Skepticism is a point of view that denies the possibility of any knowledge of the world and asserts the need to refrain from any judgment about it. A skeptical attitude toward human knowledge is very characteristic of the Greek spirit. The philosophers and poets of early Greece, Homer and Heraclitus, Archilochus and Democritus, Euripides and Plato repeatedly spoke about the weakness of our feelings, the brevity of human life, the feebleness of the human mind. However, it was the Eleatic Pyrrho (360 – 270 BC) who was destined to collect the scattered grains of a skeptical attitude toward the world and melt them into a single worldview. It is to him that the definitions of skepticism as a separate philosophical trend, distinct from simple mistrust of the testimony of our feelings and mind, go back.
So, according to Pyrrho, skeptics are those who constantly examine something, but do not come to any decision. The Greek word “skepsis” (σκέψις) means “examination”. Such people can also be called seekers, since they are always looking for the truth, but do not find it. They are also called abstainers, because, having examined this or that statement, they refrain from judging whether it is true or not. Pyrrho’s followers were also called “aporetics”, because they brought both those who asserted certain teachings and themselves into a state of “aporia”, i.e. hopelessness. Greek skeptics distinguished themselves both from those who expressed certain judgments or dogmas about the world and its nature, and from those who completely denied the possibility of knowing the world. The skeptics based this division on the fact that there are three possible outcomes in any study. You can find a solution to the problem under study, you can deny such a solution, and you can continue to study. The first option is represented by dogmatism, the second by the philosophy of the Middle (or second) and New (or third) Academy, Arcesilaus and Carneades, the third by Pyrrho and his followers, who do not claim knowledge of the world and its nature, do not deny it, but refrain from making a decision and continue to search in order to never find. So, skepticism in the proper sense of the word is the teaching of Pyrrho and his followers. Chronologically, it is divided into the following stages. The skepticism of Pyrrho and Timon, then the skepticism of Aenesidemus and Agrippa, and finally the skepticism of Sextus Empiricus and Menodotus. Since Arcesilaus and Carneades influenced late skepticism, we will also examine their teaching, which is close to skepticism.
A compatriot of Parmenides and Zeno, Pyrrho was influenced by Anaxarchus, a follower of Democritus, and by his sophistic criticism of reliable knowledge, as well as by the sensualism of the Cyrenaics. Ancient authors report on his journey to India and Persia and the influence on him of the life practices of Indian ascetics, the so-called “gymnosophists.” He was the first to teach about the unknowability (άκαταληψία) of everything and the need to refrain (έπέχεσθαι) from judgment. He taught that by nature there is nothing beautiful or ugly, nothing just or unjust, etc., but people do everything according to their own rules and habits. This was proved by Pyrrho’s position that “everything is no more this than this” (Diogenes Laërtius, IX 61), i.e., about any thing one can express a definition and its opposite, so that we will know nothing about the nature of the thing. By virtue of this, one cannot speak definitely about anything, one cannot assert something about the essence of this or that thing, but one must, according to Pyrrho, follow what is. Every statement is equivalent (ίσοσθενής) to the opposite statement, therefore, a choice between them is impossible. The skeptical doctrine, like all the others, is subject to this principle. Therefore, in the skeptical principles “everything is no more this than that” and others one cannot see principles and dogmas, but temporary tools for achieving another goal. The statements of the skeptics, according to themselves, are merely an expression of a state of indifference and lack of inclination towards any statement (άρρεψία). The very teaching that every statement has a completely equivalent opposite, having destroyed all dogmatic teachings, destroys itself as a teaching, i.e., as an affirmation of a certain position. Here there is a transition from criticism of dogmatism to clarification of the proper attitude towards the world, a transition to ethics.
Pyrrho’s student Timon, who certainly follows his teacher here, defined the skeptic’s attitude to the world as follows: “He who wishes to be happy must pay attention to the following three things. First, to what things are, secondly, how we should relate to them, and finally, what follows for a person from such an attitude. And concerning things, he (i.e., he who wishes to live happily. –
D. B.) will find that they are equally indifferent, fickle and not subject to judgment, and if so, then opinions about them can be neither true nor false. And from this it follows that they should not be trusted, but one must be devoid of opinions, devoid of inclination towards anything and unwavering. About each thing one must say that it is no more than it is not, that it both is and is not, that it neither is nor is not. “And whoever has come to such a frame of mind, according to Timon, will first have complete abstinence from speech and speech, and then imperturbability” (Eusebius of Caesarea, Praep. ev. XIV 18, 2). In this fragment, the following attracts attention. First, the goal of the skeptical worldview, according to Pyrrho and Timon, was a happy, or blessed, life. The significance of theoretical consideration among skeptics is purely negative and acts as a means. Here, the ethical character of the skeptical teaching is clearly visible, bringing skepticism closer to the orientation of other Hellenistic schools. Secondly, Pyrrho’s ethical ideal is defined negatively, as the absence of worries and concerns that can be caused by things if they are treated improperly. Imperturbability and indifference (dSiCKpopio) are the only “goods” to which one must strive. Everything else is equally indifferent to happiness. As Cicero says, for Pyrrho there was no difference between the best of health and the most serious illness.
A good illustration of the Pyrrhonian ideal can be found in the following story. When Pyrrho found himself on a ship caught in a storm, he pointed out to his frightened companions a pig, as if nothing had happened, eating from its trough on the deck, and said that this is exactly what a sage is. A skeptical sage is alien to pity and affection. Pyrrho himself, when he saw that his teacher Anaxarchus had fallen into a swamp, with a feeling of complete indifference and without any pity went on his way, causing Anaxarchus’ admiration. In ordinary life, as Diogenes Laërtius reports, Pyrrho paid no attention to anything, neither to oncoming chariots, nor to steep slopes, nor to vicious dogs. He could trade at the bazaar, wash a pig, travel around Greece with various rabble. Nothing could be shameful for a man devoted to indifference and imperturbability.
As already mentioned, one of Pyrrho’s students was Timon (320-230 BC), a native of Phlius, who became famous above all as the author of the “Syllas”, satirical poems ridiculing dogmatic philosophers and their teachings. In the “Powers” Timon spared only Xenophanes and Pyrrho. Against the philosophers who claimed that truth is comprehended through the interaction of reason and feelings, Timon directed the verse: “Attagus and Numenius met together” (Diogenes Laërtius, IX 114)
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Arcesilaus and Carneades belonged to the school of Plato’s followers, the Academy. However, their teaching was permeated with the influence of Pyrrho; they did not develop positive Platonic doctrines. Their main interest lay in criticizing the opponents of the Academy, primarily the Stoics. Their dialectical and polemical developments had a serious influence on the history of Greek skepticism, seriously enriching the argumentation and dialectical sophistication of later skeptics.
Arcesilaus (315-241 BC), who became the head of Plato’s Academy after Crates, transferred academic philosophy, which had previously been concerned with the interpretation of Platonic texts and the dogmatic development of Platonic doctrines, to new tracks. He was the first, as Cicero reports, “to begin not to prove his own opinion, but to dispute the opinion of another” (Cicero, De oral III 67.). He was the first, as Diogenes Laërtius says, to refrain from judgments because any judgment can be opposed to its direct opposite. Instead of proving his own opinion and refuting the opposite, Arcesilaus undertook to prove both the thesis and the antithesis with equal persuasiveness. The ancients believed that Arcesilaus’s Platonism was only a mask under which Pyrrhonism and eristics were hidden, i.e., skepticism and the art of debate. A verse was even composed about him: “In front is Plato, behind is Pyrrho, and in the middle is Diodorus” (Diogenes Laërtius, IV 33)
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However, Arcesilaus’ position differed from the skepticism of Pyrrho and his followers. Although he, like them, refrained from any judgment, did not prove either the existence or non-existence of anything, did not consider something more or less reliable, for Arcesilaus the goal of philosophical activity was the refraining from judgment itself (:ёяохч), and not imperturbability (ссстсрсфа). Imperturbability, according to Arcesilaus, is only an accompanying circumstance of refraining from judgment. Arcesilaus opposed Stoic logic and epistemology. He refuted the Stoic doctrine of consent, according to which final knowledge comes after the act of consent. In such a case, according to Carneades, we consent to what we have not yet known, and thus the knowledge that comes as a result of such consent is worthless. Furthermore, the theory of consent contradicts the Stoic doctrine of the sage, since the sage is free from all opinion, but if he performs an act of consent, i.e. agrees to something that is not yet fully known, then he thereby has an opinion. If he does not perform an act of consent, then he knows nothing at all. Arcesilaus also criticizes the Stoic concept of cataleptic fantasy, the Stoic criterion of truth, for there is no true idea that could not be false. Thus, according to Arcesilaus, there is no truth, “everything is hidden in the dark” (Cicero, Acad. post. 12, 45), but in the sphere of practical life he still recognized a certain correctness. “He who abstains from all judgment determines choice and avoidance, and in general all practical actions by a good rational justification (τω εύλόγω ). … An action is right if it has a good, reasonable justification for its implementation” (Sextus Empiricus, Adv. math. VII 158).
Carneades (214-129 BC), who founded the third, or New, Academy, considered the refutation of Stoic dogmatism, especially the teachings of the Stoic Chrysippus, to be his life’s work. He even said: “If there had been no Chrysippus, there would have been no me” (Diogenes Laërtius, IV 62). Carneades was a very gifted dialectician and orator. Once, being sent to Rome on a diplomatic mission, he spoke in the Senate for two days. On the first day he presented arguments in defense of justice, on the second day – against, astonishing the Romans, who were weak in dialectics. His activities in Rome were terminated at the insistence of Cato the Elder.
Following Arcesilaus, Carneades criticizes the Stoic theory of the criterion of truth, i.e., cataleptic fantasy. Carneades says that cataleptic fantasy is no different from other ideas. Its clarity and self-evident nature cannot serve as a guarantee of its truth, since ideas in dreams and the fantasies of the insane are clear and self-evident. The fact that cataleptic fantasy necessarily leads us to accept it does not lead us to recognize its truth, since the delirium of the insane can have the same result. Furthermore, there is no cataleptic idea, since it does not exist in the case of our main sensation, sight. Indeed, we do not have a clear and self-evident idea of color, since color is constantly changing. Thus, we know about changes in color, but we do not know the true color, the color perceived cataleptically. Carneades opposed the fundamental law of logic, the law of contradiction. He did not accept the proposition that a judgment can be either false or true. So, if I say “I am lying”, am I telling the truth or a lie? If I am really lying, then I am telling the truth, but if I am telling the truth, then I am telling a lie. This means that this judgment can be neither true nor false. Scientific proof is also impossible, because, firstly, every proof itself requires justification and we go to infinity. Secondly, a general proof is based on a more particular one, and a particular one is based on a general one; without knowing the first, we cannot prove the second, without knowing the second, we cannot prove the first. Because of such interdependence, it is impossible to carry out scientific proof. Thus, no scientific knowledge, precise and reliable, is possible, since we cannot distinguish a true idea from a false one and cannot prove anything. In this case, if the external world is completely unknowable, we are left with only our own states. Like Arcesilaus, Carneades did not deduce the impossibility of practical action from the impossibility of knowing the world. On the contrary, to justify the latter, he introduced the doctrine of probability or persuasiveness (πιθανότης). As Sextus Empiricus says, separating the position of the skeptics from that of Carneades, “We consider that all ideas, as far as reasoning is concerned, are equal in respect of certainty and uncertainty, whereas they (the academics. – D. B.)“Some ideas are called convincing, others unconvincing” (Sextus Empiricus, R. I 227). Convincing ideas are divided into three types: 1) simply convincing, 2) convincing and verified, 3) convincing, verified and not interfered with by other ideas. Thus, when I enter a dark room and see a rope lying on the floor, I have a convincing idea of it as a snake. However, when I examine its properties, its color, its immobility, etc., I realize that it is a rope, i.e., I have a convincing and verified idea. A convincing and verified idea reaches the pinnacle of convincingness if no other idea makes me doubt it.
Carneades showed the absurdity of many Stoic arguments regarding the world, gods, fate, and free will. Thus, Zeno’s argument about the rationality of the world – the world is rational because reason is better than unreason, and the world is best of all – Carneades reduced to absurdity with the following argument: if Zeno’s argumentation is correct, then the world can read books, because someone who knows how to read is better than an ignoramus, and the world is best of all. According to the same argumentation, the world can be called a mathematician, a musician, and, of course, a philosopher. Carneades put forward the following argument against divine goodness: if the gods, being kind to man, endowed him with everything, then they also endowed him with the ability to use their gifts for evil, which means they do not care about man if they gave him the opportunity to do evil. In addition, the gods who were kind to man took care to fill the earth with all sorts of evil and harmful creatures that are destructive to him. The Stoic concept of the gods as corporeal living beings is also absurd, for in that case the gods would be mortal and sensitive to pain. What kind of gods are they that die and suffer? If the gods lead a blessed life, according to the Stoics, this is impossible unless they possess the four virtues. But how can a deity be brave, or how can it moderate its passions?
After Plato’s Academy had returned to dogmatism and academic skepticism had died out, skepticism returned to its Pyrrhonian origins. This happened in the work of Aenesidemus of Knossos, who lived and wrote in the first half of the first century B.C. He wrote eight books of the Pyrrhonian Discourses, a brief extract of which was preserved by the Patriarch Photius.
Aenesidemus argued against truth, causality, and proof. There can be no truth, since it can be either sensible, or intelligible, or a combination of the sensible and the intelligible. It cannot be sensible, since sensation itself is completely devoid of rationality, and therefore has no relation to truth. It cannot be intelligible, since the intelligible depends on the sensible. It cannot be a combination of the sensible and the intelligible, since the sensible and the intelligible contradict both themselves and each other.
Aenesidemus argued against causality in this way. One body cannot be the cause of another. First, a body, being in itself, cannot become the cause of another body, otherwise it would cease to be in itself. Secondly, it cannot create anything else even as a result of union with something else, since that which cannot create by itself will not do so even under the condition of union with something else. Moreover, two bodies cannot be formed from one, for one is one, and two are two. But even if it were possible to form two bodies from one, then from two there would be four, from four eight, and we would have to go to infinity. Since a body cannot create anything, it cannot be the cause of another body. The incorporeal cannot be the cause of anything else, since it is intangible and can neither act nor suffer. The incorporeal cannot create anything corporeal, for they are alien to each other by their very nature. Therefore, a body cannot be the cause of either the corporeal or the incorporeal, nor can the incorporeal be the cause of either the incorporeal or the corporeal. Therefore, there can be no causality. Further, a cause does not exist, since by its very concept a cause is something relative, that is, a cause of something, and what is relative cannot have an independent existence. There can be no cause, since if there were one, it would be either before, or simultaneously, or after the effect. There cannot be a simultaneous cause, since then both cause and effect are in the same state. There cannot be a cause after the effect, since it would obviously cease to be a cause. There cannot be a cause before the effect, since then it is not a cause, since the one whose cause it was does not yet exist. Nor can one conclude from appearances to reality, since appearances are all the same, but when they begin to be considered not simply appearances, but signs of some reality, there is no agreement regarding them. For example, different doctors will diagnose completely different diseases based on the same symptoms.
Since proof is also a sign, we cannot draw any conclusions about reality on its basis. Moreover, if we prove something, it may be obvious or non-obvious. If it is obvious, the proof is superfluous, but if it is non-obvious, how can we connect this non-obvious with that through which it is proved? Then, every syllogism is in fact a circle (circulus vitiosus), since the premises already contain the conclusion. Take, for example, the syllogism “Every man is a living being, Socrates is a man, therefore Socrates is a living being.” According to the skeptics, in order to prove the thesis “every man is a living being” it is necessary to survey all men, thus we already see here that Socrates is a living being. Therefore, the premise “every man is a living being” is proved by invoking the conclusion “Socrates is a living being.” This results in a vicious circle in the proof, which, according to the skeptics, is characteristic of any proof. Finally, since, as Aristotle and the Stoics believed, there must be unprovable principles of any proof, any proof depends on them. However, these principles cannot go beyond the phenomena, they are also phenomena, and not truth and reality. Consequently, no proof by definition can reach the truth, since from phenomena one can only conclude to phenomena, and not to truth in itself.
Aenesidemus also developed ten tropes, i.e. methods of argumentation, as a result of which it is necessary to arrive at a suspension of judgment. The first trope states that since all living beings differ in what seems to them to be pleasure and pain, useful and harmful, it follows that all living beings have different ideas from one another. Therefore, there is no need for people to have ideas that correspond to reality, therefore it is necessary to abstain from judgment. According to the second trope, it is necessary to abstain from judgment, since the individual properties of the organism of each person are different. There are those who freeze in the heat, and those who are hot in the cold. Therefore, people cannot have the same ideas about reality. The third trope states that since we have different senses, each of which gives us a different idea of reality from the other, and we have no reason to prefer one to another, we can never say what a thing really is. For example, the same apple appears to the eye as round, to the taste as sweet, to the smell as aromatic, and we cannot say which of these qualities corresponds to the nature of the apple. According to the fourth trope, we cannot have true ideas about reality, since all our ideas depend on our state. We have some ideas when we are awake, others when we are asleep, when we are happy and sad, in old age and in youth, and so on. The fifth trope proves the need to abstain from judgment, referring to the fact that different people and different nations have different laws, different habits, different teachings, different ideas about what is fair and what is not, what is useful and what is harmful. The sixth trope says that we do not have any pure and unalloyed idea of reality. Any of our perceptions is complicated by accompanying factors: light, humidity, air, movement, and so on. This means that we do not perceive reality as it is. The seventh trope says that our perceptions depend on spatial distance: the same thing seems large to us from close range, but small from afar. Consequently, our ideas about size are constantly changing and do not correspond to reality. According to the eighth trope, a thing in itself has no properties, since all its properties exist only in relation to something else. Thus, wine can strengthen and invigorate, or it can intoxicate and knock you off your feet. The ninth trope says that the quality of our ideas depends on the frequency and rarity of the phenomenon. If it occurs rarely, we are surprised by it, if often, we do not notice it. The tenth trope proves that our ideas do not correspond to reality, since they depend on each other. Thus, our idea of right is impossible without the assumption of left, although in the nature of the thing itself, which seems right to us, there is nothing right.Sextus Empiricus reduced these tropes of Aenesidemus to three main groups. The first group of tropes is based on differences in the one who makes the judgment, the second on differences in the object of the presentation, and the third on both. Sextus considered the eighth trope, the trope of relativity, to be the most important of Aenesidemus’ tropes, which completely destroyed the possibility of speaking about the proper nature and essence of any thing. The remaining tropes are modifications of the eighth.
The skeptic Agrippa, of whose life nothing is known, added five new tropes to those of Aenesidemus. Here is how Sextus Empiricus describes them. “The first is called ‘from disagreement’ when we find that there is an insoluble dispute about the thing under investigation in life and among philosophers, because of which dispute and disagreement we, not being able to accept or reject it, fall into abstention from judgment. The second trope, ‘from falling into infinity’, occurs when the proof of the evidence of the object under investigation requires another evidence, and this another – a third, and so on ad infinitum. Therefore, having no beginning for our proof, we abstain from judgment. The trope ‘from relativity’ … occurs when what is under consideration seems sometimes one way, sometimes another, depending on the one making the judgment, as well as on what is being considered together with him. Regarding what it is by nature, we abstain from judgment. “The fourth trope, “from assumption,” occurs when dogmatists, going into infinity, begin with some proposition which they do not prove, but consider it possible to accept it simply and without proof by agreement. The fifth trope, “from reciprocity,” occurs when that which itself should have founded the thing under investigation, needs it for its certainty. Because of this, we, not being able to rely on either of them in proof, refrain from judgment” (Sextus Empiricus, R. I 165-169).
Later Greek skepticism is represented by the school of empiricist doctors. The founder of this trend was a certain Philinus of Cos, whose principle was “observation (τήρησις) of what has often been seen in the same way” (Galen, “Οροι ιατρικοί XIX 353, 9). The empiricists considered the phenomenon and its representation to be the criterion of truth. They saw the indisputability of such a criterion in the fact that no one argues that what appears is what it appears to be. Disagreements begin when the question arises whether the phenomenon is actually such, when it comes to the reality to which the phenomenon must correspond. If we adhere to experience, phenomena and do not go beyond them, we will have a solid foundation in life, as do all normal and ordinary people who do not bother their heads with the trifles of dogmatic positions.
Empiricists oppose dialectics, believing that, firstly, every assertion of dialectics can be countered with an equivalent one, secondly, that it proves things that are clear without any proof, thirdly, that human experience and practice calmly go their own way, in spite of all the “discoveries” of dogmatic dialectics that turn the world upside down. This is how Sextus Empiricus says, summing up his arguments against dialectics: “For it is enough for us if we live according to our experience, without any opinions, in accordance with general observations and ideas, and we abstain from dogmatic excesses and chatter that goes beyond the urgent needs of life” (Sextus Empiricus, R. II 246). This is how such a life is presented in another passage of Sextus. “So, holding to phenomena, we live according to life’s experience without any opinions, since we cannot be completely inactive. The experience of life itself seems to consist of four parts. The first consists in the guidance of nature, the second in the necessity of the passions, the third in the tradition of customs and laws, the fourth in the training of the arts. According to the guidance of nature, we naturally feel and think; according to the necessity of the passions, hunger leads us to food, and thirst to drink; according to the tradition of customs and laws, we consider piety in ordinary life to be good, and impiety to be evil; and according to the training of the arts, we are not inactive in those arts which we have adopted. And all this does not require any dogmatic opinion” (Sextus Empiricus, R. I 23-24).
Literature
1. Diogenes Laërtius. On the LIFE, teachings and sayings of famous philosophers. Moscow, 1979.
2. Sextus Empiricus. Works: In 2 volumes. Vol. I-II. Moscow, 1975-1976.
3. Janacek K. Sextus Empiricus’ sceptical methods. Prague, 1972.