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Article: Skepticism: Academic and Pyrrhonian
- Article from:
- Europe, 1450 to 1789: Encyclopedia of the Early Modern World
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SKEPTICISM: ACADEMIC AND PYRRHONIAN
SKEPTICISM: ACADEMIC AND PYRRHONIAN.
Skepticism dogged claimants to knowledge and truth throughout early modern Europe. In its most general sense it refers to uncertainty, doubt, disbelief, suspension of judgment, and rejection of claims to knowledge. It is characterized by its opposition to dogmatism, which means the holding of firm beliefs (from Greek
dogmata
) about truth and reality. As a philosophical stance it is best understood as the outcome of two traditions in ancient Greek philosophy. Academic skepticism was attributed to Socrates and to Plato's successors at the Academy in Athens (fifth to second centuries b.c.e.), and Pyrrhonism was ...