Pyrrhonism

Pyrrhonism is named after Pyrrho of Elis, a Greek philosopher in the 4th century BCE who was credited by the later Pyrrhonists with forming the first comprehensive school of skeptical thought. However, ancient testimony about the philosophical beliefs of the historical Pyrrho is minimal, and often contradictory: his teachings were recorded by his student Timon 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 as Cicero. Pyrrho's own philosophy as recorded by Timon may have been much more dogmatic than that of the later school who bore his name. While Pyrrhonism would become the dominant form of skepticism in the early Roman period, in the Hellenistic period, the Platonic Academy was the primary advocate of skepticism until the mid-first century BCE,{{sfn|Thorsrud|2009|pp=120-121}} when Pyrrhonism as a philosophical school was founded by Aenesidemus.Stéphane Marchand, "Sextus Empiricus' Style Of Writing", in New Essays on Ancient Pyrrhonism, p 113

The goal of Pyrrhonism is ataraxia,

{{cite book |last=Warren |first=James |date=2002 |title=Epicurus and Democritean ethics: An archaeology of ataraxia |publisher=Cambridge University Press |page=I |isbn=0521813697}}

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 found truth regarding non-evident matters, and that these opinions about non-evident matters (i.e., dogma) are what prevent one from attaining eudaimonia. For any of these dogmas, a Pyrrhonist makes arguments for and against such that the matter cannot be concluded, thus suspending judgement, and thereby inducing ataraxia.

Pyrrhonists can be subdivided into those who are ephectic (engaged in suspension of judgment), aporetic (engaged in refutation){{Cite book |title=The Etymological Compendium, Or, Portfolio of Origins and Inventions |url=https://archive.org/details/etymologicalcom00pullgoog |last=Pulleyn |first=William |publisher=T. Tegg |year=1830 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/etymologicalcom00pullgoog/page/n411 353]}} or zetetic (engaged in seeking).{{Cite book|title = The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Scepticism|last = Bett|first = Richard Arnot Home|publisher = Cambridge University Press|date = Jan 28, 2010|pages = 212}} An ephectic merely suspends judgment on a matter, "balancing perceptions and thoughts against one another."{{Cite book|title = The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Scepticism|last = Bett|first = Richard Arnot Home|publisher = Cambridge University Press|date = 2010-01-28|pages = 213}} It is a less aggressive form of skepticism, in that sometimes "suspension of judgment evidently just happens to the sceptic". 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 reach aporia, an impasse, or state of perplexity,{{Cite book|title = A History of Western Philosophy, Volume 2|last = McInerny|first = Ralph|publisher = Aeterna Press|year = 1969|pages = Chp III. Skeptics and the New Academy, A. Pyrrho of Elis section, para 3–4}} which leads to suspension of judgement. 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 its epistemological arguments. 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."

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. The tropes represent reasons for suspension of judgment. These are as follows:{{EB1911|inline=1|wstitle=Aenesidemus|volume=1|pages=257-258}}

1. Different animals manifest different modes of perception;
2. Similar differences are seen among individual men;
3. For the same man, information perceived with the senses is self-contradictory
4. Furthermore, it varies from time to time with physical changes
5. In addition, this data differs according to local relations
6. Objects are known only indirectly through the medium of air, moisture, etc.
7. These objects are in a condition of perpetual change in colour, temperature, size and motion
8. All perceptions are relative and interact one upon another
9. Our impressions become less critical through repetition and custom
10. All men are brought up with different beliefs, under different laws and social conditions

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.Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism, Trans. R.G. Bury, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1933, pp. 25–27

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.Diogenes Laërtius, ix. The five tropes of Agrippa are:

1. Dissent – The uncertainty demonstrated by the differences of opinions among philosophers and people in general.
2. Infinite regress – All proof rests on matters themselves in need of proof, and so on to infinity.
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.Sextus Empiricus, Pyrrhōneioi hypotypōseis i., from Annas, J., Outlines of Scepticism Cambridge University Press. (2000).

With reference to these five tropes, that the first and third are a short summary of the earlier Ten Modes of Aenesidemus. 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."Brochard, V., The Greek Skeptics.

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 passions 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 techneSextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism Book I Chapter 11 Section 23

The Pyrrhonists devised several sayings (Greek ΦΩΝΩΝ{{Clarify|reason=Is this an acronym?|date=April 2025}}) to help practitioners bring their minds to suspend judgment.Sextus Empiricus Outlines of Pyrrhonism Book I Chapter 18 Among these are:

• Not more, nothing more (a saying attributed to DemocritusSextus Empiricus Outlines of Pyrrhonism Book II Chapter 30)
• Non-assertion (aphasia)
• Perhaps, it is possible, maybe
• I withhold assent
• I determine nothing (Montaigne created a variant of this as his own personal motto, "Que sais-je?" – "what do I know?")
• Everything is indeterminate
• Everything is non-apprehensible
• I do not apprehend
• To every argument an equal argument is opposed

Except for the works of Sextus Empiricus, the texts of ancient Pyrrhonism have been lost. There is a summary of the Pyrrhonian Discourses by Aenesidemus, preserved by Photius, and a brief summary of Pyrrho's teaching by Aristocles, quoting Pyrrho's student Timon preserved by Eusebius:

'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.{{cite web |last1=Eusebius |title=Praeparatio Evangelica Book XIV |url=https://www.tertullian.org/fathers/eusebius_pe_14_book14.htm |website=Tertullian Project |access-date=27 January 2023}}

File:School of Athens Skeptics.jpg

Pyrrhonism is often contrasted with Academic skepticism, a similar but distinct form of Hellenistic philosophical skepticism.{{Cite web|last=Klein|first=Peter|date=2015|title=Skepticism|url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/skepticism/#TwoBasForPhiSke|url-status=live|access-date=19 March 2021|website=Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180725160127/https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/skepticism/#TwoBasForPhiSke|archive-date=25 July 2018}}{{sfn|Thorsrud|2009}} While early Academic skepticism was influenced in part by Pyrrho,{{sfn|Thorsrud|2009|pp=45}} it grew more and more dogmatic until Aenesidemus broke with the Academics to revive Pyrrhonism in the first century BCE, denouncing the Academy as "Stoics fighting against Stoics.{{sfn|Thorsrud|2009|pp=102-103}} Some later Pyrrhonists, such as Sextus 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.Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism Dogmatists claim to have knowledge, Academic skeptics claim that knowledge is impossible, while Pyrrhonists assent to neither proposition, suspending judgment on both.{{Cite book|last=Popkin|first=Richard|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/32272442|title=The Cambridge dictionary of philosophy|date=1995|others=Robert Audi|isbn=0-521-40224-7|location=Cambridge|pages=741|oclc=32272442}} The second century Roman historian Aulus 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.{{Cite book|last=Gellius|first=Aulus|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/635311697|title=Noctes Atticae|date=2008|publisher=Schöningh|others=Josef Feix|isbn=978-3-14-010714-3|edition=3. Dr|location=Paderborn|oclc=635311697}}{{sfn|Thorsrud|2009}}"

Sextus Empiricus also said that the Pyrrhonist school influenced and had substantial overlap with the Empiric school of medicine, but 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."Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism I.237, trans. Etheridge (Scepticism, Man, and God, Wesleyan University Press, 1964, p. 98).

Although Julian the PhilosopherEpistles lxxxix 301C 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 ({{Circa|300}}-320 CE) mentions Pyrrhonists in his HomiliesPseudo-Clement, Homilies, 13.7 and Agathias even reports a Pyrrhonist named Uranius as late as the middle of the 6th century CE.Agathias II 29-32, cited in Jonathan Barnes, Mantissa 2015 p. 652

File:Nagarjuna_with_84_mahasiddha_cropped.jpg

A number of similarities have been noted between the Pyrrhonist works of Sextus Empiricius and that of Nagarjuna, the Madhyamaka Buddhist philosopher from the 2nd or 3rd century CE.Conze, Edward. [http://ccbs.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/JR-PHIL/conze2.htm Buddhist Philosophy and Its European Parallels]. Philosophy East and West 13, p.9-23, no.1, January 1963. University press of Hawaii. Buddhist philosopher Jan 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's Outlines of Pyrrhonism,"Jan Westerhoff Nagarjuna's Madhyamaka: A Philosophical Introduction {{ISBN|0195384962}} 2009 p93 and Thomas McEvilley suspects that Nagarjuna may have been influenced by Greek Pyrrhonist texts imported into India.Thomas McEvilley, The Shape of Ancient Thought 2002 pp499-505 McEvilley argues for mutual iteration in the Buddhist logico-epistemological traditions between Pyrrhonism and Madhyamika:

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.{{cite book | first=Thomas | last=McEvilley | title=The Shape of Ancient Thought | publisher=Allworth Communications | year=2002 | isbn=1-58115-203-5 }}, p.495

McEvilley also notes a correspondence between the Pyrrhonist and Madhyamaka views about truth, comparing Sextus' accountSextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism, II.14–18; Anthologia Palatina (Palatine Anthology), VII. 29–35, and elsewhere 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 ConzeConze 1959, pp. 140–141{{Verify source|date=February 2024|reason=Is Conze 1959 _Buddhist Scriptures_? Where are these references to be found?}} has noted, this is similar to the Madhyamika Two Truths doctrine, a distinction between "Absolute truth" (paramārthasatya), "the knowledge of the real as it is without any distortion,"Conze (1959: p. 244) and "Truth so-called" (saṃvṛti satya), "truth as conventionally believed in common parlance.{{cite book |first=Thomas |last=McEvilley |title=The Shape of Ancient Thought |publisher=Allworth Communications |year=2002 |isbn=1-58115-203-5}}, p. 474

Other similarities between Pyrrhonism and Buddhism include a version of the tetralemma among the Pyrrhonist maxims, and more significantly, the idea of suspension of judgement and how that can lead to peace and liberation; ataraxia in Pyrrhonism and nirvāṇa in Buddhism.Sextus Empricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism Book 1, Section 19{{Cite book |last=Hanner |first=Oren |title=Buddhism and Scepticism: Historical, Philosophical and Comparative Perspectives |date=2020 |isbn=978-3-89733-518-9 |pages=126–129|publisher=Projekt Verlag }}

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 with Alexander the Great's army to India and incorporated what he learned from the Gymnosophists and the Magi that he met in his travels into his philosophical system.{{cite LotEP|chapter=Pyrrho}} Pyrrho would have spent about 18 months in Taxila as part of Alexander the Great's court during Alexander's conquest of the east.Adrian Kuzminski, Pyrrhonism: How the Ancient Greeks Reinvented Buddhism 2008 Christopher I. Beckwith{{cite book |last=Beckwith |first=Christopher I. |title=Greek Buddha: Pyrrho's Encounter with Early Buddhism in Central Asia |publisher=Princeton University Press |year=2015 |page=28 |url=http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/s10500.pdf |isbn=9781400866328}} draws comparisons between the Buddhist three marks of existence and the concepts outlined in the "Aristocles Passage".{{cite journal|url=https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2014/entries/pyrrho|title=Pyrrho|last1=Bett|first1=Richard|last2=Zalta|first2=Edward|date=Winter 2014|website=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy|access-date=February 19, 2018}}

File:MacedonEmpire.jpg's empire and the route he and Pyrrho took to India]]

However, other scholars, such as Stephen BatchelorStephen Batchelor "Greek Buddha: Pyrrho's encounter with early Buddhism in central Asia", Contemporary Buddhism, 2016, pp 195-215 and Charles GoodmanCharles 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 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.{{cite book|last=Kuzminski|first=Adrian|title=Pyrrhonian Buddhism: A Philosophical Reconstruction|date=2021|publisher=Routledge|isbn=9781000350074}}

Ajñana, which upheld radical skepticism, may have been a more powerful influence on Pyrrho than Buddhism. The Buddhists referred to Ajñana's adherents as Amarāvikkhepikas or "eel-wrigglers", due to their refusal to commit to a single doctrine.{{cite book | first=K.N. | last=Jayatilleke | title=Early Buddhist Theory of Knowledge | publisher=George Allen & Unwin Ltd., London, p. 122 }} Scholars including Barua, 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 valued ataraxia, which can be translated as "freedom from worry".{{sfn|Barua|1921|p=299}}{{sfn|Jayatilleke|1963|pp=129-130}}{{sfn|Flintoff|1980}} Jayatilleke, in particular, contends that Pyrrho may have been influenced by the first three schools of Ajñana, since they too valued freedom from worry.{{sfn|Jayatilleke|1963|pp=130}}

File:Balance scales symbol.svg in balance: modern symbol of Pyrrhonism]]

The recovery and publication of the works of Sextus Empiricus, particularly a widely influential translation by Henri Estienne published in 1562, ignited a revival of interest in Pyrrhonism.{{Cite book|title=The History of Scepticism : from Savonarola to Bayle| last=Popkin |first=Richard Henry |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2003 |isbn=9780198026716 |edition=Revised| location=Oxford |oclc=65192690}} 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 sometimes been called the beginning of modern philosophy. Montaigne adopted the image of a balance scale for his motto,Sarah Bakewell, How to Live: Or A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer 2011 p 127 {{ISBN|1590514831}} which became a modern symbol of Pyrrhonism.{{Cite book |last1=Kraye |first1=Jill |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sqx7H4hfM6sC&pg=PA101 |title=Moral Philosophy on the Threshold of Modernity |last2=Saarinen |first2=Risto |date=2006-03-30 |publisher=Springer Science & Business Media |isbn=978-1-4020-3001-7 |language=en}}{{Cite book |last=Sextus (Empiricus.) |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4zvhhV4Ouk8C&pg=PA46 |title=Selections from the Major Writings on Scepticism, Man, & God |date=1985-01-01 |publisher=Hackett Publishing |isbn=978-0-87220-006-7 |language=en}} It has also been suggested that Pyrrhonism provided the skeptical underpinnings that René Descartes drew from in developing his influential method of Cartesian doubt and the associated turn of early modern philosophy towards epistemology. In the 18th century, David Hume was also considerably influenced by Pyrrhonism, using "Pyrrhonism" as a synonym for "skepticism."Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, page 7, section 23.{{bsn|date=January 2023}}.

File:Nietzsche 1872a.jpg

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 to neutrality and objectivity, his will to every sine ira et studio: have we already grasped that for the longest time they all went against the first demands of morality and conscience?"{{Cite book|title = On the Genealogy of Morality|author1=Friedrich Nietzsche |author2=Maudemarie Clark |author3=Alan J. Swensen |publisher = Hackett Publishing|year = 1998|pages = 79}}

The term "neo-Pyrrhonism" is used to refer to modern Pyrrhonists such as Benson Mates and Robert Fogelin.Michael Williams, "Fogelin's Neo-Pyrrhonism", International Journal of Philosophical Studies Volume 7, Issue 2, 1999, p141{{Cite book|url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/skepticism-latin-america/|title=Skepticism in Latin America |first1=Plínio Junqueira|last1=Smith|first2=Otávio|last2=Bueno|editor-first=Edward N.|editor-last=Zalta|date=7 May 2016|publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University|via=Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy}}

• Apophasis
• Apophatic theology
• Cognitive closure (philosophy)
• Cratylism
• De Docta Ignorantia
• Defeatism
• Quietism
• Buddhism and the Roman world
• Greco-Buddhism
• Ancient Greece–Ancient India relations
• E-Prime
• Nassim Nicholas Taleb
• Trivialism
• The Hedgehog and the Fox
• List of unsolved problems in philosophy

{{Reflist}}

• {{cite book|last=Barua | first=Benimadhab | title=A History of Pre-Buddhistic Indian Philosophy | year=1921 | edition=1st | publisher=University of Calcutta | place=London | pages=468 | url= https://archive.org/details/A.History.of.Pre-Buddhistic.Indian.Philosophy}}
• {{cite journal|last=Flintoff | first=Everard | title=Pyrrho and India | journal=Phronesis | year=1980 | volume=25 | issue=1 | publisher=Brill | pages=88–108 | doi=10.1163/156852880X00052 | jstor= 4182084}}
• {{cite book|last=Jayatilleke | first=K.N. | title=Early Buddhist Theory of Knowledge | year=1963 | edition=1st | publisher=George Allen & Unwin Ltd. | place=London | pages=524 | url=http://www.ahandfulofleaves.org/documents/Early%20Buddhist%20Theory%20of%20Knowledge_Jayatilleke.pdf | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150911084454/http://www.ahandfulofleaves.org/documents/Early%20Buddhist%20Theory%20of%20Knowledge_Jayatilleke.pdf | url-status=dead | archive-date=11 September 2015 }}
• {{Cite book|last=Thorsrud|first=Harald|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/715184861|title=Ancient scepticism|date=2009|publisher=Acumen|isbn=978-1-84465-409-3|location=Stocksfield [U.K.]|oclc=715184861}}

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• {{PhilPapers|category|pyrrhonian-skepticism|Pyrrhonian Skepticism}}
• {{cite IEP |url-id=skepanci |title=Ancient Greek Skepticism |last=Thorsrud |first=Harold}}
• {{cite SEP |url-id=skepticism-ancient |title=Ancient Skepticism |last=Vogt |first=Katja}}

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