Philosophy & ThoughtGreek → English
Dogmatism
/ˈdɒɡmətɪzəm/noun
The assertion of opinions as certain truths, without room for doubt.
The Greek roots
δόγμα
dógma
opinion, decree
δοκεῖν
dokeîn
to seem, to think
Literally: “the habit of holding fixed opinions”
The story of the word
A δόγμα was simply what seemed right, from δοκεῖν, to seem: a philosopher's tenet or a public decree, carrying no insult. The Skeptics supplied the insult, calling their rivals dogmatists for claiming knowledge of what could not be known. Church usage pulled the other way and made dogma a defined and settled teaching, so the same word now means established truth in one room and closed mind in the next.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → French → English
- First recorded
- 17th century
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
dogmaorthodoxparadoxdoxology
In a sentence
The debate collapsed into dogmatism on both sides by the second hour.