Skepticism

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For the philosophical view, see philosophical skepticism. For denial of uncomfortable truths,
see denialism.
For other uses, see Skepticism (band) and Skeptic (disambiguation).

Uriel d'Acosta instructing the young Spinoza, by Samuel Hirszenberg (1901).

Skepticism (American and Canadian English) or scepticism (British, Irish,

and Australian English) is generally a questioning attitude or doubt towards one or more
putative instances of knowledge which are asserted to be mere belief or dogma.[1]
[2]
 Formally, skepticism is a topic of interest in philosophy, particularly epistemology.
More informally, skepticism as an expression of questioning or doubt can be applied to
any topic, such as politics, religion, or pseudoscience. It is often applied within restricted
domains, such as morality (moral skepticism), theism (skepticism about the existence of
God), or the supernatural.[3]
Philosophical skepticism comes in various forms. Radical forms of philosophical
skepticism deny that knowledge or rational belief is possible and urge us to suspend
judgment on many or all controversial matters. More moderate forms of philosophical
skepticism claim only that nothing can be known with certainty, or that we can know little
or nothing about nonempirical matters, such as whether God exists, whether human
beings have free will, or whether there is an afterlife.
Skepticism has also inspired a number of contemporary social movements. Religious
skepticism advocates for doubt concerning basic religious principles, such as
immortality, providence, and revelation.[4] Scientific skepticism advocates for testing
beliefs for reliability, by subjecting them to systematic investigation using the scientific
method, to discover empirical evidence for them.

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Main article: Philosophical skepticism
As a philosophical school or movement, skepticism arose both in ancient Greece and India. In India
the Ajñana school of philosophy espoused skepticism. It was a major early rival
of Buddhism and Jainism, and a possibly major influence on Buddhism. Two of the foremost
disciples of the Buddha, Sariputta and Moggallāna, were initially the students of the Ajñana
philosopher Sanjaya Belatthiputta, and a strong element of skepticism is found in Early Buddhism,
most particularly in the Aṭṭhakavagga sutra, but it is inconclusive the total effect these philosophies
had on each other. Since skepticism is a philosophical attitude and a style of philosophizing rather
than a position, the Ajñanins may have influenced other skeptical thinkers of India such
as Nagarjuna, Jayarāśi Bhaṭṭa, and Shriharsha.[5]
In Greece philosophers as early as Xenophanes (c. 570 – c. 475 BC) expressed skeptical views, as
did Democritus[6] and a number of Sophists. Gorgias, for example, reputedly argued that nothing
exists, that even if there were something we could not know it, and that even if we could know it we
could not communicate it.[7] The Heraclitean philosopher Cratylus refused to discuss anything and
would merely wriggle his finger, claiming that communication is impossible since meanings are
constantly changing.[8] Socrates also had skeptical tendencies, claiming to know nothing worthwhile. [9]
There were two major schools of skepticism in the ancient Greek and Roman world. The first
was Pyrrhonism, founded by Pyrrho of Elis (c. 360–270 BCE). The second was Academic
Skepticism, so-called because its two leading defenders, Arcesilaus (c. 315–240 BCE) who initiated
the philosophy, and Carneades (c. 217–128 BCE), the philosophy's most famous proponent, were
heads of Plato's Academy. Pyrrhonism's aims are psychological. It urges suspension of judgment
(epoche) to achieve mental tranquility (ataraxia). The Academic Skeptics denied that knowledge is
possible (acatalepsy). The Academic Skeptics claimed that some beliefs are more reasonable or
probable than others, whereas Pyrrhonian skeptics argue that equally compelling arguments can be
given for or against any disputed view.[10] Nearly all the writings of the ancient skeptics are now lost.
Most of what we know about ancient skepticism is from Sextus Empiricus, a Pyrrhonian skeptic who
lived in the second or third century CE. His works contain a lucid summary of stock skeptical
arguments.
Ancient skepticism faded out during the late Roman Empire, particularly after Augustine (354–430
CE) attacked the skeptics in his work Against the Academics (386 CE). There was little knowledge
of, or interest in, ancient skepticism in Christian Europe during the Middle Ages. Interest revived
during the Renaissance and Reformation, particularly after the complete writings of Sextus
Empiricus were translated into Latin in 1569. A number of Catholic writers, including Francisco
Sanches (c. 1550–1623), Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592), Pierre Gassendi (1592–1655),
and Marin Mersenne (1588–1648) deployed ancient skeptical arguments to defend moderate forms
of skepticism and to argue that faith, rather than reason, must be the primary guide to truth. Similar
arguments were offered later (perhaps ironically) by the Protestant thinker Pierre Bayle in his
influential Historical and Critical Dictionary (1697–1702). [11]
The growing popularity of skeptical views created an intellectual crisis in seventeenth-century
Europe. One major response was offered by the French philosopher and mathematician René
Descartes (1596–1650). In his classic work, Meditations of First Philosophy (1641), Descartes
sought to refute skepticism, but only after he had formulated the case for skepticism as powerfully as
possible. Descartes argued that no matter what radical skeptical possibilities we imagine there are
certain truths (e.g., that thinking is occurring, or that I exist) that are absolutely certain. Thus, the
ancient skeptics were wrong to claim that knowledge is impossible. Descartes also attempted to
refute skeptical doubts about the reliability of our senses, our memory, and other cognitive faculties.
To do this, Descartes tried to prove that God exists and that God would not allow us to be
systematically deceived about the nature of reality. Many contemporary philosophers question
whether this second stage of Descartes' critique of skepticism is successful. [12]
In the eighteenth century a powerful new case for skepticism was offered by the Scottish
philosopher David Hume (1711–1776). Hume was an empiricist, claiming that all genuine ideas can
be traced back to original impressions of sensation or introspective consciousness. Hume argued
forcefully that on empiricist grounds there are no sound reasons for belief in God, an enduring self or
soul, an external world, causal necessity, objective morality, or inductive reasoning. In fact, he
argued that "Philosophy would render us entirely Pyrrhonian, were not Nature too strong for it." [13] As
Hume saw it, the real basis of human belief is not reason, but custom or habit. We are hard-wired by
nature to trust, say, our memories or inductive reasoning, and no skeptical arguments, however
powerful, can dislodge those beliefs. In this way, Hume embraced what he called a "mitigated"
skepticism, while rejecting an "excessive" Pyrrhonian skepticism that he saw as both impractical and
psychologically impossible.
Hume's skepticism provoked a number of important responses. Hume's Scottish
contemporary, Thomas Reid (1710–1796), challenged Hume's strict empiricism and argued that it is
rational to accept "common-sense" beliefs such as the basic reliability of our senses, our reason, our
memories, and inductive reasoning, even though none of these things can be proved. In Reid's view,
such common-sense beliefs are foundational and require no proof in order to be rationally justified.
[14]
 Not long after Hume's death, the great German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) argued
that human moral awareness makes no sense unless we reject Hume's skeptical conclusions about
the existence of God, the soul, free will, and an afterlife. According to Kant, while Hume was right to
claim that we cannot strictly know any of these things, our moral experience entitles us to believe in
them.[15]
Today, skepticism continues to be a topic of lively debate among philosophers. [16]