Pyrrhonism

[ pir-uh-niz-uhm ]

noun

1. the Skeptic doctrines of Pyrrho and his followers.
2. extreme or absolute skepticism.

Other Words From

• Pyrrho·nist noun
• Pyrrho·nistic adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of Pyrrhonism¹

1660–70; < Greek Pýrrhōn Pyrrho + -ism

Example Sentences

Even as John Locke argued that the infant mind was a blank slate waiting to be scribbled on by the experiences of the senses, the skeptical philosophy of Pyrrhonism utterly “rejected all certainties and believed that neither religious revelation nor scientific deduction could offer irrefutable knowledge.”

From Washington Post

It’s hard to tell which had horrified him more: his failure at neurophysiology or his anguish at du Bois-Reymond’s Pyrrhonism.

From Scientific American

The chapter wherein his Pyrrhonism disported itself “on the floor of the bottomless” seems to have been, in great measure, borrowed from the talk of one Babbalanja in Herman Melville’s “Mardi;” perhaps, however, both were borrowed direct from Jean Paul’s gigantic grotesque, “Titan.”

From Project Gutenberg

The second no longer comprehend either dogmatism or Pyrrhonism.

From Project Gutenberg

The truth is to be found neither in dogmatism nor in Pyrrhonism, both of which Pascal combated with equal vigour.

From Project Gutenberg