Opinion

Under an opinion is understood in philosophy a kind of belief holding that is not based on strict examination and consequently is aware of the possibility of error. Opinion is akin to faith and an antonym of knowledge.

• 3.1 Greek philosophy
• 3.2 scholasticism
• 3.3 Latter-day philosophy

Meaning outside of philosophy

Etymology and meaning change

"Meaning"

The word " opinion " comes from Germanic * Maino, OHG and MHG meinunga meinunge back; the noun is my a derivative of the verb. In the original sense, it designated the meaning or the meaning of a statement or of characters. Even Luther used the term in this old sense:

" The way is, to make little words, but a lot of opinions and depth or meaning. The fewer words, the better the prayer, the more words, the more annoying the prayer. "

As meaning that meaning has been preserved in English to this day. In German, it was also the young Goethe occasionally before:

" GOETZ. What is this? RATH. You do not want to hear. Catch him! GOETZ. Is that the question? "

Intention, attitude or judgment

In the sense of "projects " and " intention " of ( friendly or malevolent ) "mentality" and of " value judgment " in the strictest sense opinion is no longer used today:

" LEICESTER. [ ... ] The rank which I hold, the trust, which the Queen honors me, must be reflected doubt in my faithful mind. "

" WALTER. [ ... ] You give me bad opinions, Judge. "

Doctrine

In a more modern sense was "opinion" of the opinion, founded on knowledge and consideration that someone of something. This usage, which is preserved in the word doctrine to this day, can already be found in Luther's translation of the New Testament:

"Of the virgins I have no commandment of the Lord; but I give my opinion [ γνώμην, gnomes ], as I have obtained mercy of the Lord to be faithful. "

In the 18th century it was still widespread:

"The Lord D. Heumann was the first who discovered about his thoughts a little more complicated in its Actis Philosophorum, and made the Christians from the Elpistikern. The pastor Brucker chose a different opinion, and made Stoics it [ ... ] "

Insufficiently reasoned assent to

Latest Kant understood " my " and "opinion" in the sense of Greek philosophy ( see below), so as Doxa:

"My consciousness is one with both subjectively and objectively inadequate to accept as true. "

Personal opinion

In the modern sense means an " opinion " mostly a personal opinion that someone has of a thing. In this sense the word is used at least since the 18th century:

" LADY MILFORD. [ ... ] Can I find a pleasure in it, to ask them what if I know in advance what they will answer me? Or to exchange words with them if they do not have the heart to be a different opinion than I do? "

The connotations of the word is not only subjectivity and emotional coloring of view, but also a certain contrast to the reliable knowledge and thorough Thoughtfully have; occasionally the word implies even a madman:

"Your beloved daughter Marcebille because all the guards quietly at his post, in the opinion that the giant protected them, was kidnapped us [ ... ] "

The personal opinion is made ​​in Germany under the special protection of freedom of expression, which is codified in Article 5 § 1 of the Basic Law.

Conceptual history

Greek philosophy

"Opinion" is one of the basic concepts of epistemology and is already covered in ancient philosophy. The distinction between knowledge and opinion is first made ​​in Xenophanes ' fragments. Xenophanes wanted to free themselves from the absoluteness of the myths and was looking for research-based knowledge. He assumed ultimate truth that is accessible to the gods alone; but because he did not believe in divine revelation, he could only conclude that the human knowledge definitive knowledge remain basically failed. "Opinion", he understood about today's notion of a " hypothesis " according to, as a mere approximation to the truth, as pseudo-knowledge.

Parmenides difference in his writing also fragmentary On the Nature (5th century BC ) Aletheia ( ἀλήθεια, "truth" ) and doxa ( δόξα, "opinion" ). In contrast to Xenophanes he held human knowledge possible, however, curtailed that it could be obtained only by thinking ( νοεῖν, noein ); which is based on observation of natural philosophy gelange - like the myth - only to the mind, so the bill. A century later, the Doxa Socrates differed from the episteme ( ἐπιστήμη, "knowledge" ). Plato followed him in and moved " opinion " on the variable, sensate things that do not allow knowledge in the narrow sense; He distinguished between two forms of the opinion, that the conjecture ( εἰκασία, Eikasia ) on the one hand, and the faith and the conviction ( πίστις, pistis ) on the other. Aristotle most of them from insofar as it found that every opinion necessarily a belief ( pistis ) is inherent, " because it is not possible that someone who has an opinion, is not convinced by what seems to him to be true".

Arkesilaos represented in the 3rd century BC the view that not only the sensory perception was not to be trusted, but that also intelligible, or items which are to be recorded only on the mind, can not be detected with certainty letztlicher. He reasoned thus the skepticism within the Platonic Academy and advised the philosopher, to dispense with the formulation of doctrines entirely. A contrary position adopted by the Stoics Zeno, which have great confidence in the reasons and rationale ( λόγος, lógos; Latin ratio) had knowledge and then wanted to apply if the Known may be rebutted by any reasoning. Opinions understood the Stoics as "weak or incorrect assumptions ". About the Classics (Socrates, Plato, Aristotle ) they went out by different from each other as a criterion of truth, the opinion and knowledge, the acquiring ( κατάληψις, katalepsis; Latin comprehensio ) introduced.

Scholasticism

Thomas Aquinas and the representative of late scholasticism, who discussed thoroughly with Aristotle meant by opinio an opinion, in which resonates the suspicion that the truth of a statement is accepted only by mistake. In addition, Thomas used the term occasionally to denote a mere tendency to accept as true.

Modern philosophy

Spinoza differed in his Ethics ( 1677) three stages of knowledge: imagination or opinion ( imaginatio / opinio ), reason (ratio) and intuitive knowledge ( scientia / cognitio intuitiva ). As empirical knowledge, which is based on perception and memory, the imagination was for him the lowest kind of knowledge; it does not arise from his view, so the activity of the human mind, but is only passively perceived by this. Kant used my mind and in the same sense as the Greeks; an opinion is for him always a possible experience based, while in a priori judgments takes place not mine.

In the epistemology of the presence of the term plays "opinion" among others the Gettier problem a central role.