Pyrrhon d' Élis (in Greek Πύρρων/ Pýrrhôn ) (360 - 270 av. J. - C.), Philosophe skeptic originating in Élis, provincial city of the North-West of the Peloponnese. He is considered by the old skeptics as the founder of what one called the pyrrhonism . He would be the initiator of the Zététique.

Biography

We do not know about anything of its life, and the information we have does not grant.

He is the son of Pleistarque. Living in poverty, it accepted a training of painter, but he was a poor artist. He was the pupil of Bryson, a disciple of Socrate and Euclide de Mégare, then of Anaxarque which he followed in India in the countryside of Asia of Alexandre. He studied there with the " gymnosophistes" (probably of the Brahmans ascetics), and in Persian, where it was informed by the Magi. He seems to have known Calanus.

This information is of course doubtful, and one finds here in fact the ideal course of a philosopher. It hardly misses in the table but one visit in Egypt.

To its return to Élis, it led simple and regular a life, indifferent and serene, with his Philista sister by selling milk pigs. There liked to remain alone to meditate. According to Diogène Laërce, its equanimity was taken at fault only twice: he flees in front of a dog, and he put himself in anger against his sister.

It is supposed that it had become agnostic and abstained from giving its opinion on any subject. He denied that a thing was good or bad, true or distorts in oneself. It doubted the existence of any thing, said that our actions were dictated by the practices and conventions and did not admit that a thing is, in itself, rather this that. Its attitude seemed thus resigned and pessimistic; he often repeated the worms of Homère:

The men are similar to the sheets of the trees.

He is for this reason regarded as the creator of the skepticism (or more exactly of the pyrrhonism), but he does not seem to have intended to create a philosophical current of thought .

Pyrrhon did not write anything, but its disciple Timon of Phlionte, and the skeptics late like Énésidème, Nouménios and Nausiphane, left us many rollers in which they discussed the method to arrive to the state of incomprehension ( Acatalepsie ) and at the Bonheur to know absolutely anything, not to have the least certainty on our Existence and the existence of another thing or the possibility of its existence. The few fragments of Tiller which reached to us describe us Pyrrhon:

Noble old man, Pyrrhon, how and by which way you knew to escape slavery from the doctrines and the futile lesson from the sophists? How did you break the bonds of the error and the servile belief? You do not become exhausted to scan the nature of the air which wraps Greece nor the nature and the end of all things.

Pyrrhon, I ardently wish to learn from you how, being still on the ground, you carry out a so happy and quiet life, how, only among the mortals, you enjoyed the happiness of the gods.

The philosopher Épicure, who admired it by far, was always curious to know what Pyrrhon had just said or to make. As for Éléens, they were so proud of Pyrrhon that they covered it honors. It was very estimated of its fellow-citizens and was named large priest. It was also made citizen of honor of Athens.

Its doctrines had opponents however: detractors of Pyrrhon said of him that seeing a tree on its way, it would not divert its road for lack of certainty relating to the real existence of the tree .

Supposed teaching

The teaching of Pyrrhon caused many perplexities perhaps which gave place to developments of a methodological nature, summarized in several Trope S. Pyrrhon did not know them, our sources not enabling us to decide on this point. There are several series; ten tropes on relativity are allotted to Ænésidème, and five others on the certainty with Agrippa.

Disciples

• Euryloque
• Philon of Athens
• Hécatée d' Abdère
• Nausiphanes de Téos
• Numénius (doubtful, perhaps contemporary of Ænésidème)