Drafts pyrrhoniennes

The Esquisses pyrrhoniennes (Πυῤῥώνειοι ὑποτύπωσεις) are a talk in three books of the doctrines skeptic writes by Sextus Empiricus. This work, according to a current opinion, would be the last writing by Sextus Empiricus. Its interest is to be the most detailed work concerning skepticism in a strict sense (also called Pyrrhonisme). He would have been written at the 3rd century after J. - C. (or perhaps with the second), which would make to it the last heir to the thought pyrrhonienne and in some kinds its synthesis.

Topics major

Peace

The goal of any philosophy, for Sextus, is to reach peace, i.e. the absence of disorders. Therefore the philosophers seek the truth: they are disturbed by the operation of the world which seems to them chaotic and they wish to decipher it. There but the dogmatic ones precipitate in easy beliefs, pretexting to arrive using the reason, where a thorough logical analysis shows us that nothing justifies these beliefs. They make then vis-a-vis many disorders: conflicts with the other schools, inconsistencies in their doctrines… For Sextus, peace results from the suspension of the approval.

It is, for him, an unforeseeable consequence: the skeptic had not suspended his approval to reach peace, but because it seemed to him that the obscure things were indécidables. Peace then came to him fortuitously. This remark makes it possible Sextus to preserve charge of dogmatism, but it is however seen that there is a postulate about which it butted (namely: by suspending our judgment, we will reach peace).

This concept is nevertheless central in the thought of Sextus: one should not lose sight of the fact that its objectives hold more research of the happiness than of an epistemological prospect .

The criterion of truth

The dogmatic ones make rest their alleged discovered on demonstrations, which rest themselves on a criterion of truth. Indeed, to decide if a demonstration is conclusive, it is necessary that each one of its parts was recognized true. But what enables us to recognize this truth? That cannot be a demonstration, since it would need in its turn to be shown, but if it is a not shown assertion, it will be arbitrary and will not be able to convince. Sextus raises the main issue of the demonstrations here: they always rest on postulates which should be admitted passively, which is not acceptable from a strict logical point of view.

Sextus concludes from that there is no criterion of truth. Nothing can enable us to affirm that a thing is true, not more than to affirm that it is false, because there will be always in these assertions an arbitrary share of decision.

The criterion of life

But not to be able to decide on the veracity of the obscure things does not mean any more not to live, critical that the laymen make regularly with the skepticism (and who can apply indeed to skepticism defaitist, or common skepticism). That is well highlighted of the simple fact that even dogmatic thinking itself the most erudite would be well in evil to make rest each one of their daily actions on one their truths.

To live, the skeptic trusts the apparent things, without affirming that they correspond to any truth in oneself. Thus, it will conform to the local habits to carry out its life, will follow its affects to meet its nature's needs, will learn a trade to be nourished; it could even be a priest, like Pyrrhon, if one had suddenly asked him… The whole is to do this without never believing to touch something which exceeds appearances. It is a question of adapting to the present moment, without seeking to arrive to a truth in oneself.

The method skeptic

In the Drafts pyrrhoniennes , Sextus one by one destroys the philosophical main themes of the time. For that, it has resorts to two types of principal tools.

The dissension enters the schools

In all the work returns, except for some words, a devoted formula: “That these people put initially agreement on a joint position”. One of the leitmotiv of the pyrrhonism is indeed the observation of points of divergences on the same subjects between philosophical schools proposing each strong argumentation.

For Sextus, it is not question of choosing one rather than the other, under pretext of affinities. So such strong arguments do not manage to convince of as eminent people, it is as they do not touch the truth. It is here about the one of the modes of the suspension of the judgment allotted to Agrippa: the dissension.

Sextus writes whereas the stoical ones and the epicureans have already several centuries of combat behind them, also is it easy to at that time include/understand the weight of this objection of contradiction.

Other modes

Once each rejected point of the kind, Sextus undertakes a logical déconstruction. It is a question of showing that each advanced thesis fall into one from the four other modes: the diallèle, regression ad infinitum (for the two principal ones), the relative one and the hypothetical one.

Eagerness

In spite of the fact that Sextus announces several times that it treats the various topics only in the shape of a draft, one can note a certain eagerness which lets think that the author tries to be most exhaustive possible.

Indeed, where the majority of the philosophers would be satisfied to have ruined the bases of a thesis, Sextus always continues true déconstruction by supposing the assumption that it has just rejected. One thus sees it making the turn of the theses of the ones and others on the topics which they approach, refuting since their bases until their consequences, if not last, at least particular.

It is one of the keys of the method pyrrhonienne, in contrast, for example, with the critic neo-academician: not to be satisfied with an objection on a fundamental abstraction but to undermine the whole of the theoretical contents. It is thus not conceivable that the dogmatic ones make use of the objections to reconsider and reinforce their doctrines.

Detailed explanation

Deliver I: principles and the arguments skeptics

This book constitutes the major addition of Sextus so that he already said in Against dogmatic the . It is here about a kind of digest of the theories skeptics, which makes say to some that in fact well the Esquisses were made up after the Against dogmatic the , and not the reverse.

General considerations (1 - 20)

The glance of Sextus on the philosophy of its time

When one seeks the Vérité on a precise subject:

either one makes a discovery,
or one denies that one can find the truth, it is imperceptible,
or one continues research.

This is valid for any subject of research. One counts three important types of philosophy: the dogmatic philosophy (which claims to make discoveries, like the aristotelism, the epicureanism, the Stoïcisme), the academic philosophy of Arcésilas (which denies that one can make discoveries) and the skepticism (which continues to seek).

The subject of this book is this third type of philosophy, and it is composed in the spirit even of skepticism:

“of nothing of what will be known as we do not ensure that it is completely as we say it” (I, 4).

This philosophy can be divided into two:

the general talk of skepticism: “its concept, its principles, its speeches, its criterion and its end, modes” (I delivers)
the special talk, which refutes each part of philosophy: logic (delivers II), physics and ethics (delivers III)

Definition of skepticism

The way skeptic is:

“enquiring”, because it relates to research and the examination.
“suspensive”, because the affect which results from research skeptic is the “aporetic” suspension of the judgment
, because it cannot be determined on the existence of a thing, not more than on its non-existence
“pyrrhonienne”, because Sextus in a strict sense sees in Pyrrhon the first skeptic.

Sextus defines skepticism as “ faculty to put face to face the things which as well as appear that which is thought, in some manner that it is, capacity by which, because of force equalizes that there is in the opposed objects and reasoning, we arrive initially at the suspension of the approval, and after that, with peace ” (I, 8). The principal idea is that with regard to the obscure things, one can oppose to any demonstration another demonstration which will be of equal measurement. The skeptic attitude thus consists in confronting the arguments permanently so as to show that the solution is indécidable. It is supposed that from this doubt will be born peace, or ataraxie.

Research fields of the skeptic

Sextus takes the term of dogma in a strict sense, i.e. it does not mean simply belief , because the skeptic does not dispute his perceptions, but always accepts appearances which fall to him passively under the direction. What it disputes, in fact the inference is made, since these appearances, to be it real object which appears (I, 19).

Dogme must be taken in the direction of belief in complex theories , or, according to the words of Sextus: of “ approval to a thing determined among the obscure things which are object of research for sciences ” (I, 13). The skeptic does not dogmatize, because he never claims but what he says is true, but rather than thus the thing appears to him at the time.

The skeptic can begin research very well on operation of the world, but with the proviso of not claiming to arrive to a truth. The purpose of this research should be only to produce arguments making it possible to counter those which are used by the dogmatic ones (I, 18). It is capital to understand here that skepticism does not exclude the study. Quite to the contrary, it is by knowing well the theories of different dogmatic that the skeptic will be able to oppose the ones to the others.

Criterion and end of skepticism (21 - 31)

Sextus distinguishes two criteria among those which can push the man to make decisions: the criterion of truth and the criterion of life. The criterion of truth is precisely what skepticism rejects. It would be faculty, the object or unspecified being which would make it possible to judge that a thing is true rather than false. From that the criterion is distinguished from action, which enables us to make our choices in the daily life.

For Sextus, the criterion of life is the apparent thing, i.e. our perceptions and our affects. It does not matter if what we see is an illusion, this vision in itself is not less true. The error would consist in claiming that this vision reveals a reality, or to reject this false vision by claiming it.

These appearances seem to enter one of these four categories:

la nature: According to the design which one has of properly human nature
la required affects: We have needs, such as the hunger or the thirst, for which it is necessary to answer by actions
les traditions and the coutumes
la knowledge technique: In order to have a trade and to draw our subsistence

from it

The action of the skeptic consists with to adapt to these appearances, with an aim of obtaining peace, or absence of disorder. Thus, the goal of the skeptic is not to obtain what would be seen like a higher good, material or spiritual, because that which is fixed this kind of objective is permanently in the disorder: dissatisfaction when it does not have the good, transport or fear to lose it when it obtained it.

The peace of the skeptic is not an insensitivity like would like the stoical ones: the skeptic feels the significant pain, hunger, and all the other evils, but not being determined on the fact that they are goods or evils, they are less painful to him than with those which fear the pain. In fact current information indicates which action we must undertake.

The modes (31 - 35)

The ten modes (36 - 163)

See the tropes

It should be noted that Sextus Empiricus classifies these ten modes in a hierarchical way, by subordinating them to three other modes, them same subordinates with the relative one, without one being able to say if this differentiation is the fact of Ænésidème (to which one allots these ten modes).

The numbers in front of the modes are those used by Sextus, which announces that “we have resort to this order only conventionally” (I, 38).

relative the

according to what judges

1 according to the variety of the animals
2 according to the difference between human the
3d' after the various constitutions of the bodies of the directions
4 according to the external circumstances

according to what is judged

7 according to the quantity and the constitution of the objects
10 according to the lifestyle

according to the two precedents

5 according to the positions, the distances and the places
6 according to the mixtures
8 relative
9 according to the continuous or rare character of the meetings

The five modes (164 - 177)

Voir Clutched

The two modes (178 - 179)

See Mode

Modes relating to causality (180 - 186)

See causality

Expressions skeptics (187 - 209)

See the expressions skeptics

Differences between skepticism and the other schools (210 - 241)

Héraclite
Démocrite
Cyrénaïsme
Protagoras
New Academy
empirical Medicine

Deliver II: demonstration and criterion of truth

The criterion

The truth

Demonstration analyzes

Deliver III

Physics

Ethics

August 1st

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