Pyrrhonism

Pyrrhonism is a school of philosophical skepticism founded by Pyrrho in the fourth century BCE. It is best known through the surviving works of Sextus Empiricus, writing in the late second century or early third century CE.[1]

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Origins
Pyrrho of Elis, marble head, Roman copy, Archeological Museum of Corfu
Map of Alexander the Great's empire and the route he and Pyrrho took to India

Pyrrho of Elis (c. 360 – c. 270 BCE) and his teacher Anaxarchus, both Democritean philosophers, traveled to India with Alexander the Great's army where Pyrrho was said to have studied with the magi and the gymnosophists,[2] and where he was influenced by Buddhist teachings, most particularly the three marks of existence.[3] After returning to Greece, Pyrrho started a new line of philosophy now known as "Pyrrhonism." His teachings were recorded by his student Timon of Phlius, most of whose works have been lost.

Pyrrhonism as a school was either revitalized or re-founded by Aenesidemus in the first century BCE.

Philosophy

As with other Hellenistic philosophies such as Stoicism, Peripateticism and Epicureanism, eudaimonia is the Pyrrhonist goal of life. According to the Pyrrhonists, it is one's opinions about non-evident matters (i.e., dogma) that prevent one from attaining eudaimonia. As with Epicureanism, Pyrrhonism places the attainment of ataraxia (a state of equanimity) as the way to achieve eudaimonia. To bring the mind to ataraxia Pyrrhonism uses epoché (suspension of judgment) regarding all non-evident propositions. Pyrrhonists dispute that the dogmatists – which includes all of Pyrrhonism's rival philosophies – have found truth regarding non-evident matters. For any non-evident matter, a Pyrrhonist makes arguments for and against such that the matter cannot be concluded, thus suspending belief and thereby inducing ataraxia.

Pyrrhonism is the earliest Western form of philosophical skepticism. In ancient literature Pyrrhonism was commonly referred to as "skepticism," and Pyrrhonism was often lumped together with the similar philosophy of Academic Skepticism. Correspondingly their practitioners were called "skeptics" and "Academics."

Although Pyrrhonism's objective is eudaimonia, it is best known for its epistemological arguments, particularly the problem of the criterion, and for being the first Western school of philosophy to identify the problem of induction and the Münchhausen trilemma.

Pyrrhonists (or Pyrrhonist practice) can be subdivided into those who are ephectic (engaged in suspension of judgment), zetetic (engaged in seeking), or aporetic (engaged in refutation).[4]

Practice

Pyrrhonist practice is for the purpose of achieving epoché, i.e., suspension of judgment. The core practice is through setting argument against argument. To aid in this, the Pyrrhonist philosophers Aenesidemus and Agrippa developed sets of stock arguments known as "modes" or "tropes."

The ten modes of Aenesidemus
Main article: The ten modes of Aenesidemus

Aenesidemus is considered the creator of the ten tropes of Aenesidemus (also known as the ten modes of Aenesidemus)—although whether he invented the tropes or just systematized them from prior Pyrrhonist works is unknown. Sextus Empiricus attributed them simply to the earlier Pyrrhonists. Diogenes Laeritius attributed them to Aenesidemus. The title of a lost work of Plutarch's (On Pyrrho's Ten Modes) appears to attribute the modes to Pyrrho.[5] The tropes represent reasons for epoché (suspension of judgment). These are as follows:

  1. "The same impressions are not produced by the same objects owing to the differences in animals."[6]
  2. The same impressions are not produced by the same objects owing to the differences among human beings.[7]
  3. The same impressions are not produced by the same objects owing to the differences among the senses.[8]
  4. Owing to the "circumstances, conditions or dispositions," the same objects appear different. The same temperature, as established by instrument, feels very different after an extended period of cold winter weather (it feels warm) than after mild weather in the autumn (it feels cold). Time appears slow when young and fast as aging proceeds. Honey tastes sweet to most but bitter to someone with jaundice. A person with influenza will feel cold and shiver even though she is hot with a fever.[9]
  5. Based on positions, distances, and locations; for owing to each of these the same objects appear different; for example, the same porch when viewed from one of its corners appears curtailed, but viewed from the middle symmetrical on all sides; and the same ship seems at a distance to be small and stationary, but from close at hand large and in motion ; and the same tower from a distance appears round but from a near point quadrangular.[10]
  6. “We deduce that since no object strikes us entirely by itself, but along with something else, it may perhaps be possible to say what the mixture compounded out of the external object and the thing perceived with it is like, but we would not be able to say what the external object is like by itself."[11]
  7. "Based, as we said, on the quantity and constitution of the underlying objects, meaning generally by "constitution" the manner of composition." So, for example, goat horn appears black when intact and appears white when ground up. Snow appears white when frozen and translucent as a liquid.[12]
  8. "Since all things appear relative, we will suspend judgement about what things exist absolutely and really existent.[13] Do things which exist "differentially" as opposed to those things that have a distinct existence of their own, differ from relative things or not? If they do not differ, then they too are relative; but if they differ, then, since everything which differs is relative to something..., things which exist absolutely are relative."[14]
  9. "Based on constancy or rarity of occurrence." The sun is more amazing than a comet, but because we see and feel the warmth of the sun daily and the comet rarely, the latter commands our attention.[15]
  10. "There is a Tenth Mode, which is mainly concerned with Ethics, being based on rules of conduct, habits, laws, legendary beliefs, and dogmatic conceptions."[16]

Superordinate to these ten modes stand three other modes:

  1. that based on the subject who judges (modes 1, 2, 3 & 4).
  2. that based on the object judged (modes 7 & 10).
  3. that based on both subject who judges and object judged (modes 5, 6, 8 & 9)

Superordinate to these three modes is the mode of relation.[17]

The five modes of Agrippa
Main article: The five modes of Agrippa

These "tropes" or "modes" are given by Sextus Empiricus in his Outlines of Pyrrhonism. According to Sextus, they are attributed only "to the more recent skeptics" and it is by Diogenes Laërtius that we attribute them to Agrippa.[18] The five tropes of Agrippa are:

  1. Dissent – The uncertainty demonstrated by the differences of opinions among philosophers and people in general.
  2. Progress ad infinitum – All proof rests on matters themselves in need of proof, and so on to infinity, i.e., the regress argument.
  3. Relation – All things are changed as their relations become changed, or, as we look upon them from different points of view.
  4. Assumption – The truth asserted is based on an unsupported assumption.
  5. Circularity – The truth asserted involves a circularity of proofs.

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 with suspension 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 so ad 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 back ad 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.[19]

With reference to these five tropes, that the first and third are a short summary of the earlier Ten Modes of Aenesidemus.[18] 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 to Victor 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.”[20]

Criteria of action

Pyrrhonist decision making is made according to what the Pyrrhonists describe as the criteria of action holding to the appearances, without beliefs in accord with the ordinary regimen of life based on:

  1. the guidance of nature, by which we are naturally capable of sensation and thought
  2. the compulsion of the pathé by which hunger drives us to food and thirst makes us drink
  3. the handing down of customs and laws by which we accept that piety in the conduct of life is good and impiety bad
  4. instruction in arts and crafts[21]

Skeptic sayings

The Pyrrhonists devised several sayings (Greek ΦΩΝΩΝ) to help practitioners bring their minds to epoche.[22] Among these are:

  • Not more, nothing more (a saying attributed to Democritus[23])
  • Non-assertion
  • Perhaps, it is possible, maybe
  • I withhold assent
  • I determine nothing (Montaigne created a variant of this as his own personal motto, "Que sçay-je?" – "what do I know?")
  • Everything is indeterminate
  • Everything is non-apprehensible
  • I do not apprehend
  • To every argument an equal argument is opposed

Similarities with Buddhism
Main article: Similarities between Pyrrhonism and Buddhism

The summary of Pyrrho's teaching preserved in the "Aristocles passage" shows signs of Buddhist philosophical influence. This text is:

Whoever wants eudaimonia (to live well) must consider these three questions: First, how are pragmata (ethical matters, affairs, topics) by nature? Secondly, what attitude should we adopt towards them? Thirdly, what will be the outcome for those who have this attitude?" Pyrrho's answer is that "As for pragmata they are all adiaphora (undifferentiated by a logical differentia), astathmēta (unstable, unbalanced, not measurable), and anepikrita (unjudged, unfixed, undecidable). Therefore, neither our sense-perceptions nor our doxai (views, theories, beliefs) tell us the truth or lie; so we certainly should not rely on them. Rather, we should be adoxastous (without views), aklineis (uninclined toward this side or that), and akradantous (unwavering in our refusal to choose), saying about every single one that it no more is than it is not or it both is and is not or it neither is nor is not. The outcome for those who actually adopt this attitude, says Timon, will be first aphasia (speechlessness, non-assertion) and then ataraxia (freedom from disturbance), and Aenesidemus says pleasure.[24]

According to Christopher I. Beckwith's analysis of the Aristocles Passage, adiaphora (anatta), astathmēta (dukkha), and anepikrita (anicca) are strikingly similar to the Buddhist three marks of existence,[25] indicating that Pyrrho's teaching is based on Buddhism. Beckwith contends that the 18 months Pyrrho spent in India was long enough to learn a foreign language, and that the key innovative tenets of Pyrrho's skepticism were only found in Indian philosophy at the time and not in Greece.[26] Other scholars, such as Stephen Batchelor[27] and Charles Goodman[28] question Beckwith's conclusions about the degree of Buddhist influence on Pyrrho.

Other similarities between Pyrrhonism and Buddhism include a version of the tetralemma among the Pyrrhonist maxims[29] and a parallel with the Buddhist Two Truths Doctrine.[30] In Pyrrhonism the Buddhist concept of "ultimate" (paramārtha) truth corresponds with truth as defined via the criterion of truth, which in Pyrrhonism is seen as undemonstrated, and therefore nothing can be called "true" with respect of it being an account of reality. The Buddhist concept of "conventional" or "provisional" (saṁvṛti) truth corresponds in Pyrrhonism to truth defined via the Pyrrhonist criterion of action, which is used for making decisions about what to do.

Nagarjuna's Madhyamaka philosophy is particularly similar to Pyrrhonism.[31] According to Thomas McEvilley this is because Nagarjuna was likely influenced by Greek Pyrrhonist texts imported into India.[32]

Texts

Except for the works of Sextus Empiricus and Diogenes Laërtius, the texts about ancient Pyrrhonism have been lost, except for a summary of Pyrrhonian Discourses by Aenesidemus, preserved by Photius, and a summary of Pyrrho's teaching preserved by Eusebius, quoting Aristocles, quoting Pyrrho's student Timon, in what is known as the "Aristocles passage."

Symbols
Balance scales in equal balance are the symbol of Pyrrhonism

The balance scale, in perfect balance, is the traditional symbol of Pyrrhonism. The Pyrrhonist philosopher Montaigne adopted the image of a balance scale for his motto.[33]

Influence

Pyrrhonism so influenced Arcesilaus, the sixth scholarch of the Platonic Academy that Arcesilaus reformed the teaching of the Academy to be nearly identical to Pyrrhonism[34] thus initiating the Academic Skepticism of the Middle Academy.

The Pyrrhonist school influenced and had substantial overlap with the Empiric school of medicine. Many of the well-known Pyrrhonist teachers were also Empirics, including: Sextus Empiricus, Herodotus of Tarsus, Heraclides, Theodas, and Menodotus. However, Sextus Empiricus said that Pyrrhonism had more in common with the Methodic school in that it “follow[s] the appearances and take[s] from these whatever seems expedient.”[35]

Because of the high degree of similarity between the Buddhist philosopher Nagarjuna's Madhyamaka philosophy and Pyrrhonism, particularly as detailed in the surviving works of Sextus Empiricus,[31] Thomas McEvilley suspects that Nagarjuna was influenced by Greek Pyrrhonist texts imported into India.[32]

Pyrrhonism regained prominence in the late fifteenth century.[36] The publication of the works of Sextus Empiricus played a major role in Renaissance and Reformation thought. 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 as Michel de Montaigne, Marin Mersenne, and Pierre Gassendi later drew on the model of Pyrrhonism outlined in Sextus Empiricus’ works for their own arguments. This resurgence of Pyrrhonism has been called the beginning of modern philosophy.[36]

Pyrrhonism also affected the development of historiography. Historical Pyrrhonism emerged during the early modern period and played a significant role in shaping modern historiography. Historical Pyrrhonism questioned the possibility of any absolute knowledge from the past and transformed later historians' selection of and standard for reliable sources.[37]

A revival of the use of "Pyrrhonism" as a synonym for "skepticism" occurred during the seventeenth century.[38]

Fallibilism is a modern, fundamental perspective of the scientific method, as put forth by Karl Popper and Charles Sanders Peirce, that all knowledge is, at best, an approximation, and that any scientist always must stipulate this in her or his research and findings. It is, in effect, a modernized extension of Pyrrhonism.[39] Indeed, historic Pyrrhonists sometimes are described by modern authors as fallibilists and modern fallibilists sometimes are described as Pyrrhonists.[40]

Scholarchs

Diogenes Laërtius recorded the following list of scholarchs of the Pyrrhonist school of philosophy.[41]

326-270 Pyrrho
270-235 Timon of Phlius
???-??? Euphranor of Seleucia
???-??? Eubulus of Alexandria
???-??? Ptolemy of Cyrene
c. 100 Heraclides of Tarentum
c. 50 Aenesidemus
???-??? Zeuxippus
???-??? Zeuxis
???-??? Antiochus of Laodicea on the Lycus
c 100 Menodotus of Nicomedia
c. 120 Herodotus of Tarsus
c. 160 Sextus Empiricus
c. 200 Saturninus

List of Pyrrhonist philosophers

See also

References
  1. 1923-, Popkin, Richard Henry (2003). The history of scepticism : from Savonarola to Bayle. Popkin, Richard Henry, 1923- (Rev. and expanded ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0198026714. OCLC 65192690.CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  2. Laërtius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers Book XI.
  3. Beckwith, Christopher I. (2015). Greek Buddha: Pyrrho's Encounter with Early Buddhism in Central Asia (PDF). Princeton University Press. p. 28. ISBN 9781400866328.
  4. Pulleyn, William (1830). The Etymological Compendium, Or, Portfolio of Origins and Inventions. T. Tegg. pp. 353.
  5. Mauro Bonazzi, "Plutarch on the Differences Between the Pyrrhonists and Academics", Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, 2012
  6. Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism, Trans. R.G. Bury, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1933, p. 27
  7. Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism, Trans. R.G. Bury, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1933, p. 47
  8. Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism, Trans. R.G. Bury, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1933, p. 55
  9. Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism, Trans. R.G. Bury, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1933, p.61
  10. Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism, Book I Section 118 Trans. R.G. Bury, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1933, p.69-71
  11. Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism, Trans. R.G. Bury, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1933, p.73
  12. Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism, Trans. R.G. Bury, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1933, p.77
  13. Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism, Trans. R.G. Bury, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1933, p. 79
  14. Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism, Trans. R.G. Bury, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1933, p. 81
  15. Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism, Trans. R.G. Bury, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1933, p. 83
  16. Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism, Trans. R.G. Bury, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1933, p. 85
  17. Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism, Trans. R.G. Bury, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1933, pp. 25–27
  18. Diogenes Laërtius, ix.
  19. Sextus Empiricus, Pyrrhōneioi hypotypōseis i., from Annas, J., Outlines of Scepticism Cambridge University Press. (2000).
  20. Brochard, V., The Greek Skeptics.
  21. Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism Book I Chapter 11 Section 23
  22. Sextus Empiricus Outlines of Pyrrhonism Book I Chapter 18
  23. Sextus Empiricus Outlines of Pyrrhonism Book II Chapter 30
  24. Beckwith, Christopher I. (2015). Greek Buddha: Pyrrho's Encounter with Early Buddhism in Central Asia (PDF). Princeton University Press. pp. 22–23. ISBN 9781400866328.
  25. Beckwith, Christopher I. (2015). Greek Buddha: Pyrrho's Encounter with Early Buddhism in Central Asia (PDF). Princeton University Press. p. 28. ISBN 9781400866328.
  26. Beckwith, Christopher I. (2015). Greek Buddha: Pyrrho's Encounter with Early Buddhism in Central Asia. Princeton University Press. p. 221. ISBN 9781400866328.
  27. Stephen Batchelor "Greek Buddha: Pyrrho’s encounter with early Buddhism in central Asia", Contemporary Buddhism, 2016, pp 195-215
  28. Charles Goodman, "Neither Scythian nor Greek: A Response to Beckwith's Greek Buddha and Kuzminski's "Early Buddhism Reconsidered"", Philosophy East and West, University of Hawai'i Press Volume 68, Number 3, July 2018 pp. 984-1006
  29. Sextus Empricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism Book 1, Section 19
  30. McEvilley, Thomas (2002). The Shape of Ancient Thought. Allworth Communications. ISBN 1-58115-203-5., p. 474
  31. Adrian Kuzminski, Pyrrhonism: How the Ancient Greeks Reinvented Buddhism 2008
  32. Thomas McEvilley, The Shape of Ancient Thought 2002 pp499-505
  33. Sarah Bakewell, How to Live: Or A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer 2011 p 127 ISBN 1590514831
  34. Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism Book I Chapter 33
  35. Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism I.237, trans. Etheridge (Scepticism, Man, and God, Wesleyan University Press, 1964, p. 98).
  36. Popkin, Richard Henry (2003). The History of Scepticism : from Savonarola to Bayle (Revised ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780198026716. OCLC 65192690.
  37. 1985-, Matytsin, Anton M. (6 November 2016). The specter of skepticism in the age of Enlightenment. Baltimore. ISBN 9781421420530. OCLC 960048885.CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  38. Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, page 7, section 23.
  39. Powell, Thomas C. "Fallibilism and Organizational Research: The Third Epistemology", Journal of Management Research 4, 2001, pp. 201–219.
  40. "Ancient Greek Skepticism" at the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
  41. Diogenes Laërtius, "Lives of the Eminent Philosophers", Book 9, Chapter 12, Section 116

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