the.com/skepticism
The art of asking 'but how do you actually know that?' until everyone hates you.
means A questioning attitude that withholds belief until claims are backed by evidence or sound reasoning.
from From Greek 'skeptikos,' meaning 'thoughtful' or 'inquiring,' built on 'skeptesthai,' to look carefully or examine. It named the Skeptics, ancient Greek philosophers who made a discipline of doubting whether anything could be known for certain. The word reached English in the 16th–17th centuries by way of Latin and French, carrying that old habit of squinting hard at every claim before nodding along.
- ancient roots
- Greek Pyrrho founded it around 300 BCE
- goal
- Suspending judgment to achieve mental tranquility
- scientific spine
- Every experiment is institutionalized doubt
- self-trap
- True skeptics must even doubt skepticism itself
- Descartes move
- He doubted everything except that he doubted
david hume — 18th century scottish philosopher who argued we cannot know causation or the external world with certainty
pyrrhonian skepticism — ancient greek school founded by pyrrho of elis that suspended judgment on all matters to achieve tranquility
cartesian doubt — descartes' 17th century method of doubting everything to find indubitable foundations for knowledge