Silloi
Silloi
Every dogmatic philosopher who claims certain knowledge of how reality really is deserves mockery, since no one has ever actually demonstrated such knowledge, and the only defensible response to their competing certainties is to suspend judgment entirely.
- mockery of dogmatic philosophical certainty
- suspension of judgment (epoche) as the reasonable response
- primary evidence for Pyrrho's skepticism
- a mock-epic descent into Hades
- satirical verse as philosophical argument
Timon of Phlius, the principal student of Pyrrho of Elis, who himself wrote nothing, composed the Silloi (Lampoons), satirical hexameter verses parodying the dogmatic claims of rival philosophers, from the Presocratics through Plato and Aristotle, as a way of promoting his teacher's skeptical suspension of judgment (epoche) as the only rational response to philosophy's endless, irresolvable disputes. Surviving only in fragments quoted by later writers, chiefly Diogenes Laertius and Sextus Empiricus, the Silloi are structured as a mock epic descent into Hades in which Timon reviews and ridicules the great philosophers one by one for their unfounded certainty.
Commentary
Readers' notes on this work. No account needed - be scholarly, or at least civil.
Loading commentary…