---
title: "Philosophical skepticism"
chunk: 9/9
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_skepticism"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:37:00.045187+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

=== Medieval Islamic philosophy ===
The Incoherence of the Philosophers, written by the scholar Al-Ghazali (1058–1111), marks a major turn in Islamic epistemology. His encounter with skepticism led Ghazali to embrace a form of theological occasionalism, or the belief that all causal events and interactions are not the product of material conjunctions but rather the immediate and present will of God. 
In the autobiography Ghazali wrote towards the end of his life, The Deliverance From Error (Al-munqidh min al-ḍalāl ), Ghazali recounts how, once a crisis of epistemological skepticism was resolved by "a light which God Most High cast into my breast...the key to most knowledge", he studied and mastered the arguments of Kalam, Islamic philosophy, and Ismailism. Though appreciating what was valid in the first two of these, at least, he determined that all three approaches were inadequate and found ultimate value only in the mystical experience and spiritual insight he attained as a result of following Sufi practices. William James, in Varieties of Religious Experience, considered the autobiography an important document for "the purely literary student who would like to become acquainted with the inwardness of religions other than the Christian", comparing it to recorded personal religious confessions and autobiographical literature in the Christian tradition.

== See also ==

== References ==

== Further reading ==
Popkin, Richard H.  2003.  The History of Scepticism from Savonarola to Bayle.  New York:  Oxford University Press.
Popkin, Richard H. and J.R. Maia Neto, eds.  2007.  Skepticism: An Anthology.  New York:  Prometheus Books.
Beiser, Frederick C.  1987. The Fate of Reason: German Philosophy from Kant to Fichte.  Cambridge:  Harvard University Press.
Breker, Christian.  2011.  Einführender Kommentar zu Sextus Empiricus' "Grundriss der pyrrhonischen Skepsis", Mainz, 2011: electr. publication, University of Mainz. available online Archived January 12, 2022, at the Wayback Machine (comment on Sextus Empiricus's "Outlines of Pyrrhonism" in German language)
di Giovanni, George and H.S. Harris, eds.  2000. Between Kant and Hegel:  Texts in the Development of Post-Kantian Idealism.  Translated with Introductions by George di Giovanni and H.S. Harris.  Indianapolis, IN:  Hackett Publishing.
Forster, Michael N. 1989.  Hegel and Skepticism.  Cambridge, Massachusetts:  Harvard University Press.
Harris, H.S.  1985.  "Skepticism, Dogmatism and Speculation in the Critical Journal".  In di Giovanni and Harris 2000.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel.  1802.  "On the Relationship of Skepticism to Philosophy, Exposition of its Different Modifications and Comparison of the Latest Form with the Ancient One".  Translated by H.S. Harris.  In di Giovanni and Harris 2000.
Leavitt, Fred. 2021. "If Ignorance is Bliss We Should All be Ecstatic." Open Books.
Lehrer, Keith, 1971. "Why Not Scepticism?" Philosophical Forum, vol. II, pp. 283-298.
Jesús Padilla Gálvez, Scepticism as Philosophical Superlative, in: Wittgenstein and the Sceptical Tradition, António Marques & Rui Bertrand Romao (Eds.), Bern, Berlin, Bruxelles, New York, Oxford, Wien: Peter Lang, 2020, pp. 113–122.
François-Xavier de Peretti, « Stop Doubting with Descartes », dans M. Garcia-Valdecasas, J. Milburn, J.-B. Guillon (éds.), « Anti-skepticism », Topoi. An International Review of Philosophy, Springer Nature, on line 3.11.2022  doi:10.1007/s11245-022-09822-0
François-Xavier de Peretti, « Descartes sceptique malgré lui ? », International Journal for the Study of Skepticism, 11 (3), 2021, Brill, Leyde, pp. 177–192. Online publication date: 15 octobre 2020. doi:10.1163/22105700-bja10016
Thorsrud, Harald.  2009.  Ancient Scepticism.  Berkeley:  University of California Press.
Unger, Peter.  1975.  Ignorance:  A Case for Scepticism.  Oxford, England:  Oxford University Press.  2002.
Zeller, Eduard and Oswald J. Reichel.  1892.  The Stoics, Epicureans and Sceptics.  London:  Longmans, Green, and Co.

== External links ==
Klein, Peter. "Skepticism". In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. ISSN 1095-5054. OCLC 429049174.
Ancient Greek Skepticism entry in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Renaissance Skepticism entry in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Contemporary Skepticism entry in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Responses to skepticism by Keith DeRose
Article: Skepticism and Denial by Stephen Novella MD, The New England Journal of Skepticism
Classical Skepticism Archived February 3, 2010, at the Wayback Machine by Peter Suber
Review and summary of Skepticism and the Veil of Perception by Michael Huemer