Sextus Empiricus was a Greek physician who lived in the second century A.D. He was a follower of Pyrrhonean Skepticism and wrote this treatise as a summary of Pyrrhonean thought. As for its influence, Mates claims, “The rediscovery and publication of these works in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries led directly to the skepticism of Montaigne, Gassendi, Descartes, Bayle, and other major figures.”
Empiricus begins on the fundamentals of truth. “Some people have claimed to have found the truth, others have asserted that it cannot be apprehended, and others are still searching…. The Skeptics continue to search…. As regards none of the things that we are about to say do we firmly maintain that matters are absolutely as stated, but in each instance we are simply reporting, like a chronicler, what now appears to be the case.” With that major caveat, which applies to his entire treatise, he goes on. “The Skeptic Way is called Zetetic [“questioning”] from its activity in questioning and inquiring, Ephectic [“suspensive”] from the pathos that arises concerning the subject of inquiry, Aporetic [“inclined to aporiai [the characteristic of being stumped]”] either as some say, from its being puzzled and questioning about everything or from its being at a loss as to whether to assent or dissent, and Pyrrohnean because it appears to us that Pyrrho applied himself to Skepticism more vigorously and conspicuously than his predecessors…. The Skeptic Way is a disposition to oppose phenomena and noumena to one another in any way whatever.”
The Skeptics had an ambivalent view on the concepts of the Good and the Bad. “The person who believes that something is by nature good or bad is constantly upset; when he does not possess the things that seem to be good, he thinks he is being tormented by things that are by nature bad, and he chases after the things he supposes to be good; then, when he gets these, he falls into still more torments because of irrational and immoderate exultation, and, fearing any change, he does absolutely everything in order not to lose the things that seem to him good. But the person who takes no position as to what is by nature good or bad neither avoids nor pursues intensely. As a result he achieves ataraxia [peace of mind]…. The [first] Skeptics were hoping to achieve ataraxia by resolving the anomaly of phenomena and noumena, and, being unable to do this, they suspended judgment. But then, by chance as it were, when they were suspending judgment the ataraxia followed, as a shadow follows the body. We do not suppose, of course, that the Skeptic is wholly untroubled, but we do say that he is troubled only by things that are unavoidable.” Later, Empiricus continues, “Thus the Skeptic, seeing so much anomaly in the matters at hand, suspends judgment as to whether by nature something is good or bad or, generally, ought or ought not be done…. He follows, without any belief, the ordinary course of life; for this reason he has no pathos one way or the other as regards matters of belief, while his pathe [feelings] in regard to things forced upon him are moderate. As a human being he has sensory pathe, but since he does not add to these the belief that what he experiences is by nature bad, his pathe are moderate…. He who supposes that something is by nature good or bad or, in general, ought or ought not be done, is upset in all sorts of ways…. From what has been said it is evident that there can be no such thing as an art of living.”
As regards to everyday wants, the Skeptics discovered the concept of marginal utility. “Things that are rare seem precious, but things that are familiar and easy to get do not. Indeed, if we thought of water as rare, how much more precious it would appear than all the things that do seem precious! And if we imagine gold simply scattered on the ground like stones, to whom do we think it would then be precious and worth hoarding away?”
The Skeptics spend a lot of time dealing with subjective appearances as opposed to the things in and of themselves, which they realize are impossible to comprehend independently. “For, as the Dogmatists say, the intellect does not of itself get in contact with external objects and receive phantasiai [sensory impressions] from them, but it does so by means of the senses; and the senses do not apprehend the external objects but only their own pathe, if anything. And so the phantasia will be of a sensory pathos, which is not the same thing as the external object…. And since this pathos differs from the external object, the phantasia will not be of the external object but of something different…. Nor again can one say that the soul apprehends the external objects by means of the sensory pathe because the pathe of the senses are similar to the external objects. For from whence will the intellect know whether the pathe of the senses are similar to the objects of sense…. The intellect, looking at the pathe of the senses but not having observed the external objects, will not know whether the pathe of the senses resemble the external objects.”
Empiricus does not put any weight in the mental gymnastics displayed by the Sophists and by apparent paradoxes. There is a simplicity to the Skeptic refutation. “If, therefore, when an argument is propounded in which the conclusion is false we know at once that because of having the false conclusion it is not true and sound, we shall not give our assent to it even though we may not know where the fallacy lies…. If the argument leads us to something unacceptable, it is not we who should give precipitate assent to the paradoxical result because of the plausibility of the argument, but it is the Dogmatists who should desist from an argument that forces them to assent to paradoxes, if indeed they have chosen, as they profess, to seek the truth and not indulge in silly talk like children…. If an argument is leading us to something generally considered paradoxical we shall not assent to the paradox because of the argument, but we shall avoid the argument because of the paradox.”
Finally, Empiricus concludes by returning to the art of living, the supposedly wise, and the restraints of reason on the pathe. “If one cannot come to possess the so-called “art of living” either by learning and teaching or by nature, that art so much vaunted by the philosophers cannot be discovered…. And just as one would not say that a eunuch has self-control with respect to sexual pleasures, nor that a person with a bad stomach has self-control with respect to the enjoyment of food (since for such things they have no craving that they can combat by means of self-control), in the same way one ought not say that the wise man has self-control if he has no natural pathos to restrain by his self-control…. For if he has an impulse toward something, he is certainly perturbed, and if he controls it with reason, he still has the bad in himself…. Thus, insofar as it is up to his prudence, the wise man does not acquire self-control, or if he does, he is the most unfortunate of all, so that the art of living has brought him no benefit but the greatest perturbation.”
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