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12
DariuszKubok
tantamounttonegativedogmatism),fitswithintheboundsofcriticism.
Simultaneously,itisworthnotingthatinKant’sunderstanding,criticism
stoodinoppositiontobothdogmatismandskepticism.Thereby,takingcat-
egoriesproposedbySextusEmpiricusasourpointofdeparture,wecansay
thatKantiantypologycouldberevisedthusly:positivedogmatism,nega
-
tivedogmatism,criticism.
Herewemustassertthattheoppositionbetweenpositiveandnega-
tivedogmatismistiedwiththecognoscibilityoftruth;theformerstance
assertsthattruthcanbecognized,thelatterjthatitcannotbecog-
nized.Thesestancesare,then,inlogicaloppositiontooneanother,while
theirnegationsjasJanWoleńskiobserves
5
jcorrespondtothestance
ofaskeptic,i.e.onewhoassertsthatitisimpossibletosaywhethertruth
canbecognized,ornot,whichdriveshimtocontinuehissearch.Skepti-
cism,especiallyinitszeteticdimension,boilsdowntocontinualexami-
nationandsearchfortruth:asearchpropelledbytherejectionofall
dogmaticclaims.Inotherwords,skepticismisequivalenttowithhold-
ingoneselfbothfrompositiveandnegativedogmatism.Suchastance
isequallydistantfromtheconvictionthatonehascomeintopossession
ofultimate(irrefutable)knowledge,asitisfromthecertitudethatsuch
knowledgeisunattainableforhumanbeings.Thus,skepticismmaybe
described(inanarrowersense)aszeteticanti-dogmatism.Theskepti-
calapproach,inthissense,wouldbeasymptomofabroadly-understood
criticalattitude.Criticismunderstoodinthiswaycanbeinterpreted
asacoherentframeofreferenceforallofancientGreekthought.Thepro-
posedinterpretation,then,constitutesanalternativetohithertosyn-
theticreadingsofthephilosophyofthisperiod.Itquestionsthevalidity
ofargumentsofthosescholarswhotreatearlyGreekthoughtasdog-
matic,andeventotalitarian(E.Lévinas).Itisthenthebroadly-under-
stoodconceptofcriticismthatmayserveusasanorganizingidea;
anideawhichallowsustosystematizethewholeofGreekthought.
5
JanWoleński,Epistemologia.Poznanie,prawda,wiedza,realizm(PWN:Warszawa,
2005),p.493,seealso:JanWoleński,mAnoteonscepticism,”Kriterion,nr3(1992),pp.18-19.
