[From Greek skepsis: inquiry, hesitation, doubt.]
(epistemology) In Hellenistic Greece (cf. Pyrrhonism) and perhaps also early Taoism and Buddhism, the view (similar to fallibilism) that the most careful approach in epistemology is to suspend assent to knowledge claims and value judgments beyond obvious perceptual truths. In more recent times, skepticism denotes a categorical assertion that certainty is unattainable and therefore that all value judgments and knowledge claims (even regarding perception) must be actively rejected, sometimes verging on extreme relativism, solipsism or nihilism.