Pyrrhonian Sceptic
Σέξτος Ἐμπειρικός
fl. c. 200 CE · Uncertain; a physician of the Empiric school
A doctor and Pyrrhonian Sceptic whose Outlines of Pyrrhonism is our fullest ancient account of scepticism. Little is known of his life. He presents scepticism not as a theory but as an ability and a way of living: setting arguments against each other and suspending judgment.
The sceptic’s aim, Sextus says, is tranquillity in matters of opinion and moderate feeling in what cannot be avoided, such as hunger or cold, since he does not add the belief that these are bad by nature.
Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism, I.25–30
Paraphrase and reference awaiting verification against the source.
Scepticism, Sextus says, is an ability to set appearances and thoughts against one another, so that through the equal force of opposing accounts we come first to suspension of judgment and then to tranquillity.
Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism, I.8
Paraphrase and reference awaiting verification against the source.
The painter Apelles, unable to paint a horse’s foam, flung his sponge at the picture in frustration, and it left the very mark of foam. So, Sextus says, sceptics found tranquillity following suspension of judgment as if by chance.
Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism, I.28–29
Paraphrase and reference awaiting verification against the source.
Sceptics live without dogmatic beliefs by following appearances: the guidance of nature, the compulsion of feelings, the laws and customs they grew up with, and the teaching of skills.
Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism, I.23–24
Paraphrase and reference awaiting verification against the source.
Sextus collects examples of how customs and laws differ between peoples, so that what is shameful in one place is acceptable in another; we can say how things appear to each, not how they are by nature.
Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism, I.145–163
Paraphrase and reference awaiting verification against the source.
Whoever believes that something is good or bad by nature is constantly troubled, Sextus argues: pursuing what seems good and fearing to lose it, or fleeing what seems bad.
Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism, I.27–28; III.235–238
Paraphrase and reference awaiting verification against the source.
A direct challenge to schools that claimed to know the human good.
Sceptical phrases such as “no more this than that” apply to themselves too, Sextus says, like purgative drugs that flush themselves out along with what they expel.
Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism, I.14–15, I.206
Paraphrase and reference awaiting verification against the source.
The sceptic, Sextus notes, does not claim that nothing can be known; he keeps searching, unlike those who say they have found the truth or that it cannot be found.
Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism, I.1–4
Paraphrase and reference awaiting verification against the source.
Pyrrhonian Sceptic (1st c. BCE – 3rd c. CE). The Pyrrhonists set opposing arguments against each other until judgment is suspended, and report that tranquillity tends to follow; they claimed no doctrine about what is good by nature.