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Pyrrhonism is an Ancient Greek school ofphilosophical skepticism which rejects dogma and advocates thesuspension of judgement over the truth of all beliefs. It was founded byAenesidemus in the first century BCE, and said to have been inspired by the teachings ofPyrrho andTimon of Phlius in the fourth century BCE.[1]
Pyrrhonism is best known today through the surviving works ofSextus Empiricus, writing in the late second century or early third century CE.[2] The publication of Sextus' works in theRenaissance ignited arevival of interest in Skepticism and played a major role inReformation thought and the development ofearly modern philosophy.
Pyrrhonism is named afterPyrrho of Elis, a Greekphilosopher in the 4th century BCE who was credited by the later Pyrrhonists with forming the first comprehensive school ofskeptical thought. However, ancient testimony about the philosophical beliefs of the historical Pyrrho is minimal, and often contradictory:[1] his teachings were recorded by his studentTimon of Phlius, but those works have been lost, and only survive in fragments quoted by later authors, and based on testimonies of later authors such asCicero. Pyrrho's own philosophy as recorded by Timon may have been much more dogmatic than that of the later school who bore his name.[1] While Pyrrhonism would become the dominant form of skepticism in the early Roman period, in theHellenistic period, thePlatonic Academy was the primary advocate of skepticism until the mid-first century BCE,[3] when Pyrrhonism as a philosophical school was founded by Aenesidemus.[1][4]
The goal of Pyrrhonism isataraxia,[5] an untroubled and tranquil condition of soul that results from a suspension of judgement, a mental rest owing to which we neither deny nor affirm anything.
Pyrrhonists dispute that the dogmatists – which includes all of Pyrrhonism's rival philosophies – claim to have foundtruth regarding non-evident matters, and that these opinions about non-evident matters (i.e.,dogma) are what prevent one from attainingeudaimonia. For any of these dogmas, a Pyrrhonist makes arguments for and against such that the matter cannot be concluded, thussuspending judgement, and thereby inducing ataraxia.
Pyrrhonists can be subdivided into those who areephectic (engaged in suspension of judgment),aporetic (engaged in refutation)[6] orzetetic (engaged in seeking).[7] An ephectic merely suspends judgment on a matter, "balancing perceptions and thoughts against one another."[8] It is a less aggressive form of skepticism, in that sometimes "suspension of judgment evidently just happens to the sceptic".[9] An aporetic skeptic, in contrast, works more actively towards their goal, engaging in the refutation of arguments in favor of various possible beliefs in order to reachaporia, an impasse, or state of perplexity,[10] which leads to suspension of judgement.[9] Finally, the zetetic claims to be continually searching for the truth but to have thus far been unable to find it, and thus continues to suspend belief while also searching for reason to cease the suspension of belief.
Although Pyrrhonism's objective is ataraxia, it is best known for itsepistemological arguments. The core practice is through setting argument against argument. To aid in this, the Pyrrhonist philosophersAenesidemus andAgrippa developed sets of stock arguments known as "modes" or "tropes."
Aenesidemus is considered the creator ofthe ten tropes of Aenesidemus (also known asthe ten modes of Aenesidemus)—although whether he invented thetropes or just systematized them from prior Pyrrhonist works is unknown. The tropes represent reasons for suspension of judgment. These are as follows:[11]
According to Sextus, superordinate to these ten modes stand three other modes: that based on the subject who judges (modes 1, 2, 3 & 4), that based on the object judged (modes 7 & 10), that based on both subject who judges and object judged (modes 5, 6, 8 & 9), and superordinate to these three modes is the mode of relation.[12]
These "tropes" or "modes" are given bySextus Empiricus in hisOutlines of Pyrrhonism. According to Sextus, they are attributed only "to the more recent skeptics" and it is byDiogenes Laërtius that we attribute them toAgrippa.[13] Thefive tropes of Agrippa are:
According to the mode deriving from dispute, we find that undecidable dissension about the matter proposed has come about both in ordinary life and among philosophers. Because of this we are not able to choose or to rule out anything, and we end up withsuspension of judgement. In the mode deriving from infinite regress, we say that what is brought forward as a source of conviction for the matter proposed itself needs another such source, which itself needs another, and soad infinitum, so that we have no point from which to begin to establish anything, and suspension of judgement follows. In the mode deriving from relativity, as we said above, the existing object appears to be such-and-such relative to the subject judging and to the things observed together with it, but we suspend judgement on what it is like in its nature. We have the mode from hypothesis when the Dogmatists, being thrown backad infinitum, begin from something which they do not establish but claim to assume simply and without proof in virtue of a concession. The reciprocal mode occurs when what ought to be confirmatory of the object under investigation needs to be made convincing by the object under investigation; then, being unable to take either in order to establish the other, we suspend judgement about both.[14]
With reference to these five tropes, that the first and third are a short summary of the earlier Ten Modes ofAenesidemus.[13] The three additional ones show a progress in the Pyrrhonist system, building upon the objections derived from the fallibility of sense and opinion to more abstract and metaphysical grounds. According toVictor Brochard "the five tropes can be regarded as the most radical and most precise formulation of skepticism that has ever been given. In a sense, they are still irresistible today."[15]
Pyrrhonist decision making is made according to what the Pyrrhonists describe as thecriteria of action holding to theappearances, without beliefs in accord with the ordinary regimen of life based on:
The Pyrrhonists devised several sayings (Greek ΦΩΝΩΝ[clarification needed]) to help practitioners bring their minds to suspend judgment.[17] Among these are:
Except for the works ofSextus Empiricus, the texts of ancient Pyrrhonism have been lost. There is a summary of thePyrrhonian Discourses byAenesidemus, preserved byPhotius, and a brief summary of Pyrrho's teaching byAristocles, quoting Pyrrho's studentTimon preserved byEusebius:
'The things themselves are equally indifferent, and unstable, and indeterminate, and therefore neither our senses nor our opinions are either true or false. For this reason then we must not trust them, but be without opinions, and without bias, and without wavering, saying of every single thing that it no more is than is not, or both is and is not, or neither is nor is not.[19]
Pyrrhonism is often contrasted withAcademic skepticism, a similar but distinct form of Hellenistic philosophical skepticism.[9][20] While early Academic skepticism was influenced in part by Pyrrho,[21] it grew more and more dogmatic untilAenesidemus broke with the Academics to revive Pyrrhonism in the first century BCE, denouncing the Academy as "Stoics fighting against Stoics.[22] Some later Pyrrhonists, such asSextus Empiricus, go so far as to claim that Pyrrhonists are the only real skeptics, dividing all philosophy into the dogmatists, the Academics, and the skeptics.[23] Dogmatists claim to have knowledge, Academic skeptics claim thatknowledge is impossible, while Pyrrhonists assent to neither proposition, suspending judgment on both.[9][24] The second century Roman historianAulus Gellius describes the distinction as "...the Academics apprehend (in some sense) the very fact that nothing can be apprehended, and they determine (in some sense) that nothing can be determined, whereas the Pyrrhonists assert that not even that seems to be true, since nothing seems to be true.[25][20]"
Sextus Empiricus also said that the Pyrrhonist school influenced and had substantial overlap with theEmpiric school of medicine, but that Pyrrhonism had more in common with theMethodic school in that it "follow[s] the appearances and take[s] from these whatever seems expedient."[26]
AlthoughJulian the Philosopher[27] mentions that Pyrrhonism had died out at the time of his writings, other writers mention the existence of later Pyrrhonists. Pseudo-Clement, writing around the same time (c. 300–320 CE) mentions Pyrrhonists in hisHomilies[28] andAgathias even reports a Pyrrhonist named Uranius as late as the middle of the 6th century CE.[29]
A number of similarities have been noted between the Pyrrhonist works of Sextus Empiricius and that ofNagarjuna, theMadhyamakaBuddhist philosopher from the 2nd or 3rd century CE.[30] Buddhist philosopherJan Westerhoff says "many of Nāgārjuna's arguments concerning causation bear strong similarities to classical sceptical arguments as presented in the third book of Sextus Empiricus'sOutlines of Pyrrhonism,"[31] andThomas McEvilley suspects that Nagarjuna may have been influenced by Greek Pyrrhonist texts imported into India.[32] McEvilley argues for mutual iteration in theBuddhist logico-epistemological traditions between Pyrrhonism andMadhyamika:
An extraordinary similarity, that has long been noticed, between Pyrrhonism and Mādhyamaka is the formula known in connection with Buddhism as the fourfold negation (Catuṣkoṭi) and which in Pyrrhonic form might be called the fourfold indeterminacy.[33]
McEvilley also notes a correspondence between the Pyrrhonist and Madhyamaka views about truth, comparing Sextus' account[34] of two criteria regarding truth, one which judges between reality and unreality, and another which we use as a guide in everyday life. By the first criteria, nothing is either true or false, but by the second, information from the senses may be considered either true or false for practical purposes. As Edward Conze[35][verification needed] has noted, this is similar to the MadhyamikaTwo Truths doctrine, a distinction between "Absolute truth" (paramārthasatya), "the knowledge of the real as it is without any distortion,"[36] and "Truth so-called" (saṃvṛti satya), "truth as conventionally believed in common parlance.[36][37]
Other similarities between Pyrrhonism and Buddhism include a version of thetetralemma among the Pyrrhonist maxims, and more significantly, the idea ofsuspension of judgement and how that can lead to peace and liberation;ataraxia in Pyrrhonism andnirvāṇa in Buddhism.[38][39]
Some scholars have also looked farther back, to determine if any earlier Indian philosophy have had an influence on Pyrrho.Diogenes Laërtius' biography of Pyrrho reports that Pyrrho traveled withAlexander the Great's army to India and incorporated what he learned from theGymnosophists and theMagi that he met in his travels into his philosophical system.[40] Pyrrho would have spent about 18 months inTaxila as part ofAlexander the Great's court during Alexander's conquest of the east.[41]Christopher I. Beckwith[42] draws comparisons between the Buddhistthree marks of existence and the concepts outlined in the "Aristocles Passage".[43]
However, other scholars, such asStephen Batchelor[44] and Charles Goodman[45] question Beckwith's conclusions about the degree of Buddhist influence on Pyrrho. Conversely, while critical of Beckwith's ideas, Kuzminsky sees credibility in the hypothesis that Pyrrho was influenced by Buddhism, even if it cannot be safely ascertained with our current information.[46]
Ajñana, which upheldradical skepticism, may have been a more powerful influence on Pyrrho than Buddhism. The Buddhists referred to Ajñana's adherents asAmarāvikkhepikas or "eel-wrigglers", due to their refusal to commit to a single doctrine.[47] Scholars includingBarua, Jayatilleke, and Flintoff, contend that Pyrrho was influenced by, or at the very least agreed with, Indian skepticism rather than Buddhism or Jainism, based on the fact that he valuedataraxia, which can be translated as "freedom from worry".[48][49][50] Jayatilleke, in particular, contends that Pyrrho may have been influenced by the first three schools of Ajñana, since they too valued freedom from worry.[51]
The recovery and publication of the works of Sextus Empiricus, particularly a widely influential translation byHenri Estienne published in 1562,[52] ignited arevival of interest in Pyrrhonism.[52] Philosophers of the time used his works to source their arguments on how to deal with the religious issues of their day. Major philosophers such asMichel de Montaigne,Marin Mersenne, andPierre Gassendi later drew on the model of Pyrrhonism outlined in Sextus Empiricus' works for their own arguments. This resurgence of Pyrrhonism has sometimes been called the beginning of modern philosophy.[52]Montaigne adopted the image of a balance scale for his motto,[53] which became a modern symbol of Pyrrhonism.[54][55] It has also been suggested that Pyrrhonism provided the skeptical underpinnings thatRené Descartes drew from in developing his influential method ofCartesian doubt and the associated turn ofearly modern philosophy towardsepistemology.[52] In the 18th century,David Hume was also considerably influenced by Pyrrhonism, using "Pyrrhonism" as a synonym for "skepticism."[56][better source needed].
Friedrich Nietzsche, however, criticized the "ephectics" of the Pyrrhonists as a flaw of early philosophers, whom he characterized as "shy little blunderer[s] and milquetoast[s] with crooked legs" prone to overindulging "his doubting drive, his negating drive, his wait-and-see ('ephectic') drive, his analytical drive, his exploring, searching, venturing drive, his comparing, balancing drive, his will toneutrality andobjectivity, his will to everysine ira et studio: have we already grasped that for the longest time they all went against the first demands ofmorality andconscience?"[57]
The term "neo-Pyrrhonism" is used to refer to modern Pyrrhonists such asBenson Mates andRobert Fogelin.[58][59]
One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Aenesidemus".Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 1 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 257–258.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
Laërtius, Diogenes."Others: Pyrrho" .Lives of the Eminent Philosophers. Vol. 2:9. Translated byHicks, Robert Drew (Two volume ed.). Loeb Classical Library.