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ON THE DUAL ORIGIN OF SCEPSIS

T. Zemcik

Abstract

This study dealt with a possible dual origin of scepsis as a platform for critical thinking, which is connected with the very substance of philosophical research. The original question was whether there is a ‘pure scepsis’ as a zero point, which various thinkers can get closer to or further from depending on a particular case, or whether there are approaches which, although based on scepsis, are mutually incommensurable. To answer this complex question, we used interpretation using the combination of a nomological and narrative model, with an emphasis on the holistic approach to the problem, mainly in the area of causes. In the study, we analysed that scepsis can be directed from the centre of knowledge towards its periphery, but also from the periphery towards the centre - the motives and conclusions of such scepsis can be incommensurable. The reasons for this dual origin of scepsis can be found in biology as well as in socio-cultural and psychological areas. We presented possible solutions from the social construction of participants’ reality coming from various strata of the knowledge system, and also from the perspective of predetermination of individuals’ tendentious character by an internal architecture of their own brain. Acknowledging the plausibility of this model of the approach to the origin of scepsis can widen the perspective and possible analyses of critical and sceptical thinking, especially in cases where two different groups of sceptics not only disagree about initial (often concealed) assumptions but also about the point of their conclusions.

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DOI resolver: doi.org/10.5593/sgemsocial2017/62/S26.036

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