Pyrrhonism

plural Pyrrhonisms

1. countableuncountablehuman sciencesThe system of skeptical philosophy established by Pyrrho of Elis, centred on the idea that nothing can be known for certain; widespread skepticism, universal doubt.First known use 17th c.

   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.

   1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 12, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book II, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC

   2 more examples

   I have often been reproached with the aridity of my genius; a deficiency of imagination has been imputed to me as a crime; and the Pyrrhonism of my opinions has at all times rendered me notorious.

   1833, Edgar Allan Poe, MS. Found in a Bottle

   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 .

   2014, Allen Jayne, Jefferson's Declaration of Independence, page 98