Is the skeptic a doubting person or researcher in everything?

Literally the term "skepticism" means "oscillation, research, analysis". The main idea of this approach in philosophy is to deny the authenticity of knowledge. A skeptic is a person who never takes for a truth any judgment, first questioning it. At first glance, this position seems unstable and completely unattractive. It turns out, in the knowledge of being, we can not rely on any generally accepted provisions, since they can also be questioned.

Types of skepticism

Distinguish between relative and absolute skepticism. Absolute skepticism is characteristic of ancient philosophy; He denies the possibility of any knowledge at all. Relative skepticism is inherent in the present and lies in the denial of philosophical knowledge. In science, it is the skeptic that is the engine of progress, for he does not take anything for an immutable truth, he seeks it, thoroughly checking every statement.

Skepticism as a philosophical trend

Skepticism is an independent trend in the philosophy of the Hellenistic era. The philosophical school of skeptics is characterized by a basic position - all knowledge is unreliable. The founder of this direction in antiquity is Pirron, who believed doubt the basis of knowledge. He proceeded from the proposition that one point of view is no more true than the other, since all knowledge is relative, and one can not say who is closer to the essence of things, and who is next.

Basic provisions of skepticism

From the philosophical point of view, the skeptic is a person who adheres to the following positions:

• Because different thinkers had different points of view, none of them can be called fully true;
• Human knowledge is limited, therefore no human judgment can be taken as truth;
• Human knowledge is relative, which means the inevitable influence of subjectivity on the results of cognition. We perceive by feelings, and therefore we perceive the phenomenon not objectively, but as a result of influencing our senses.

The Roman representative of skepticism, Sextus Empiricus, in his reasoning went so far that the principle of doubt spread to his own reflections.

The ultimate goal of the skeptical approach in cognition is the equanimity of the researcher. This means that, by rejecting the adoption of any judgments, the thinker becomes impassive in assessing the world around him, thus acquiring serenity and happiness.

The positive aspects of skepticism

If everything is unreliable and does not lend itself to knowledge, what does the skeptic operate on? The importance of this direction in cognition is especially noticeable in the struggle against dogmatism. If science is based on so-called immutable truths, most likely, it is already dead. A critical evaluation of each hypothesis, each received fact makes the thought move sometimes in the most unexpected directions, revealing new patterns. Thus, the skeptic is not just a critical cynic. This is a thinker, whose doubt opens the way to new knowledge.