Greece & Rome · c. 320 BCE – c. 200 CE
Pyrrhonism & Academic skepticism
For every argument an equally strong opposing argument can be found, so we should suspend judgement, and tranquillity follows.
Can we know anything for certain?
Pyrrho of Elis travelled with Alexander’s army as far as India and returned teaching that things are undecidable; he wrote nothing. Separately, around 268 BCE Arcesilaus turned Plato’s Academy toward Socratic doubt, attacking the Stoics’ claim to certain knowledge. Centuries later Sextus Empiricus, a physician, systematised Pyrrhonism in books that survive.
Appearances conflict: honey tastes sweet to the healthy and bitter to the sick, and customs differ between peoples. To prove any criterion of truth you need another criterion, and so on to infinity, or in a circle, or by bare assumption. Since we cannot decide, the wise suspend judgement (epochē), live by appearances and custom, and find that peace of mind (ataraxia) follows like a shadow.
- Every argument can be balanced by an equal counter-argument.
- The wise suspend judgement (epochē).
- Tranquillity follows the suspension of belief.
The rediscovery of Sextus in the 16th century set off the early modern “skeptical crisis” that Montaigne explored and Descartes tried to answer; the regress problem is still central to epistemology.
Thinkers
c. 360–270 BCEPyrrhoFounder of Pyrrhonian skepticism, who went to India with Alexanderfl. 2nd–3rd c. CESextus EmpiricusPhysician whose books are our main source for ancient skepticism106–43 BCECiceroRoman orator and statesman who brought Greek philosophy into LatinKey texts
Where it came from
Grew out ofPlatonismArcesilaus, as head of Plato’s Academy from around 268 BCE, revived Socrates’ profession of ignorance and turned the school toward suspending judgement.Reacted against
StoicismAcademic skeptics such as Carneades attacked the Stoic claim that some impressions are so clear that they guarantee their own truth.Grew out of
AtomismPyrrho’s teacher Anaxarchus came from the Democritean tradition, which had already stressed that the senses do not show things as they really are.
What it led to
Carried on byRenaissance humanismSextus Empiricus, printed in Latin in 1562, supplied Montaigne with the arguments of his skeptical “Apology for Raymond Sebond”.Opposed by
RationalismDescartes radicalised the skeptics’ doubt so that, by defeating the strongest possible doubt, he could give knowledge an unshakable foundation.