Skip to content
Wellsprings
epistemology

Skepticism

σκέψις

The stance that certain knowledge may be out of reach — and that the honest, even tranquil, response is to suspend judgment.

Skepticism, from the Greek skepsis meaning "inquiry," is the philosophical position that certain knowledge may be impossible or that we should suspend judgment about many claims. The skeptical school became prominent in ancient Greece, particularly in the Hellenistic period, with thinkers arguing that since inquirers continually sought but never found definitive answers to fundamental questions, perhaps such certainty lay beyond human reach. Earlier philosophers like Xenophanes had already expressed doubt about knowledge, claiming "clear truth hath no man seen," and this doubt became systematized into a philosophical method.

The skeptical approach influenced how philosophers engaged with disagreement and truth claims. When presented with competing arguments about reality, the skeptic would suspend judgment rather than commit to either side, recognizing that reasonable people could defend opposite positions with equal plausibility. This was not mere fence-sitting but an active investigation into why knowledge claims repeatedly failed to achieve universal agreement, leading skeptics to conclude that unknowability, not ignorance on the inquirer's part, might explain persistent disagreement among intelligent observers.

Where this idea shows up

24 Greek sources

Where to read it