Previously all the concepts of the philosophical school of Skepticism were broadening from his opinions. Pyrrho was traveling and studying around India. He was pressed by his incapacity to define properly which of the existing school was accurate. At last, he reached the inner peace that was his aim and suggested the statements for practical skepticism. Pyrrho didn’t take any notes of his ideas. One of his students created some writings, but they didn’t survive.

Other philosophers broadened Pyrrho’s ideas and blamed the concept of dogmatism. They proclaimed that rational form of opinion was indefensible as no one could say that the propositions, it is based on, is true until one based on other propositions. None of them stated that the truth is inaccessible. They explain it as a conclusion that hadn’t yet come to life or hadn’t been identified. They saw dogmatism as a mental illness.

As soon as Arcesilaus took the position of the leader of Plato’s academy, he adjusted its focus to Skepticism and made it the heart of “Academic Skepticism.” The academy was occurring under such title for the next two hundred years. One of the most famous academic skeptics was Carneades, who was the fourth philosopher after Arcesilaus. The claim that made him well-known was sounded “Nothing can be known, not even this.” After that, the leader of the academy became Clitomachus and continually Philo of Larissa. Philo was the last absolute Academy’s leader before the occupation of Romans started.

At the end of the Before Christ period, the other skeptic was working and provided his ideas. His name was Aenesidemus. He abandoned a great number of Academy’s suggestions and created an independent Pyrrhonian Skepticism school. This school brought back to life the clause of delayed perception that was earlier proclaimed by Timon and Pyrrho. This principle was supposed to solve the complicated problems of Epistemology.

During the second century, Sextus Empiricus combined thesis of Empiricism, which stated on basing all knowledge on the sense experience, to the foundation of affirming awareness. Sextus and his supporters believed that assertion “to know” and “not to know” are uniformly dogmatic. Although the obvious disagreement with the aim of ataraxy (the sense of absolute soul peace) suggested keeping looking for something that could be distinct.

A lot of centuries later, Skepticism emerged again. In the 16th century, Michel de Montaigne and Francis Bacon restated the skeptical ideas that they couldn’t know anything in an absolute way. However, all of the early scholars were acting carefully and tried no to abandon their Christian values and acceptance.

René Descartes founded a methodological skepticism. Stating his concept, he denied all arguments that hadn’t enough confidence. After that, he intended to restate them to obtain the basic original knowledge.