Pyrrhonism
English
[edit]Etymology
[edit]From (the stem of) Latin Pyrrhō + -ism, after Middle French pyrrhonisme.
Pronunciation
[edit]Noun
[edit]Pyrrhonism (countable and uncountable, plural Pyrrhonisms)
- The system of skeptical philosophy established by Pyrrho of Elis, centred on the idea that nothing can be known for certain; widespread skepticism, universal doubt. [from 17th c.]
- 1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 12, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book II, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC:
- Whosoever shall imagine a perpetuall confession of ignorance, and a judgement upright and without staggering, to what occasion soever may chance; That man conceives the true Phyrrhonisme.
- 2014, Allen Jayne, Jefferson's Declaration of Independence, page 98:
- The continuing impact on Jefferson of Reid's antiskepticism and that of his followers is clear in a statement he made to John Adams in 1820: "Rejecting all organs of information, therefore, but my senses, I rid myself of the pyrrhonisms with which an indulgence in speculations hyperphysical and antiphysical, so uselessly occupy and disquiet the mind .