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/skˈɛptɪsˌɪzəm/ Listen

noun

Skepticism n. (Written also scepticism)

An undecided, inquiring state of mind; doubt; uncertainty. "That momentary amazement, and irresolution, and confusion, which is the result of skepticism."

(Metaph.) The doctrine that no fact or principle can be certainly known; the tenet that all knowledge is uncertain; Pyrrohonism; universal doubt; the position that no fact or truth, however worthy of confidence, can be established on philosophical grounds; critical investigation or inquiry, as opposed to the positive assumption or assertion of certain principles.

(Theol.) A doubting of the truth of revelation, or a denial of the divine origin of the Christian religion, or of the being, perfections, or truth of God. "Let no... secret skepticism lead any one to doubt whether this blessed prospect will be realized."

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Etymology of 'Skepticism'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Skepticism" Quotes from Famous Books

... thorns in such a path. The village girl knew that madame la marquise must lead a life very different from any she had known. She must bear with a husband whose mind was ever in a state of unrest and skepticism, and she must meet the ...

— Duffels • Edward Eggleston

... what he was looking for. Every man has a house somewhere in the elaborate cosmos; his house waits for him waist deep in slow Norfolk rivers or sunning itself upon Sussex downs. Man has always been looking for that home which is the subject matter of this book. But in the bleak and blinding hail of skepticism to which he has been now so long subjected, he has begun for the first time to be chilled, not merely in his hopes, but in his desires. For the first time in history he begins really to doubt the object of his wanderings ...

— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton

... skepticism, doubt—come all ye trooping emotions to threaten or console; but an end has come to fairy stories and wonder tales—Master Studious is in the awful ...

— The Delicious Vice • Young E. Allison

... of the novel is this. The heroine, who is young, but not in her first girlhood, has in her aspect and her natural disposition everything that is akin to the mystical aspirations of the saint; but, more or less desolated by the diffused skepticism of the day, she has been robbed of innocence by a man, an old family friend, and has never been at peace with herself or wholly escaped from his sinister power since. The hero, who meets her by accident and with whom she is led into a half-reluctant friendship, has at first no suspicion ...

— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock

... Taking Holy Orders, he was, for a time, deeply influenced by Newman and the Tractarian movement, but soon underwent the radical revolution of thought revealed by his first treatise, the "Nemesis of Faith," which appeared in 1849, and created a sensation. Its tendency to skepticism cost him his fellowship, but its profound pathos, its accent of tenderness, and its fervour excited wide admiration. Permanent fame was secured by the appearance, in 1856, of the first two instalments ...

— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

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