Skeptics and Skepticism

Skeptics and Skepticism

SKEPTICS AND SKEPTICISM. The term skeptic comes from the Greek words skeptikos ("an inquirer, one who reflects") and skeptesthai ("to view, to consider"). Philosophical skepticism arose from some of the observations made by early Greek philosophers. Heraclitus said that the world is in such flux that "one cannot step twice in the same river." The only truth, he asserted, was that everything changes. Cratylus went further and said that, since everything changes, people change, and their language changes, so that knowledge and communication are not really possible. The Sophists Protagoras and Gorgias asserted additional skeptical views. Protagoras argued that humanity is the measure of all things; by implication, each person measures the world individually, so there are no general human truths. Gorgias is said to have argued that nothing exists, but even if it did one could not know it, and even if one did know it one could not communicate it. The culmination of these early skeptical comments was Socrates' remark, at his trial, that all he knew was that he knew nothing.

Systematic accounts of human inability to gain accurate knowledge about the world were first rendered by Arcesilas (c. 315–241 BCE) and Carneades (213–129 BCE).

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