 Hi, I'm Peter Adamson, and you're listening to the History of Philosophy podcast, brought to you with the support of King's College London and the Leverhulme Trust, online at www.historyoffilosophy.net. Today's episode, Healthy Skepticism, Sextus Empiricus. People have a lot of respect for doctors. Along with philosophy professors, they rank among the most admired members of our society. We turn to them in our hour of need, seeking not just basic competence, but total commitments, confidence, and self-assurance. You do not want to find hesitancy and uncertainty lurking in the facial expression of your doctor, any more than you want to hear it in the voice of the pilot making announcements as your plane goes through turbulence. So, it's ironic that the greatest of all the ancient skeptics was a doctor. He is known to us as Sextus Empiricus, and the Empiricus part refers to his membership in the Empiricist School of Medicine, a fact that I'll be returning to at the end of this podcast. Apart from that, we know little about him. Even his dates are, appropriately enough, uncertain, but he is thought to have lived in the 2nd century AD. That puts him a couple of centuries later than the last representatives of skepticism we've considered, the followers of Carnaides, like Philo of Larissa, and of course Cicero, lived in the 1st century BC. Their age was one of transition. The center of philosophical activity was moving from war-torn Athens to Rome, the center of political power moving from the hands of the Senate to those of a single ruler, Julius Caesar as dictator, followed by Augustus as princeps, and a line of emperors after that, including, of course, Marcus Aurelius, who, like Sextus, lived in the 2nd century. At this time, Aristotelianism and Platonism are beginning to make a comeback. Soon they will supplant the Hellenistic schools, Neoplatonism will take center stage, absorbing a lot of Aristotle, some Stoicism, not very much at all from Epicureanism, and little more from the skeptics. Thus, Sextus was, no doubt unwittingly, writing the last chapter of skepticism when he set out the arguments of his school. But he would not have let this bother him, because Sextus had mastered the art of not being bothered by anything. Ataraxia, the avoidance of disturbance, had been associated with skepticism since Pyro. Pyro lived some 500 years before Sextus, but Sextus took him as a role model and as the founder of the skeptical outlook, which he called Pyronism. His most frequently read work is a summary of the teaching, The Outlines of Pyronism. We have several other treatises which approach specific philosophical and scientific topics from a skeptical point of view. These may all have belonged originally to a single work. Because the skeptical approach more or less died out with Sextus, his writings were not very influential in subsequent centuries. Only when they were rediscovered in the 16th century did they make a sensation, inspiring pro- and anti-skeptical philosophical discussions in early modern philosophers ranging from Gassendi to Hume. Sextus does not originate the label of Pyronism. For that, we need to go back to the 1st century BC. If you recall, Philo of Larissa had endorsed a moderate or mitigated skepticism which recommended assenting to beliefs but realizing that this assent is fallible. Like radicals forming a new political party after their colleagues have moved towards the center ground, some skeptics found this moderate stance insufficiently, well, skeptical. The leading critic was Anessidimus, who complained that disputes among members of the academy boiled down to stoics arguing with stoics. The new party he founded was the Pyronists, and its platform was the banishment of belief. The long-dead pyro was taken as a namesake because he seemed to represent this more uncompromising sort of skepticism. This was a kind of back-to-basics rhetoric, attempting to undo the softening concessions made by the skeptical academy. Of course, the Pyronists, like the skeptical academy, would spend a good deal of their effort trying to undermine dogmatic views like those of the stoics. But Anessidimus also went on the offensive, devising one of the most characteristic features of Pyronian skepticism, the modes. A quick way to describe the modes would be to say that they are arguments to show that everything must remain unclear and uncertain, but that wouldn't be quite right. Sextus is clear that such a sweeping claim would in itself be a kind of doctrine, albeit a negative one, so it would count as dogmatism. Rather, the modes are like a toolkit for raising doubts concerning some given belief, or a whole type of beliefs. I don't have time to go through all ten modes, but I'll look at a few to give you an idea. The first mode refers to animals, and points out that since animals vary widely in terms of their physical makeup, they are likely to perceive things in very different ways. For instance, some kinds of insects find perfume repellent, which undermines the belief that it smells pleasant. While presenting this mode, Sextus argues against rejecting the impressions of irrational animals by suggesting that dogs, for instance, not only have sharper sense perceptions than we do, but are also capable of reasoning—an unusual idea in the context of ancient philosophy. Other modes turn on the variation between people. For instance, a healthy person may find honey sweet while an ill person will think it bitter, or variations between groups of people. Sextus delights in mentioning foreign cultural attitudes as a way of undermining his readers' ethical beliefs. Memorably, he claims, more than once, that in India, people have sex in public. Now, of course, neither Anessidimus nor Sextus was trying to show that perfume really is repellent, or that it is okay to have sex in public. Rather, the point is that with these modes, one can raise a doubt concerning just about any belief. This step is crucial, because unless an initial doubt can be raised, the skeptic's dogmatist opponents will say that there is no reason to suspend judgment. Now, I know what you're thinking. Just because a doubt has been raised doesn't mean we will immediately suspend judgment. And you're right. The ten modes are only an initial tool, which must be complemented by a further set of five modes, attributed to another skeptic named Agrippa. These modes are worth looking at carefully, because they form a genuinely formidable challenge to the possibility of rational belief. The five modes pick up where the ten modes left off. The first of the five is the mode of dispute, meaning that we point out a disagreement about whatever belief we are considering. Bees don't like perfume, for instance, but we do. The Stoics think pleasure is valueless, the Epicureans see it as the good. Most of us think motion exists, but Parmenides denies it. To this, we can add the fourth mode of relativity, that perceptions and judgments are relative to those who make them. These two modes basically do the same work as Anasidimos's ten modes, by raising initial doubt. The remaining three modes move in for the kill. Now that a dispute has been raised, how can either party to the dispute hope to settle it? Not by simply insisting that they are right, that would be begging the question, merely hypothesizing that their side of the argument is the correct one. We rule this out, which is called the mode of hypothesis. Suppose, for instance, that we are arguing over who is the greatest silent movie comedian, Buster Keaton or Charlie Chaplin. If you say Chaplin, but refuse to give me any reasons for your view, this mode shows why I should not be convinced. But suppose you do give reasons. You might say, for instance, that Chaplin is more famous than Keaton. But why should I agree that being more famous means being greater? You might just insist without further rationale that fame decides the issue, but this too is debatable. So you might try to defend your appeal to Chaplin's fame on the basis of a further claim, for instance that that many people can't be wrong. But the problem is already obvious. This new claim will also be open to dispute. As the mode of regress says, there is no point appealing to an unending string of debatable points. At some point, to block off further debate, you'll have to just stop giving further reasons. At that point, you'll just be insisting that you're right, which we already saw will not work. The only other option is to argue in a circle, which brings us to the final mode, the reciprocal mode. If you say that Chaplin is greater because he's more famous, and more famous because he's greater, then you've made no case at all. You've just led me around in a circle. The upshot of this is twofold. First, as far as we can tell, every belief is debatable. Second, all disputes seem to be balanced, with neither party able to strike a knockout blow against the other. Things are left in the condition Sextus calls isothenia, in other words, a counterbalancing of views which seems incapable of resolution. It's important to note that Sextus really means the dispute is balanced. It isn't that one side of the argument seems more persuasive, yet there is some doubt remaining. That would leave open the moderate skeptical solution of endorsing the more persuasive side while being aware that one lacks certainty. Rather, the modes are meant to show that every belief involves a dispute where neither side has an advantage over the other. We suspend judgment because of the stalemate that arises once one has applied the modes. This skeptical strategy can be applied in a very general way, or a very specific way. We can apply it not just to silent comedians or the taste of honey, but also, for instance, sense perceptions in general. That seems to be the drift of Anesodemus's first mode, since it suggests that animals have systematically different sense experiences. Sextus tries to get the same result by opposing the senses to the mind itself. Previous philosophers like Democritus and Epicurus had worried about the possibility that sensation and the mind could disagree, for instance if the mind tells us that things are made of atoms and the senses do not. Sextus exploits this, pointing out that this fundamental dispute can immediately cast doubt on all our perceptions and all our thoughts. By way of example, he cites Anaxagoras, who said that the mind knows that snow is made of water. Since water is black, the senses are refuted by the mind, which realizes that snow is in fact black and not white. It's at this point that Ataraxia enters the picture. We began investigating because we were bothered by the status of some belief. We knew that it was disputable and wanted to discover the truth of the matter. It bothered us, perhaps, not to be able to prove that snow is white, that perfume is pleasant, that having sex in public is very uncool. You might think that the result of the skeptical process would be further frustration, but the Pyrenees claim that to the contrary, the suspension of judgment yields freedom from disturbance, the very goal we began with achieved through means we did not expect. Sextus compares this to the case of a painter who was trying to render the foam on the mouth of an exhausted horse. He tried repeatedly to get the effect he wanted, failing each time. Finally, he gave up and threw his sponge at the painting in despair. Lo and behold, the sponge left behind a perfect image of foam around the horse's mouth. It's a nice image, but in one respect misleading. Whereas the painter has given up in frustration, the skeptic, at least according to Sextus, has not given up investigating. Remember that the word skeptic means inquirer. True to this etymology, Sextus says that, whereas the dogmatists have their doctrines, and the skeptical academy has decided that inquiry is fruitless, he and his fellow Pyrenees are the ones who are still searching. Their undisturbed state is a relaxation that follows upon suspension of judgment. Despite the modes, it most certainly does not result from the discovery that all disputes are irrevocably undecidable. That, again, would be a dogma, a settled belief or doctrine, an indulgence a Pyronian will never allow himself. This brings us to the most difficult aspect of Sextus's skepticism, the question of whether he can really avoid having beliefs and whether he really wishes to do so. As with Pyro and the skeptical academy, there are two reasons to think Sextus may need to accept some form of assent or belief. First, there is his commitment to skepticism itself. Doesn't Sextus, for instance, believe that disputes are equally balanced, that it is right to suspend judgment, that Ataraxia results from suspension of judgment? Second, there is the objection that the skeptic will need beliefs just to get through life. Sextus solves both problems in the same way. He says that the Pyronian skeptic always suspends belief, but cannot help having things appear to him in a certain way. Thus, for instance, it seems to him that a given dispute is equally balanced, just as it seems to him that honey is sweet. The skeptic does not commit himself to any truth regarding these matters, but he does follow appearances. This is why he spreads honey on his toast, finds a private room when he's feeling romantic, and suspends judgment after applying the modes. This, of course, may seem to be moderate skepticism by another name. What is the difference between following an appearance and forming a belief? Isn't Sextus recommending a weak form of assent, as Philo of Larissa had done? He would insist otherwise. For one thing, Sextus promises that the skeptic remains genuinely open-minded about every issue he considers. He does not judge it more persuasive or convincing that the honey is sweet, he has absolutely no view on that matter whatsoever, because he has suspended judgment. If he spreads honey and not motor oil on his toast, this is done out of a passive surrender to the way things appear, rather than by actively forming a belief or actively assenting to the appearance. The skeptic yields to the appearances, letting them guide him through the world, but he remains detached from these appearances so far as their truth is concerned, refusing to commit himself even to the relative likelihood or plausibility of each appearance. This applies to the skeptical arguments themselves. Sextus compares them to a purgative drug which is evacuated from the body along with whatever the drug is meant to purge. Thus, for instance, the skeptic is not committed to the claim that there is no criterion of truth, or that the modes of Agrippa show that no dispute can be resolved. Rather, the skeptic's arguments merely make it seem to him that disputes are unresolved, and he acquiesces in this result. When the skeptic says, for instance, that things seem to be no more one way than another way, Sextus describes this as an announcement or report of how things strike the skeptic. It is not a statement of what is true about these things, but rather a kind of autobiographical observation. I looked into this matter, and things seemed to be unresolved. At least on the interpretation I've just given, then, Sextus does try to avoid belief and assent entirely. I should admit that there are rival interpretations. For instance, it has been suggested that Sextus must admit to having beliefs at least about how things seem to him. He would not believe that Buster Keaton is a genius, or that honey is sweet, but would believe that Keaton seems to him to be a genius, and that honey appears sweet. After all, Sextus himself must be an authoritative judge of how things seem to him. There's no room for doubt here. Another proposal would land Sextus with an even wider range of beliefs. On this interpretation, the Pyronian skeptic is not applying skepticism to all topics, but only the technical issues considered by other philosophers. Thus, for instance, he would believe that honey is sweet, but not believe that it is in the nature of honey to be sweet, since natures are something posited by philosophers rather than normal people. I myself don't adopt that reading. I think it presupposes a sharp division between philosophical and everyday beliefs that is simply not recognized by Sextus, or for that matter by other ancient philosophers. Still, Sextus does present himself as being on the side of the common man. The skeptic's passivity in the face of impressions means that he'll just go along with the way things seem, and thus lead an outwardly normal life. This will include, for instance, the prevailing cultural norms. If the Pyronian lives in India, he'll cheerfully have sex in public. If in Greece, he'll go to the temple to sacrifice to the gods, even though, of course, he suspends judgment about whether gods exist. He will also follow appearances that arise by nature. For instance, he will eat when he feels hungry, and something seems to him edible, and so on. And he will even follow the practices of technical skills, going through the motions of being a blacksmith, or indeed a doctor, but always without belief. At the beginning of this episode, I said that it was ironic that Sextus, the greatest of skeptics, was a doctor, given that we look to doctors for certainty and confidence, but here, in good Pyronian spirit, is a countervailing thought. Medicine is an inexact art, and rarely provides certainty. This is true still today, but ancient medicine was, of course, an even more uncertain enterprise. Good doctors then knew their limits. They emphasized that medicine deals in probabilities, that its rules apply only inexactly to different patients, with all their variety, and so on. From this point of view, it may seem appropriate that Sextus was a doctor. It's also appropriate that he presents skepticism as a kind of therapy or cure. Like Epicureanism, Sextus's philosophy is a means of dispelling disturbance. Someone who is not bothered by a topic of inquiry has no need to embark upon the skeptic path. Hence Sextus's comparison of the skeptical arguments to purgative drugs. Similarly, he explains why skeptics often pile up arguments on both sides of a dispute without any apparent regard to the strength of those arguments. The aim is to cure by leading the audience to suspend belief and achieve ataraxia. For some audiences, a bad argument can be just as effective as a good one, and the skeptic chooses the effective arguments as a doctor would choose a drug for the patient before him. Still, one can't help but find a tension between Sextus's philosophy and his medical profession. Medicine may deal in probabilities, but as we've seen, Sextus would not assent even to what seems probable. As Sextus himself notes, there was a school of doctors who seemed fairly skeptical. They were called the Methodists, and their treatment followed a simple set of appearances. But Sextus was not a Methodist, he was an empiricist, that is, a member of a medical tradition which laid great emphasis on past observation while shunning theories about underlying causes like those devised by the so-called rationalist school. Sextus explicitly says that empiricism does not quite fit with skepticism. We can only be puzzled by this, given that he is known to have been an empiricist doctor. In a couple of episodes, we'll have an opportunity to look further at these movements in ancient medicine and how they interacted with philosophy. First, though, since we've now reached the end of our series of episodes on the Hellenistic schools, it's time for an interview that will let us finish on a high note. For this purpose, the ideal thing would be to turn to a world-leading expert on Hellenistic philosophy. But have I managed to secure an interview with such an expert? And if so, who might it be? You won't have to wait long to find out, if you join me next time on The History of Philosophy, without any gaps.