n.
Incomprehensibility of things; the doctrine held by the ancient Skeptic philosophers, that human knowledge never amounts to certainty, but only to probability.
Acatalepsy
| Dictionary: A·cat·a·lep·sy |
n.
| Philosophy Dictionary: acatalepsy |
Incomprehensibility. The impossibility of things being grasped by us, supposedly demonstrated by skeptical arguments.
| Wikipedia: Acatalepsy |
Acatalepsy (from the Greek α̉-, privative, and καταλαμβάνειν, to seize), in philosophy, is incomprehensibleness, or the impossibility of comprehending or conceiving a thing.[1] The Pyrrhonians as well as the Academic skeptics of the Platonic Academy asserted an absolute acatalepsia; all human science or knowledge, according to them, went no further than to appearances and verisimilitude.[1] It is the antithesis of the Stoic doctrine of catalepsy or Apprehension.[2] According to the Stoics, catalepsy was true perception, but to the Skeptics, all perceptions were acataleptic, i.e. bore no conformity to the objects perceived, or, if they did bear any conformity, it could never be known.[2]
Notes
- ^ a b This article incorporates content from the 1728 Cyclopaedia, a publication in the public domain.
- ^ a b George Henry Lewes, 1863, The biographical history of philosophy, Volume 1, page 297
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 | Dictionary. Webster 1913 Dictionary edited by Patrick J. Cassidy Read more |
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