RUDN Journal of Philosophy (Dec 2010)
Sceptical Ideas in Stoic Theory of Knowledge and Forming the Scientific Mentality in Hellenistic Philosophy
Abstract
The ancient scepticism can be presented as a general intellectual trend of the Hellinistic philosophy, first of all expressed by sceptical and protesting mood of the representatives of different schools of that period. The ancient scepticism was a historical turn dividing theoretical thinking for philosophical (the old model) and scientific (the new model) types. And the scientific picture of the world began developing along with the philosophical one. Perhaps the mission of scepticism, represented in the intellectual history of Ancient Greece by both sceptic and stoic schools, was exactly in the latching onto the phenomenon of the new type of theoretical thinking - the scientific thinking.