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Essay writers is one of our most valued partners as they have written over 100,0 custom essays for echeat.com customers since 2004. Essay writers only uses us writers, they are available 24/7 via an 800 number and we can't recommend them highly enough. A note on the history and meaning of skepticism this article originally appeared in independent thinking review. 2 the two major schools of skepticism, as they originated in ancient greek philosophy, are often called the academic and the pyrrhonian. 1 academic skepticism, which derives its name from plato's academy, was inspired by the remark attributed to socrates, all i know is that i know nothing. , this version of skepticism maintains that nothing can be known or, more precisely, that nothing can be known for certain.

This claim was based on the standard greek distinction between knowledge episteme and opinion doxa. In this scheme, if a proposition cannot be demonstrated with complete certainty i.e. If it might be false then it does not qualify as true knowledge and is relegated to the status of mere opinion. According to academic skepticism, both our senses and our reason are unreliable to some degree, so we can never lay claim to absolute truth, or real knowledge. Since nothing can be known for certain, we must rely instead on opinions that vary in their degrees of probability. 360 275 b.c , an obscure figure who is portrayed in secondary accounts as a complete doubter, especially in ethical matters. Rather than endure the mental anguish and unhappiness that comes from seeking knowledge in the realm of values, pyrrho is said to have suspended judgment, thereby attaining the state of mind known to greek philosophers as ataraxia quietude or unperturbedness.

It was aenesidemus and his followers who first adopted the title of skeptic from skeptikos, meaning inquirer and doubters from ephektikos, meaning one who suspends judgment . Although both the academic and pyrrhonian skeptics attacked dogmatic philosophers such as the stoics , who claimed to possess certain knowledge, their approaches differed significantly. Dogma, in its original meaning, referred to any proposition that can be known with certainty, not necessarily to a religious tenet that is accepted on faith. The academics, according to some pyrrhonian critics, were not true skeptics, because they claimed to know with certainty that certainty is impossible a position that is contradictory and therefore self refuting. Academic skepticism, therefore, was sometimes called dogmatic skepticism, or negative dogmatism.

The pyrrhonians, in contrast, did not claim that knowledge is impossible rather, they suspended judgment on all such theoretical questions, thereby avoiding the mental discomfort that comes from taxing one's brain with insoluble problems. For them, skepticism was a mental attitude and a way of life, not an abstract philosophical position. The pyrrhonist refused to judge or criticize the laws and customs of his society, resolving instead to accept things as they appear to be, without committing himself to any judgment about them.

Of these two schools of skepticism, it was the pyrrhonian that was destined to exert a profound influence on the course of western philosophy, possibly because no major writings of the academics survived the ravages of time. Their arguments were largely transmitted through much later secondary accounts, such as those of cicero and augustine. The greek physician sextus empiricus wrote an excellent and extensive account of pyrrhonian skepticism. Though virtually unknown to medieval scholars, manuscript copies of sextus began to circulate during the italian renaissance and were eventually disseminated throughout europe. His works were first published in latin during the 1560s, and then in english three decades later. Pyrrhonian skepticism, as summarized by sextus empiricus, created a sensation some called it a crisis among european intellectuals. Some philosophers, such as montaigne, enthusiastically embraced pyrrhonian skepticism, whereas others, such as descartes, attempted with equal enthusiasm to refute it.

But so tremendous was the influence of sextus empiricus that, by the end of the seventeenth century, the divine sextus was commonly regarded as the father of modern philosophy. Only in recent decades have historians of philosophy fully appreciated the impact of pyrrhonian skepticism on the development of modern religion and philosophy. After the reformation, many catholics argued that protestants, by appealing to personal inspiration and religious experience, were logically destined to land in a hopeless skepticism, where competing knowledge claims cannot be rationally adjudicated. Protestants replied that catholic doctrine inevitably led to the same destination, owing to its reliance on church authority to resolve religious disputes. Both sides had a point, and this specter of skepticism was probably behind descartes' attempt to ground certain knowledge in ``clear and distinct ideas,' without appealing to personal revelation, tradition, or authority. Some contemporary freethinkers associate skepticism with the tradition of atheism, agnosticism, and other forms of religious dissent. There is some justification for this usage, since some religious skeptics, such as david hume, did ground their religious doubt in a broader theory of epistemological skepticism, viz.

The claim that certain kinds of knowledge such as knowledge of causation cannot be rationally justified. This, of course, wreaked havoc with many arguments for the existence of god, most notably the first cause argument. Epistemological skepticism will inevitably lend aid and comfort to religious claims and turn against the atheist because, if no knowledge claims can be rationally justified, then all of them must rely to some extent on faith. In this case, the claims of the atheist or disbeliever are no more justified that the claims of the theist or religionist. This position has been explicitly upheld by many fideists throughout history, who, beginning with epistemological skepticism, have maintained that all knowledge claims must ultimately rest on faith.

Thus the claims of the mystic are held to be as justified or, more accurately, as unjustified as the claims of the rationalist. Atheists and freethinkers who embrace epistemological skepticism especially of the academic variety will find themselves hard pressed to escape this epistemological dead end of fideism, so they should think carefully before declaring themselves to be skeptics. Of course, conventional usage often indicates the meaning of skepticism in a particular context. A psi skeptic, for example, is generally understood to be a person who does not believe in knowledge claims about paranormal phenomena.