Pyrrhonian Inquiry

By Marta Anna Włodarczyk

A study of Pyrrhonism's sceptical philosophy, with particular reference to Sextus Empiricus.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cambridge Philological Society
• Release date: Aug 30, 2020
• ISBN: 9781913701314

Book preview

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INTRODUCTION

Why does one philosophise? One answer that springs to mind is that one engages in philosophical inquiry in order to find answers to the issues one is puzzled about. From this point of view then, the purpose of philosophy seems clear: to answer, to solve a particular philosophical puzzle, to assert a result. Answers are the expression of philosophical achievement, an indication that one has done one’s job well.

The nature of philosophical answers varies. In some cases there is an aspiration to find answers which are certain and which contribute to our knowledge of the truth. Other, humbler investigators, are satisfied with tentative or probable answers, with providing less grandiose grounds for our beliefs and opinions. Philosophical considerations do not always resolve issues. Doctrines and theories that purport to solve philosophical puzzles can be found side by side with attempts to show a particular issue to be insoluble or ill-conceived.

Philosophy goes on questioning, and answering its questions. Although during the course of philosophical history almost no philosophical issue has ever been resolved to everybody’s satisfaction and, although philosophy is puzzled by the same questions over and over again, new generations of philosophers still believe in finding answers. And understandably so. What would be the point of philosophising if one did not believe in, and hope for, an answer? What would be the point of writing philosophy if one did not find some answer, however tentative, to the questions one was concerned with? Philosophising, like other human passions, seeks fulfilment and its fulfilment is answering.

There will be those who find the above picture trivial, believing that it is obvious that answering is as essential a feature of philosophising as questioning. These people may discover something of a challenge in Pyrrhonian scepticism. Pyrrhonian scepticism tells us that answering is not a feature of philosophy in general but a feature of dogmatism. Dogmatism is condemned by the sceptics. This is because of its assertive character: there are no things which cannot be doubted in philosophical investigation (including this very statement) and hence every answer, being a suppression of doubt, smothers philosophical inquiry. At the beginning of the Outlines of Pyrrhonism (PH), Sextus Empiricus distinguishes between dogmatic and sceptical philosophies. His criterion for such a distinction is the existence of a result at the end of philosophical investigation. In contrast to dogmatists, who terminate their inquiry with the assertion that they have found the object of their search or that to do so is impossible, a Pyrrhonist is one who refrains from asserting and keeps on inquiring (ζητοῦσιν) (PH I.2–3).

The Pyrrhonist keeps on inquiring but his inquiry never ends with a result. Rather he questions the justifiability of arriving at knowledge, truth, belief or plausible opinion and consequently his inquiry ends in suspension of judgment (epoche) as to whether the objects under investigation are this or another way.

Inquiry without result is the most radical feature of Pyrrhonism, distinguishing it from other forms of scepticism. Scepticism has been a powerful force both in ancient and modern philosophy. Usually, however, sceptical doubt has served a constructive purpose: it has been conceived as a critical and preliminary stage after which one is better equipped to find new and, one hopes, true answers.

Sceptical doubt has also often been used to nullify the findings of others, leading to purely negative conclusions. The Pyrrhonist, however, separates himself from such a form of negative dogmatism: he does not affirm that the truth cannot be found, or that things are non-apprehensible, as at any rate according to his reading of them, the Academic sceptics do (e.g. PH I.2–3, 200, 226).¹

Democritus’ pupil, Metrodorus of Chios, opened his work ‘On Nature’ with the words: ‘None of us knows anything – not even whether we know anything or not.’ This statement is sceptical but not Pyrrhonian. Instead of asserting that ‘None of us knows anything’, the Pyrrhonist would rather say: ‘I suspend judgment as to whether we know anything, perhaps we do, perhaps we do not.’

The origins of such a non-committal attitude can be traced back to Pyrrho (c.365–270 B.C.). He left no writings but is known to have said that the world is, by its own nature, ‘undifferentiated, unmeasurable, and inarbitrable’.² Since the world itself lacks any determinate character our sensations or opinions cannot, even in principle, tell us truths or falsehoods. Hence we ought not to rely on our powers of cognition but should rather live without opinions or beliefs and use non-committal language while characterising things: ‘saying concerning each individual thing that it no more is than is not, or it both is and is not, or it neither is nor is not’.³

Pyrrho has traditionally been thought of as a father of Pyrrhonism – the sceptical movement which was inaugurated by Aenesidemus in the first century B.C. and which is known mainly from the works of Sextus Empiricus. To what extent Pyrrho influenced Sextus and other Pyrrhonists is not certain, however.⁴ Pyrrho is mentioned only once in PH when Sextus remarks vaguely that the kind of scepticism he will be presenting is called ‘Pyrrhonean’ ‘from the fact that Pyrrho appears to us to have applied himself to scepticism more thoroughly and more conspicuously than his predecessors’ (PH I.7).⁵ Theodosius, another member of the Pyrrhonist movement, doubts whether Pyrrho was the founder of scepticism and whether, contrary to Aristocles’ evidence quoted above, he had any particular philosophical position. He suggests that the label ‘Pyrrhonist’ should be dropped – since another person’s thoughts are inaccessible, we cannot know for certain what Pyrrho intended. He adds, however, that ‘a Pyrrhonean is one who in manners and life resembles Pyrrho’.⁶

It might be then that it was not Pyrrho’s views but rather his life, or even perhaps the legend about it, which had an impact on Pyrrhonism. This legend was, to a great extent, created by Pyrrho’s disciple Timon who portrayed his master’s life as a model and a guide for others: ‘O Pyrrho, my heart yearns to hear, how on earth you, though a man, act most easily and calmly, never taking thought and consistently undisturbed, heedless of the whirling motions and sweet voice of wisdom? You alone lead the way for men, like the god’.⁷

According to Timon, Pyrrho discovered ‘escape from servitude to the opinions and empty theorising of sophists’⁸ and as a result was said to attain freedom from disturbance (ataraxia).⁹ The hope of attaining such a state of mind became the cause (arche) and aim (telos) of Pyrrhonism. ‘Men of talent, who were perturbed by the contradictions in things …, were led on to inquire what is true in things and what false, hoping that by deciding these issues they would become tranquil’ (PH I.12). However, they found themselves ‘involved in contradictions of equal length, and being unable to decide between them suspended judgment; and as [they were] thus in suspense there followed, as it happened, tranquillity (ataraxia) in matters of opinion’ (PH I.26).

The desired state of ataraxia follows epoche. The sceptic starts his inquiry being perturbed whether things are this or that way, and ends his inquiry in tranquillity without having decided whether things are this or that way. But if the sceptic inquires without deciding and believing what is the case, how is he able to remain active in life? In order to live, one needs to be able to motivate oneself and decide, for example, that it is more worthwhile to write philosophy than do nothing. In order to survive, one also needs some beliefs about reality, for example, the belief that there is a fire in front of one to be, for obvious reasons, avoided. Is life without such decisions and beliefs possible?

Pyrrho, as reported by Diogenes Laertius (IX.62), was said to ‘follow these principles [that each thing is no more this than this] in his actual way of life, avoiding nothing and taking no precautions, facing everything as it came, wagons, precipices, dogs’. It seems, however, that he had difficulty coping with life by himself and needed to rely on the judgment of others: he ‘was saved from harm by his friends who … always accompanied him’.¹⁰

It might be, as Frede (1979) suggests, that these remarks, derived by Diogenes from writings of Pyrrho’s contemporary Antigonus of Carystus, are intended as ‘a sort of critical caricature of sceptical philosophers’¹¹ and reveal Antigonus’ doubt whether normal life and Pyrrhonism are compatible.¹² Various forms of such doubts, suggesting not only that normal life but that any life at all is impossible without beliefs, have been voiced both in antiquity and in modern times as the central criticisms of Pyrrhonism.

Galen, for example, asks whether the Pyrrhonist expects us to stay in bed when the sun is up for lack of certainty about whether it is day or night, or to sit on board our ship when everyone else is disembarking, wondering whether what appears to be land really is.¹³ A similar line of criticism is picked up by Hume, who in a notorious passage says that the sceptic ‘cannot expect, that his philosophy will have any constant influence on the mind… On the contrary, he must acknowledge … that all human life must perish, were his principles universally and steadily to prevail. All discourse, all action would immediately cease; and men remain in total lethargy, till the necessities of nature, unsatisfied, put an end to their miserable existence … And though a Pyrrhonian may throw himself or others into a momentary amazement and confusion by his profound reasoning; the first and most trivial event in life will put to flight all his doubts and scruples … When he awakes from his dream, he will be the first to join in the laugh against himself, and to confess, that all his objections are mere amusement’.¹⁴

Sextus was familiar with the similar criticisms of those who claimed that the sceptic ‘rejects life and remains like a vegetable’. But Sextus did not not feel they were justified (M XI.162–67). He presents Pyrrhonism not only as a way of philosophising opposed to that of the dogmatist but also as a way of life superior to the dogmatist’s (M XI). Moreover, the sceptic’s life is supposed to be normal and conventional: the sceptics ‘follow, in accordance with appearances, an account which shows … a life in conformity with traditional customs and the law and persuasions and our own feelings’ (PH I.17). Is such a life really free of beliefs?

The question of whether the Pyrrhonist has beliefs has been revived in recent years by students of ancient Pyrrhonism and indeed it has become the subject of passionate debate. In short, the debate centres around the issue of whether the sceptic questions only philosophical and scientific matters, leaving everyday beliefs intact, or whether his doubts spread to all issues, including the concerns of ordinary men. If the former is true; that is, if the sceptic is urbane (Barnes’ term),¹⁵ the sceptic’s doubt does not threaten his life. If scepticism is rustic (Galen’s and Barnes’ term),¹⁶ on the other hand, that is, if the sceptic questions all beliefs, one needs to provide an account of what enables