Bible Dictionaries
Scepticism

1910 New Catholic Dictionary

(Greek: skeptomai, consider, examine carefully)

The doctrine that the real truth of things cannot be known with certainty. This conclusion is reached in two ways:

216. by casting doubt on the existence of the thinking subject and of all subjective states and operations (Subjective Scepticism)
217. by calling into doubt the objectivity of the universe and of truth

Universal Scepticism comprises both the subjective and the objective. Contradictory theories, elaborated by philosophers to explain the physical universe, gave rise to Scepticism. Heraclitus taught that nothing exists but bodies in a state of perpetual motion; everything is becoming. Parmenides, that change or becoming is impossible; there can only one being; the senses are unreliable when they assure us of the plurality of being and the existence of change. In this belief Heraclitus concurred. Subsequent philosophers denied the possibility of knowing reality (Sophists and Sceptics). The Pyrrhonists and the Academicians held that nothing can be known with certainty; that the wise man will suspend judgment, affirming nothing and denying nothing; that we can know appearances, but not reality. Socrates said: "I know only one thing, that I know nothing." Arcesilaus added: "Nor do I know with certainty that I know nothing.." More recent sceptics are:

• Theodore Jouffroy (1796-1842) who asserted that "Scepticism is the final pronouncement of the human mind"
• David Hume (1711-1776) who makes all forms of synthesis and relation subjective in origin
• Berkeley, to whom the corporeal world is a mere phenomenon of consciousness, the only objects, distinct from the mind, being spiritual substances: God, the soul, angels; in general the Idealists for whom esse est percipi (to be is to be; perceived)

Sound philosophy, under the leadership of Aristotle and Saint Thomas; teaches:

• that the Senses and the intellect normally are infallible with regard to their proper object
• that the ultimate criterion of truth is objective evidence
• that Scepticism is impossible in fact, because every man is conscious of certain truths, e.g., his own existence and the principle of contradiction
• that Scepticism is self-contradictory as a system or doctrine; expressing implicit belief in the sceptic's own existence, in the principle of contradiction, and in the distinction between knowledge and ignorance, certainty and uncertainty