Outlines of Pyrrhonism
Pyrrhoneioi Hypotyposeis
For every argument establishing a dogmatic claim about how reality really is, an opposing argument of equal weight can be found, and recognizing this equal force should lead a careful thinker to suspend judgment entirely, which in practice brings the tranquility that dogmatic certainty only promises.
- equal force of opposing arguments (isostheneia)
- suspension of judgment (epoche) leading to tranquility
- Pyrrhonism distinguished from Academic Skepticism
- the catalogued 'modes' of skeptical argument
- major influence on early modern epistemology
Sextus Empiricus, a physician and philosopher writing around AD 200 whose biography is otherwise almost entirely unknown, systematized several centuries of Skeptical argument into the Outlines of Pyrrhonism, the fullest surviving statement of ancient Greek Skepticism. Ancient testimony is silent on where he lived and worked; Alexandria, Athens, and Rome have all been proposed by modern scholars on thin, indirect grounds, and this entry follows the most commonly cited guess rather than any firm attestation. The work distinguishes Pyrrhonist Skepticism, which suspends judgment on all non-evident matters while still acting on ordinary appearances and custom, from both dogmatic philosophy and Academic Skepticism, which Sextus criticizes for dogmatically asserting that nothing can be known. Its core method catalogues the 'modes' of argument that generate equally balanced opposing arguments on any dogmatic question, producing suspension of judgment and, Sextus claims, tranquility.
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