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epoché, n.

ADDITIONS SERIES 1993

Philos.

(pk)  [Gr. suspension of judgement, f. to cease, suspend judgement.] 

    a. Also epoch. In Greek Scepticism, (the principle of) suspension of judgement or belief in the face of the impossibility of attaining actual knowledge.

[1659 T. STANLEY Hist. Philos. III. IV. 28 Suspension, is so called..from the mind's being held in suspence, betwixt asserting and denying. 1899 M. M. PATRICK Sextus Empiricus ii. 29 It is not necessary to accept any statement whatever as true, and consequently a state of may always be maintained.] 1923 P. E. MORE Hellenistic Philosophies vii. 305 Translate his avowed ignorance in the face of alternative views into suspension of judgment (epochê). 1929 M. M. PATRICK Greek Sceptics v. 47 The term epochê, or suspension of judgment, is usually attributed to Arcesilaus, although Pyrrho is said to have been the first to use it in reference to attitudes of mind. 1967 Encycl. Philos. II. 33/2 The Stoics..attacked the New Academy for undermining human action by trying to put into epoche, or suspension, the reasonable grounds of human action. 1974 Encycl. Brit. Micropædia III. 929/3 Epoch,..a principle originally espoused by nondogmatic philosophical Skeptics of the ancient Greek Academy. 1983 D. SEDLEY in M. Burnyeat Skeptical Tradition 10 Arcesilaus, the founder of Academic skepticism and probably the first champion of epoch, suspension of assent,..became head of the Academy around 273 B.C.

    b. In Phenomenology, the setting aside of all historical and natural assumptions and factual knowledge in order to be able to apprehend more readily the phenomena and the subject's consciousness of them. Also transf.

[1929 E. HUSSERL in Encycl. Brit. XVII. 700/2 The phenomenologist, who will only notice phenomena, and know purely his own ‘life’, must practice an .] 1940 R. H. WILLIAMS tr. A. Schuetz in M. Farber Philos. Ess. in Memory E. Husserl 169 In the epoché..I abstain from belief in the being of this world, and I direct my view exclusively to my consciousness of the world. 1960 D. D. RUNES Dict. Philos. (ed. 15) 233/1 If this attitude of self-restraint (epoché) is consistently maintained, one can discriminate a status of one's consciousness more fundamental than its actuality or its possibility in a world. 1972 Musical Analysis (Denton, Texas) I. 24/1 After the epoché has been performed it is easy to discover just exactly what makes the object what it is or is not. 1977 FONTANA & VAN DE WATER in Douglas & Johnson Existential Sociol. iii. 106 Roquentin is experiencing a Husserlian epoché, without the long preparation involved in Husserl.

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