Work · Hellenistic, Roman & Late Antique
Outlines of Pyrrhonism
To every argument an equal argument is opposed.
Introduction
A textbook in three books by the Greek physician Sextus Empiricus, the most complete surviving account of Pyrrhonian scepticism, named after Pyrrho of Elis. Book I explains what scepticism is and lists the “modes”, standard patterns of argument for suspending judgement, among them the ten modes of Aenesidemus and the five of Agrippa. Books II and III apply them to the logic, physics and ethics of the dogmatic schools, above all the Stoics. Sextus insists that he reports how things appear to him and asserts nothing. The Latin translation by Henri Estienne (1562) brought the text to early modern readers, including Montaigne.
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Connections
Taken up in
- Essays1580 · Michel de Montaigne
Answered in
- Meditations on First Philosophy1641 · René Descartes
Sources: Wikidata
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