SMITH, Plínio Junqueira, Sextus Empiricus Neo-Pyrrhonism: Skepticism as a Rationally Ordered Experience. (Cham, Springer, 2022, 367 pages.

SMITH, Plínio Junqueira. , Sextus Empiricus Neo-Pyrrhonism: Skepticism as a Rationally Ordered Experience . (Cham, Springer, 2022, 367 pages.

Abstract

The Book Symposium consists of four texts. In the first, the author summarizes his book, presenting its main contribution and giving an overview of the chapters. In the second, Stéphane Marchand, after highlighting the methodological affinity between the book and his training in France, discusses the new division of the initial chapters of the Outlines of Pyrrhonism and the more robust interpretation of the notion of skeptical logos. In the third text, Casey Perin also insists on this last point. In his view, Smith correctly raises a central issue in Sexto’s interpretation and draws attention to a crucial but little-studied passage. However, Smith would not have been able to explain how skepticism could be normative without dogmatism adequately. The last text is the author's response to the objections raised.

Keywords:
Skepticism; Skeptical logos; Suspension of judgment

Précis of Sextus Empiricus Neo-Pyrrhonism

Plínio Junqueira Smith

Universidade Federal de São Paulo (Unifesp)

Researcher of CNPq

The book is both modest and ambitious, for the same reason. It is modest because its aim is only to interpret what Sextus calls “the distinctive character of skepticism” (PH 1.5), to be found in the first sections of the Outlines (PH 1.7-30). It is ambitious because interpreting this distinctive character it comprehensively interprets the skeptical philosophy or orientation. So, its focus is very narrow, allowing the book to offer a new interpretation. It seemed to me that this Sextan’s very basic introduction to Pyrrhonism has not been very well understood and, thereby, Pyrrhonism has not been well understood. Why not?

The book starts from the startling observation that, though Sextus presents us with a list of what comes next (a summary of the Outlines) in PH 1.5-6, the manuscripts offer a very different division. So, his distinction between the general account and the specific account corresponds to Book I and Books II and III. Concerning Book I, Sextus (PH 1.5) says that it has four parts, and that is precisely what happens: 1) the distinctive characteristics of skepticism (PH 1.7-30); 2) the modes of suspension (PH 1.31-186); 3) the skeptical expressions (PH 1.187-209); 4) the difference between skepticism and neighbor philosophies (PH 1.210-241). The manuscripts do not explicitly identify these four parts.

But the real problem comes when one notices, more specifically, Sextus explanation of the part concerning the distinctive characteristics of skepticism, for he presents us with five topics which structures his explanation, and the manuscript division in chapters does not follow what he says. Besides the names given to skepticism (PH 1.7), Sextus centers his presentation around these five topics: its concept (ennoia), its principles (archai), its reasons (logoi), its criterion (kriterion) and its goal (telos). This list is perfectly matched by what follows. But the manuscripts divide the first topic into two: PH 1.8-10 (on what skepticism is) and PH 1.11 (on who is the skeptic); the second topic also into two: PH 1.12 (on the principles) and PH 1.13-15 (on whether the skeptic has dogmata, a question Sextus does not raise, misleading the reader); the third topic in three, none of which about skeptical logoi, as meant by Sextus: PH 1.16-17, on whether there is a skeptical doctrine (hairesis); PH 1.18, on whether the skeptic studies natural science (a misleading title); PH 1.19-20, on whether the skeptic abolishes the phenomenon. Concerning the last two topics, the manuscripts got it right.

So, the book takes it as a fact that PH 1.5-6 is a summary of the whole book and, in particular, of the distinctive character of skepticism. If so, one notices two points. First, the most interpretive discussion centered around PH 1.13, a “chapter”, according to the manuscripts, in which Sextus is answering a question, but, according to Sextus, it is an explanation of the consequences of the second skeptical principle. So, the debate between the so-called urban interpretation and the so-called rustic interpretation is based on a misunderstanding of the role played by PH 1.13 in Sextus’ presentation of the distinctive character of skepticism. The book does not diminish the importance of PH 1.13, but it denies it is the central passage to understand Pyrrhonism.

Moreover, these interpretations were misled by taking dogma to mean “belief”. Skepticism had to do, first, with an attack on dogma. Barnes (1982), in his famous paper, but not in his translation, rightly pointed out that dogma is not mere belief, but a theoretical, or doctrinal, belief, just as Sedley (1983) did a bit later. Burnyeat explicitly confessed his mistake (1998b, p. 97, n. 13); and Frede (1998b) seems to have accepted the point too, for he no longer talks about belief, but only assent (in the more historical part of his paper), and only near the end he comes back to belief (in the more philosophical part of the paper).

Second, skeptics also deal with doxa (opinion), so that they, by philosophically attacking dogmata, turn out to live an adoxastos life. One has to understand how this passage from dogma (in philosophy) to doxa (in everyday life) occurs in Pyrrhonism. This is by no means clear. A doxa, the book argues later, is also not mere belief, but it is assent to something non-evident (adelon); belief, also as later argued, may concern what appears. Since the Pyrrhonist is not dealing with mere beliefs, an explanation is needed.

The main problem with the manuscript division is that the topic of skeptical logoi went unnoticed. As far as I know, this has never been pointed out; no commentator has ever tried to interpret what Sextus meant by skeptical logoi, and what their role in Pyrrhonism is. But it is, according to Sextus, one of the five topics of the basic skeptical characteristics. Without a proper understanding of this topic, one does not get a general, comprehensive picture of Pyrrhonism. I take this as a point established by the book, not open to discussion.

What is open to discussion is how to interpret it and to determine its role. The book offers some hypotheses.

It is not easy at all to understand what Sextus means by skeptical logoi (PH 1.5). The first step is to distinguish it from other uses of logos and, then, to focus on this particular use. This skeptical logos is obviously different from: 1) the general and the specific logos (PH 1.5); 2) the modes of suspension, which are also logoi (PH 1.36); 3) the dogmatic logoi opposed by the skeptical ability (PH 1.10); 4) the logoi used by skeptics in their counter-argument (antiressis). But this is to say what it is not. What it is? This difficulty is increased by noticing that, when Sextus takes up this expression in PH 1.17, he uses the singular: logos (PH 1.17). Why this difference?

Here is my solution. If one reads PH 1.17, it is easy to realize that the skeptical logos has two aspects: one, it leads correctly to suspension of judgment in philosophical investigation; two, it leads to a correct, happy life. This might explain why Sextus talks about logoi in PH 1.5 and a logos with two aspects in PH 1.17. That is the subject of chapter 5, arguably the heart of the book. If this hypothesis is correct, then the chapter on skeptical logoi is crucial for an understanding of Pyrrhonism. One misses the very articulation between his philosophical practice and the life he engages in. In fact, one misses what connects all main parts of the skeptical hairesis into a single structure.

It is not easy to translate logos in this Sextan meaning. The book suggests, not without hesitation, that it is a way of thinking. This way of thinking commands the skeptic both in his philosophical investigation, how he has to investigate properly and, if he follows it, he will arrive at suspension of judgment, and in his everyday life, for, according to this logos, he has to follow the phenomena, living properly and well. In chapter 6, the book offers an interpretation of how this skeptical logos allows for a continued investigation. Also, this logos with two aspects is indeed used in multiple circumstances, as it were adapting itself to them. This is explored in chapter 7, where the book displays the plasticity of the skeptical ability.

Another hypothesis concerns the role played by the topic of skeptical logoi inside these five topics. In my view, the place it occupies is a hint to its role, namely, to make the transition from the first two topics (on the concept and on the principles) to the last two topics (on the criterion and on the goal). That is why it falls in the middle of them. If this is right, then one can solve the difficulty just noted: how to explain that the skeptic attacks dogmata, but says he lives adoxastos (and not non-dogmatically)? What Sextus says concerning the skeptical logoi reveals, at least in part, how this is done. If one understands the skeptical logoi, then one sees how the skeptic, by suspending judgement about dogmata and applying his principles, is led to an adoxastos life following the phenomena, a happy life, or at least better than an everyday or dogmatic life.

Through this skeptical logos, the skeptic is able to extend, or apply, his way of reasoning to everyday life. But the book calls attention to the fact that this dual skeptical logos emerges from his experience in doing philosophy while, at the same time, it is something he practiced before engaging with philosophy. Let me finish by giving an overview of the book.

The book has two parts. In the first one, it describes the route from the talented person until this person becomes a skeptic. It highlights that PH 1.12, PH 1.26, and PH 1.29 describe this route, each passage emphasizing one stretch of it. In PH 1.12, one reads the initial stages taken by the future skeptic (chapter 2); PH 1.26 focuses on the intermediary steps (chapter 3), while the last step is to be found in PH 1.29 (chapter 4). One of the contributions of the book is to distinguish between anomalia, as what disturbs the talented person and leads him to philosophy, and diaphonia, as a first and main reason to suspend judgment in this initial investigation. It argues that, in order for the talented person, who became a philosopher (a philosophos, in the book), to turn into a skeptic, he must suspend judgment about everything; some suspension of judgment about some philosophical issues is not enough for that purpose. So, the book emphasizes that, for Sextus, one has to run through all major topics in all three parts of philosophy and suspend judgment about all of them in order to be called a skeptic. The Ten Modes of Aenesidemus, as well as the Five Modes of Agrippa, bring about suspension of judgment about all things. But even this is not enough for Sextus: one still has to arrive at imperturbability (ataraxia). Imperturbability is not brought about by a partial suspension of judgement; what a partial suspension seems to produce is mere frustration, at least initially, before one becomes a skeptic. But when one suspends judgement about everything, then one becomes tranquil.

Though it is usually held that, at this stage (the “proto-skeptical” stage), only the causal principle describes his route, in my view both skeptical principles (the causal one, and the main one) are in play (as much as in the “mature stage”). Even so, I think it is important to separate these two stages, for no one is born a skeptic, and one has to understand how a particular philosophical experience leads one to skepticism. For instance, one might think that Sextus distinguishes between the megalophueis (the talented person) and the euphueis (the gifted person), so that the first becomes a skeptic and the second a dogmatist. But the book argues against this view. What turns one into a skeptic or a dogmatist is not a previous condition, but the philosophical experience one has.

Accordingly, the book argues that it is his particular philosophical experience that leads to skeptic to his skeptical logos. One of the points is to remember that, while engaged in this initial investigation, he goes on living his everyday life as he always did, so that, at the end of this process, he has no reason to change what he has been doing all along. But now, as a skeptical philosopher, he will follow everyday life (koinos bios) consciously, and avoiding only those aspects of everyday life that involve doxai.

After explaining what Sextus says in PH 1.17 about the skeptical logos, the book shows how the skeptical logos allows one to see the whole picture of the skeptical stance, drawing our attention, first, to its consequences on philosophical investigation (topics 1 and 2) and, second, on everyday life (topics 4 and 5). In chapter 6, it is explained how he may go on in his philosophical investigation, not only without any inconsistency, but also in a methodical way, guided by his logos. Chapter 7 provides a richer, more interesting interpretation of the notion (or practice) of a skeptical ability. Chapter 8 insist on the idea that suspending judgement is rational, for the skeptical logos is normative.

Then, the book deals with the everyday life of the skeptic. First, in chapter 9, it introduces the idea that dogmatism, not skepticism, is an attack on everyday life. Skepticism emerges from everyday life in order to improve it. Chapter 10 is devoted to explain the crucial notion of phainomenon, the skeptical criterion, thereby showing it is possible to live a skeptical life. One important point is to realize that the distinction between everyday life and philosophy (koinos bios and philosophia) does not match the distinction between (phainomenon/adelon). I argue that in the dispute between the urbane interpretation and the rustic interpretation both sides tend to assimilate these two distinctions. The book also shows that the way a Pyrrhonist puts in question our knowledge of the physical world is very different from the way the Cartesian skeptic doubts our knowledge of the existence of the external world. If that is so, subjectivist interpretations are ruled out.

Chapters 11 argues that the phainomenon is not only a criterion of action, but it may be interpreted also as a criterion of truth concerning what appears (to phainomenon). In my view, belief (pistis) as such has never been in question for a Pyrrhonist, only philosophical doctrines (dogma) and opinions (doxa), for both the latter concern what is non-evident (obscure), while the former may be about what appears (to phainomenon). But the book goes on to argue that the skeptic not only has beliefs about what appears, but he also may have knowledge, for he has an everyday criterion of truth about what appears.

Chapter 12 concerns the skeptical goal (telos). The precedent chapters showed that a skeptical life is possible; the last one argues that, according to Sextus, it is the best available life to us, human beings. The book offers an interpretation of both imperturbability (ataraxia) and moderation (metriopatheia), by critically a widespread interpretation. According to this interpretation, the skeptic is detached both from the world and from himself. The book argues that this interpretation sees things upside down. In fact, what the skeptic does is to engage in everyday life, by getting rid of the illusions, fantasies, fictions invented by dogmatists. The dogmatic logos distorts not only how we conceive the world, but even how we feel our very emotions and experiences. Once we put it aside, we can live our lives in a much better situation.

In search of the “Skeptical Reason”: Sextus and the Skeptical logos

Stéphane Marchand

Université de Paris 1, Panthéon-Sorbonne

In his Sextus Empiricus’ Neo Pyrrhonism, Plinio Junqueira Smith offers a comprehensive and challenging reading of Sextus Empiricus’ philosophy. If one wonders if the very expression « skeptical philosophy » has any sense, she or he should read this book, since each of the twelve chapters seems to be dedicated to the demonstration that such a philosophy does exist, and -following his enthusiastic contention- is the most engaging (not to say the most rational) philosophical stance.

I am very grateful for being invited to comment on such a book for two main reasons. The first is that this book is guided, from its beginning to its end by a charity principle and a profound conviction. The project is not to show Sextus’ inconsequence or failure but on the contrary to show how his philosophical proposal is a coherent, serious, and interesting one. This book is written by a skeptical philosopher who is convinced that skepticism is, if not the best way to do philosophy, at least a valid and major way to do philosophy. The second reason is that the book is not only a monography about Sextus Empiricus, but also a discussion with some of the main figures of the skeptics of our times, beginning with Oswaldo Porchat. This prominent Brazilian philosopher played a crucial role in the dissemination of Skepticism in Brazil and Latin America. It is worth noticing that Porchat received a philosophical formation in France with Victor Goldschmidt and was influenced by his structuralist method¹. Reading this book, I had the pleasant impression that one of the most important French contributions to the methodology of the History of Philosophy was still pertinent and that the links between French and Brazilian philosophies are still vivid². Although the field of Ancient Skepticism is mainly occupied by scholarship in English, and although the author has also an impressive knowledge of British and North American philosophy, there is assuredly something peculiar in the methodological choices followed by Junqueira Smith, which is linked, in my view, to the heritage of Porchat and the French structuralist practice of history of philosophy.

Junqueira Smith’s reading of Sextus is guided by this kind of practice, more precisely by the hypothesis that every philosopher, or better, every philosophical text, contains its own method of reading and that every interpretation should begin by paying attention to such a method. That is precisely what the book is doing when it focuses on the structure of the Outlines of Skepticism and points out the difference between the heads of the chapters given by the manuscripts (also reproduced in the printed editions since Estienne’s 1562 edition) and the actual order followed by Sextus in his work. In certain cases, the incoherence of the chapter’s titles is patent (as in book III of the Outlines, chap. 24, §188); but in general, the titles are efficient summaries of what Sextus seems to do. Junqueira Smith’s contention is that the titles and the partition of book 1 of the Outlines (as well as all the scholarship that follows such partition) misses a fundamental point that is linked to one, if not the main, thesis of the book which is related to what I could call “theory of skeptical logos”. This argument fascinated me and here I would like to discuss it at length.

Sextus announces the structure he will follow in PH I, 5 in his “general account of skepticism” which occupies the book I of the Outlines:

In the general account we set out the distinctive character of Skepticism, saying what the concept (ennoia) of it is, what are its principles (archai) and what its arguments (logoi), what is its standard (kritèrion) and what its aim (telos), what are the modes (tropoi) of suspension of judgment, how we understand skeptical assertions (tas skeptikas apophaseis), and what distinguishes Scepticism from neighboring philosophies (tôn parakeimenôn autèi philosophiôn)³.

Most of the time, the titles and section from the manuscript tradition follow the structure here announced. The problems arise from the partition of the sections devoted to the principles and the arguments (logoi -I leave this translation of the term but Junqueira Smith prefers most of the time to leave the word in Greek or propose “way of reasoning”, p. 102). According to him (p. 5; p. 103), the section on principles should extend from §12 to §15 and the section on logoi from §16 to §20; but the manuscript tradition inserts more divisions: in the principles-section it inserted a chapter under the title “Do Sceptics hold beliefs?” and in the logoi section appears the chapters under the following titles: “Does a skeptic belong to a school?”, “Do Sceptics study natural science?” and “Do Sceptics reject what is apparent?”. The text surrounded by those titles is identical; the discrepancy is about the book layout and the “invention” of new titles.

So far, one can wonder what could be the negative effects of the traditional partition. Accordingly, to Junqueira Smith it has two main effects. The first is linked to the “invention” of a chapter inserted in the principles-section (chap. 7 “Do Sceptics hold beliefs?”, PH I, 13-15). According to the author (p. 6-7), this invention has the effect of calling the scholarship's attention to a problem that is not Sextus’ one, since actually he does not wonder whether the skeptic do hold beliefs in general. His point is rather to explain in what sense a skeptic avoids “dogmatizing” (PH I, 12), that is, to hold any philosophical theory (p. 7 and p. 103). To sum up, in this very passage-which is at the center of the attention of main of the commentaries from the 80s onward-Sextus is not answering our modern obsession with belief but is rather explaining the nature of the skeptic method of philosophizing (which is the object of part I of the book which is devoted to analyzing the road which leads from a dogmatic practice of the philosophy to a skeptical one). The second effect is linked to the skeptical logos which is at the center of the book (see chap. 5 which is presented as “the heart of the book”). According to the author, the division of the part devoted to the skeptical logoi into different questions has the effect of hiding the existence of an “unnoticed chapter on the Skeptical logos” (p. 102) devoted to the “skeptical reason” (even if the author avoids the systematic use of the term because of the previous objections he met from readers, he seems to consider that the expression fits his idea). The titles and divisions from the manuscript tradition are thus misleading by hiding the centrality of the skeptical logos and opened the way to an “irrationalist or anti-rationalist” reading of Sextus Empiricus. The overall lecture of the book is that there is such a skeptical reason which is “the product of the long, intense philosophical experience of a talented person who, becoming a philosophos, suspended judgment about everything and thereby became a skeptic” (p. 101). This reason is to be understood as “a skeptical way of reasoning or skeptical rationale” (p. 102). Or, to quote another passage: “The skeptical way of reasoning leads the skeptic to suspend judgment concerning the dogmatic way of reasoning, by following everyday life and its commemorative signs” (p. 119).

There are many aspects of this demonstration with which I agree. To begin, I fully agree with the “structuralist” method and the concern with finding in the text itself the key to understanding Sextus’ intention. I also appreciated the inquiry into the textual transmission. Our texts are not just “a text” nor just a set of demonstrations and of thesis. They are also the result of interpretations, traditions, transmissions, and a sum of historical choices dictated by philosophical as well as material or practical concerns. Plinio Junqueira Smith puts the finger on an opinion I shared without having done proper research on it: the assumption that the titles and chapter-partitions of the Outlines are not from Sextus' hand but come from the manuscript tradition to constitute a table of contents for the codex. Junqueira Smith assigns those choices to the “manuscript tradition” without further references. Given the importance of this hypothesis for the Junqueira Smith’s demonstration, it seems crucial to produce more proof of that very fact, especially since Annas and Barnes claim that « the chapter division probably derives from Sextus ». I am not a specialist in manuscripts, but nowadays the accessibility of manuscripts thanks to the internet makes the task easier even for those-and I am one of those-who suffer in front of the sophisticated handwriting of the manuscripts⁴. As regards the Greek tradition, a quick look at the Parisinus Suppl. grec 133 (XVIth century)⁵ shows the same table of contents (folio 4 and 5) and the titles we are used to in our modern editions; it is also the case for the oldest manuscript from IX-Xth century (Parisinus Suppl. grec 1156)⁶. Mutschmann, the editor of Sextus’ Teubner edition, also quotes a summary or a table of contents from Cosmas Hierosolymitanus (VII-VIIIth century) which is globally the same as our in the modern editions⁷. So, as regards the Greek manuscript, the partition and titles seem to rely upon an old tradition which can be the sign that it derives from Sextus’ hand. But the Latin tradition (which relies on another archetype⁸) differs as we can see with the Parisinus lat. 17400 (XIVth) with different paragraphs (marked by a pilcrow) and with no titles at all⁹, which is good news for Junqueira Smith! More seriously, the absence of the titles on a manuscript is not formal proof that they were not from the hand of Sextus, but it gives less probability to their authenticity. Futhermore, everyone who takes a look at those manuscripts (and to invite the reader to do so, I gave all the links to the Bibliothèque Nationale de France which has some Sextan manuscripts), can see the difficulty of navigating into the text and the necessity to create divisions and to add titles to guide the reader. Then, it is possible that the titles do not always fit Sextus’ intention. The question now is to determine if the titles from the manuscript tradition hide something like a Sextan theory of skeptical logos.

The thesis of the book relies on the affirmation that there is something like a skeptical logos in the sense that Sextus would have conceived a theory of skeptical logos which is announced in PH I, 5 and defined in PH I, 17 as “a certain way of reasoning”. But in PH I, 5 Sextus does not speak of one skeptical logos, he rather speaks of logoi in the plural; and in PH I, 17 the expression is tèn logôi tini kata to phainomenon akolouthousan agôgèn, which means that Skepticism is a school in the sense that it is “a way of life which follows some logos in accordance with the appearance”. One should wonder if those passages allow speaking of a “skeptical logos” in the sense of “a skeptical way of reasoning”. As regards PH I, 17 Junqueira Smith thinks that logos tis in the expression “we follow a certain rationale that, in accord with what appears…” (here I follow Mates' translation which has, in this passage, the favor of the author), means that the skeptic follows the skeptical way of reasoning, or the skeptical reason, that is his own skeptical method. For Smith Junqueira logos tis does not refer to a particular argument but an overall method or a rationality which can be opposed to dogmatic logos. But, in the expression logos tis, tis, which is an indefinite adjective, means “a kind of” or “some” in an indefinite way as, in Homer for example “theos tis” means “some god, a kind of god” (Odysseus V, 150; XIX, 40…). So Sextus’ contention in PH I, 17 seems to be that the Skeptic does follow a kind of logos that shows us how to live in accordance with appearance. Junqueira Smith is right when he says that the emphasis is put on the fact that there is a rule, and the skeptic follows some rational determination which is not however a dogma. Hence, the skeptic is not an irrational being, he has the right to pretend to have an hairesis, a school of philosophy, or a kind of philosophical movement since he can explain how, according to him, we should live. But the very passage is not claiming, in my view, that such a logos is the skeptical logos, in the sense that it could refer globally to the skeptical rationality.

Is it sufficient to claim that Sextus here gives birth to the skeptical logos? In order to do so one should inquire if the very expression skeptikos logos has the centrality Junqueira Smith claims it has. One could be puzzled by the fact that Sextus has not a systematic use of the expression we could expect if this expression meant “skeptical rationality” or “skeptical way of reasoning”. Actually, the expression could be found twice in the overall corpus, in two very interesting passages. In AM I, 306, Sextus uses the expression to refer to “the skeptical reasoning [which] confuses the mind’s eye of those who pay careful attention to it, so they lack apprehension of everything put forward by way of dogmatic rashness”¹⁰. In PH II, 259 the expression refers, in the same fashion, to the opposition of discourses which produces suspension. Contrarily to the passages used by Junqueira Smith, Sextus here is using the very “skeptical logos”. In a way it confirms his interpretation because it seems that the skeptic uses logos the kind of generality involved in Junqueira Smith’s interpretation : by logos skeptikos Sextus seems to refer to the kind of discourse or argument the skeptic is using (it is not a particular argument, rather a strategy of producing arguments). But differently than Junqueira Smith’s interpretation this kind of discourse is presented not to refer to a way to live “in accordance with appearance” but more precisely to the method of opposing arguments. The emphasis is here put into the capacity of producing the disagreement, not on the question of the rule of life as in PH I, 17.

Perhaps one should claim that it makes no big difference. Those two passages give confirmation that there is a skeptical logos which is a way of reasoning. But it seems to me that those two passages show also that the expression is only referring to the ability to oppose arguments, and not to refer to Sextus’ general way of doing philosophy and envisaging how to live. In brief, I do not think that the very expression skeptikos logos refers to the same thing as the logos in PH I, 5 and 17. The idea of a skeptical logos as an overall rationality which could be opposed to dogmatic rationality is scholarship invention more than Sextus’ concern; if we look at Sextus’ text we can see that he has a lot of ways to refer to his own way to do philosophy, and such ways refer to the practice of suspension, much more than to the question of the life in accordance with appearance. Perhaps it is not a big matter; perhaps one should just say that there is a skeptical rationality which can be inferred from Sextus’ writings and practice of philosophy, leaving apart the expression skeptikos logos as if it were a Sextan concept.

Hence, according to me, Sextus could not acknowledge the existence of a hypostasized “skeptical rationality” as Junqueira Smith does for another reason, which is linked to the very meaning of logos. Junqueira Smith’s remarks on the polysemy of logos in Sextus are accurate (p. 116): the logos in PH I, 18 is not the same as the logoi in PH I, 36 referring to the tropes. His demonstration on the unnoticed chapter on skeptical logos relies on the assumption that the logoi from PH I, 5 are referring to the same meaning as the logos in PH I, 17. I do agree that there is a link between PH I, 5 and PH I, 17, but in my view, the meaning of logos here is not “way of reasoning”. To show that, I would like to push further the hypothesis shaped by Junqueira Smith. Once we admit that the titles are not from Sextus, I would like to venture into what could be the real structure of the beginnings of PH according to PH I, 5, and evaluate to what extent the picture would differ from Junqueira Smith’s subtle book. There is no discussion about the notion (ennoia) of skepticism, which covers §7 to §11, nor with the standard (§§ 21-24) and end of skepticism (§§ 25-30), nor with the modes, the skeptical expressions, and the « neighboring philosophies ». Hence all the issues arise with the principles and the logoi. As we saw, according to Plinio Junqueira Smith, the principles section should be extended from §12 to §15. I should venture into another structure: it seems to me that there is a common feature of the content from §16 to §20 which is linked to what the skeptic can say (legein), and more precisely in what sense the skeptic will say what he says. Hence, in PH I, 5 the logoi points to the meaning of his general assertions or discourses (which is to be differentiated from the phônai which refers to the skeptical expressions): it defines what can the skeptic say and in what sense, in order to escape to the Dogmatists usual objection of self-contradiction. PH I, 5 introduces “what are its [i.e. the skeptic] discourses” (tines logoi), and more precisely in what sense we should understand his discourses. This is the case with the discourse on dogma: Sextus explains in what sense he can say (legomen, §13) that he has dogma or not; he explains in what sense the skeptic can say that he belongs to a hairesis (legei §16, faskei §17), the same with the issue of the natural science (legomen, §18), and finally the same with the issue of the relation with phainomenon: should we say that we reject the phenomenon? (§19, legomen). Admittedly this is a deflated sense of logos, which has nothing to do with “rationality” or “way of reasoning” in general; but in my view, Sextus is not writing something like The Critic of the Skeptical Reason! and the interpretation of logos as “reason” or “method” or “way of reasoning” seems to me a modern projection¹¹. The common feature of all those passages that makes the logoi-section consistent is that they are all concerned with what a skeptic can say without contradicting himself, and in what sense he can say what he is saying; hence, according to me, the logoi section is not devoted to the exposition of the skeptical reason, but rather devoted to responding to the dogmatic objection of contradiction. I do agree that the titles dismiss this part, but I don’t think that this part plays the central role it plays in Junqueira Smith’s interpretation, even if it is an important part.

It is possible that my remarks do not change the overall perspective of Junqueira Smith's book; after all, his contention is mainly that there is a skeptical rational method at work in Sextus’ work, and I fully agree with that. Whatever it may be, I found this book intriguing and challenging on almost every page; Junqueira Smith succeeds in the difficult task of proposing an original and groundbreaking interpretation, being at the same time aware of the history of the scholarship. His attention to the text and its structure open new paths, that are not, in my view, all equally grounded, but are all worth trying. Thanks to his hypothesis, he forced the reader to return to Sextus’ text beyond the wall of scholarship and historical interpretations.

Normativity without Dogmatism

Casey Perin

University of California, Irvine

At the beginning of the Outlines of Pyrrhonism Sextus tells us two things about the Sceptic and his Scepticism.¹² First, the Sceptic is a philosopher who is still (ἔτι) investigating. Second, this fact about the Sceptic makes Scepticism one of the three basic kinds of philosophy (PH 1.1-4). If the Sceptic is still investigating, then she doesn't take herself to have discovered the full and final truth about the subject of her investigations. And if that is so, Scepticism isn't the kind of philosophy that consists in the totality of what its practitioners take to be the philosophical truths they have discovered and whose discovery terminiates their philosophical investigations. Sextus labels that kind of philosophy 'Dogmatic' (δογματική). He distinguishes it from the Academic (Ἀκαδημαική) kind of philosophy that consists in what its practitioners take to be the single philosophical truth they have discovered, namely, that no other philosophical discovery is possible because all other philosophical truths are unknowable. But the Academic is just a Dogmatist by a different name, and Sextus' three basic kinds of philosophy are reducible to two. Dogmatism is the kind of philosophy identified by its constituent dogmas, things the Dogmatist regards as truths discovered through philosophical investigation. Academic philosophy, with its single dogma, is the limiting case of Dogmatism.

In contrast, Scepticism is the kind of philosophy identified by the activity in which its practitioners continue to engage - and also, as becomes clear in the course of the first book of the Outlines, by the way they engage in that activity.

At PH 1.16 Sextus takes up the question whether the Sceptic has a doctrine (αἵρεσις).¹³ That is a question we might think Sextus has already answered by telling us that Scepticism is a different kind of philosophy from Dogmatism. Having a doctrine is the very feature of the Dogmatic kind of philosophy that distinguishes it from the Sceptical kind, and the particular doctrine of one Dogmatic philosophy (e.g. Stoic) distinguishes it from other Dogmatic philosophies (e.g. Epicurean or Aristotelian). Hence, the answer to the question whether the Sceptic has a doctrine should be a resounding 'No'. And so it is, Sextus explains, if a doctrine is "an adherence to a number of dogmas consistent with one another and what is apparent" (πρόσκλισιν δόγμασι πολλοῖς ἀκολουθίαν ἔχουσι πρὸς ἄλληλά τε καὶ <τὰ> φαινόμενα) and a dogma is "assent to a something non-evident" (πράγματι ἀδήλῳ συγκατάθεσιν) (PH 1.16).¹⁴ After all, as Sextus has told us, the Sceptic doesn't assent to anything non-evident. Consequently, the Sceptic has no dogmas if a dogma is assent to something non-evident (PH 1.13). And anyone who lacks dogmas thereby lacks a doctrine, at least given the conception of

There is no end to the questions and issues of interpretative detail this passage raises. (1) What does the first occurrence of the prepositional phrase κατὰ τὸ φαινόμενον modify? If, as I'm inclined to think, it modifies ἀκολουθοῦσαν , does its second occurrence modify ἀκολουθοῦμεν, despite the difference in word order? (2) Should we delete δοκεῖν (printed in Mutschmann's text) as Annas & Barnes (Outlines of Scepticism (Cambridge, 2000)) do (following Mutschmann's suggestion)? (3) Where should the parentheses be closed? Annas and Barnes close them after διατείνοντος rather than ἀφελέστερον. I'm inclined to follow Mutschmann and close them after ἀφελέστερον on the grounds that it makes more sense for Sextus to say that the λόγος that guides the Sceptic's life shows not just how to live correctly but also how to suspend judgment. (I've also replaced the parentheses with em dashes.) a doctrine as adherence to some number of dogmas. But this obviously Dogmatic conception of a doctrine is not the only possible one. We might conceive of a doctrine not as a set of doxastic commitments but as a way of life (ἀγωγή), and we might conceive of a way of life as following or guided by a particular λόγος.¹⁵ On this conception of a doctrine, Sextus says, the Sceptic has a doctrine.

But if someone says that a doctrine is a way of life that follows (ἀκολουθοῦσαν), according to what appears (κατὰ τὸ φαινόμενον), a certain λόγος, that λόγος showing how it is possible to live correctly (ἐκείνου τοῦ λόγου ὡς ἔστιν ὀρθῶς δοκεῖν ζῆν ὑποδεικνύοντος) - correctly being taken not only with reference to virtue but more simply - and extending to the ability to suspend judgment (καὶ ἐπὶ τὸ ἐπέχειν δύνασθαι διατείνοντος), we say the Sceptic has a doctrine. For (γάρ) we follow (ἀκολουθοῦμεν), according to what appears (κατὰ τὸ φαινόμενον), a certain λόγος that shows us a life according to (πρός) the customs of our culture and its laws and ways of life and our own conditions (PH 1.17).¹⁶

Here Sextus presents an alternative, non-Dogmatic conception of a doctrine and affirms that so conceived the Sceptic has a doctrine. Though the Sceptic lacks dogmas of the sort central to the Dogmatic conception of a doctrine, she (or her way of life) follows a λόγος of the sort that is central to the non-Dogmatic conception of a doctrine. In fact, the Sceptic's having a doctrine amounts to no more (or less) than, first, following a particular λόγος that organizes or structures a distinctive way of life and, second, following that λόγος in a way that enables the Sceptic to live the distinctive way of life it organizes or structures. PH 1.17 then raises two fundamental questions.

(Q1) What, and what kind of thing, is the λόγος the Sceptic follows?

(Q2) What exactly does it mean to say, as Sextus does, that the Sceptic follows this λόγος.

Any interpretation of Scepticism that leaves these two questions unanswered, as most do, is incomplete.

We might begin to answer (Q1) and (Q2), as Plínio Junqueira Smith does, by identifying the origin of the λόγος Sceptic follows, or, more precisely, the origin of the Sceptic's following that λόγος and living the Sceptical way of life. Smith argues that the Sceptical λόγος is a product of the investigation that transforms the gifted non-Sceptic into a Sceptic. Smith thinks, first, that this investigation must have a result (73), otherwise no sense can be made of the idea that the gifted person undergoes a transformation and becomes a Sceptic. Second, and obviously, this result can't be of the kind that transforms a philosophical investigator into a Dogmatist: it can't be what that investigator takes to be the discovery of philosophical truth. Hence, it must be suspension of judgment (74). Third, it must be suspension of judgment about everything where, in Smith's view, that is something more than a mere accumulation of instances of suspending judgment about some particular matter or other (78). Instead it is a global suspension of judgment about all philosophical matters arrived at as the result of a complete and ordered investigation of those matters (83). And, finally, Smith claims that the Sceptic's suspension of judgment about everything produces, or enables the Sceptic to discover, a λόγος that organizes or structures the Sceptical way of life. Call this (following Smith) 'the Sceptical λόγος '.

On Smith's interpretation, then, the Sceptical λόγος must be the sort of thing that a philosophical investigator can discover as the result of suspending judgment about everything. Moreover, it must be compatible with that investigator's continued suspension of judgment about everything. Hence, it can't be a set of dogmas that purport to describe the non-evident and explain its relation to the evident. Here, according to Smith, we need a distinction between two kinds of λόγοι - the one Dogmatic, the other Sceptical - that parallels the distinction Sextus has drawn between two kinds of doctrine (104). In fact, a Dogmatic λόγος just is a Dogmatic doctrine. As Smith notes, the Sceptic opposes one dogmatic λόγος to another, and the λόγοι so opposed are the philosophical dogmas of physics, ethics, or logic. In contrast, the Sceptical doctrine is a way of life and the Sceptical λόγος something different and more basic that makes that way of life possible. A way of life might be, and in fact many are, made possible by dogmas that characterize it and whose acceptance guides the actions of those who participate in that way of life. Not so the Sceptical way of life, and the Sceptical λόγος is not a dogma. What, then, is it?

Smith describes the Sceptical λόγος as "a way of reasoning", that is, as something like a generic philosophical tactic, strategy, or practice. More precisely, according to Smith,

The skeptical logos is a way of reasoning in which two logoi are opposed to one another, so that there is equipollence between them. The skeptical logos is, therefore, composed of two equally convincing affirmative logoi (both dogmatic), but it is in itself not affirmative, for these two logoi cancel each other out, so that nothing is affirmed (111).

We might think that on this view the Sceptical λόγος is reducible to its constituent Dogmatic λόγοι. The Sceptic's way of reasoning consists in opposing one Dogmatic λόγος to another; or, better, since in the relevant sense the Dogmatic λόγοι are opposed in virtue of their contents (see PH 1.10), the Sceptic's way of reasoning consists in juxtaposing one Dogmatic λόγος with another to which it is opposed. This juxtaposition induces suspension of judgment because each Dogmatic λόγος is unconvincing in view of the other. The two opposing Dogmatic λόγοι exhibit, in Sextus' terminology, "equipollence" (ἰσοσθένεια). The Sceptic would then be something like a philosophical impresario who organizes Dogmatic λόγοι into equipollent and so suspension of judgment-inducing pairs, and the Sceptical λόγος nothing more than the Dogmatic λόγοι so organized. According to Smith, however, the Sceptical λόγος is something much more substantial because it is robustly normative, and its normativity, rather than the mere pairing of opposed Dogmatic λόγοι, ultimately explains why the Sceptic suspends judgment.

Sextus claims not only that the skeptical logos enables one to suspend judgment, but even more importantly that the skeptical logos shows that it is correct to suspend judgment (PH 1.17). Rationally speaking, the right attitude to take in the face of a proposition concerning a non- evident thing is to suspend judgment (110).

If I've got Smith right, he thinks the Sceptical λόγος must have a normative dimension if it is to play the role that Sextus assigns it in the Sceptic's life. For Sextus says that the Scpetical λόγος shows the Sceptic how to live correctly where that includes, but is not limited to, how to correctly conduct a philosophical investigation. Smith writes that

It is true that the skeptical logos, when it sets up a balanced opposition in this way, depends on dogmatic logoi, for these dogmatic logoi are constitutive elements of the opposition. But this does not mean that the way the skeptic deals with these dogmatic logoi is nothing but the dogmatic logos turned against itself. Over and above the dogmatic logoi, there is a skeptical logos that commands the mutual, balanced opposition, and this is the right thing to do when philosophizing (112).

This passage merely raises rather than answers the questions (Q1) and (Q2). For, we want to ask, how exactly should we understand talk of the Sceptical λόγος commanding the Sceptic to juxtapose opposed Dogmatic λόγοι and to suspend judgment as the right response to this equipollent opposition? This is just a version of (Q1). And unless the Sceptic obeys the commands the Sceptical λόγος issues, she doesn't succeed in living the Sceptical way of life, or to the extent she does, her success is strangely unrelated to the Sceptical λόγος. Hence, we want to ask how exactly we should understand talk of the Sceptic obeying the commands issued by the Sceptical λόγος and so following or being guided by that λόγος in living her life. And, of course, this question is just (Q2).

We might think we can answer (Q1) and (Q2) by appeal to the thought that, over and above its constituent Dogmatic λόγοι, the Sceptical λόγος has a certain normative content. That content includes those doxastic norms - that is, norms governing the formation and retention of beliefs - the Sceptic applies to philosophical investigation. The Sceptic suspends judgment in response to opposed and equipollent Dogmatic λόγοι because, first, the principle that one ought to suspend judgment under these conditions is part of the normative content of the Sceptical λόγος and, second, the Sceptic accepts or endorses that λόγος. But answering (Q1) and (Q2) in this way threatens to collapse the distinction Smith wants to maintain between a Dogmatic and a Sceptical λόγος. The Sceptical λόγος would be genuinely normative at the price of being genuinely Dogmatic. Smith insists, however, that the Sceptical λόγος is normative without being dogmatic. And that claim raises the question - arguably the most fundamental issue in the interpretation of Scepticism - how the Sceptic can have normativity without Dogmatism.

One option is to argue that normativity without Dogmatism is possible provided that the norms in question are sufficiently weak.¹⁷ The idea here is that a λόγος can be normative but non-Dogmatic if and because its content is normative but non-Dogmatic. And the normative content of a λόγος is non-Dogmatic if and because (a) its constituent norms are so weak they are universally accepted and (b) any norm that is universally accepted is not an instance of Dogmatism. A λόγος is Dogmatic only if its content distinguishes Dogmatism from Scepticism and one variety of Dogmatism from another: it is, in short, a λόγος whose content is accepted by some and rejected by others. In contrast, a λόγος is non-Dogmatic if its content is accepted by all those engaged in philosophical investigation - perhaps because acceptance of this content is a condition on the very possibility of engaging in philosophical investigation or rational belief formation more generally. Content of this sort plausibly includes norms to the effect that one ought to believe p only if one has reason (or good or sufficient reason) to do so, or better, only if one believes one has reason (or good or sufficient reason) to do so, and that one ought to suspend judgment about whether p if one has (or, again, believes one has) no reason to believe either p or its negation. We can imagine someone who rejects even these exceptionally weak norms, but this would be someone very different from either the Dogmatist or the Sceptic as Sextus conceives of them. On this line of thought, Sextus takes both the Dogmatist and the Sceptic to share a common set of norms that govern the attitudes of belief and suspension of judgment. For just this reason, those norms, or a λόγος that includes them as part of its content, is non-Dogmatic. Hence, Scepticism as a way of life that follows this λόγος can be normative without thereby being Dogmatic, and the Sceptic who adopts the Sceptical way of life by following the Sceptical λόγος can have normativity without Dogmatism.

But, for at least three reasons, this can't be how Smith is thinking of the Sceptical λόγος and its normativity. First, Smith conceives of the λόγος as something that reveals to the Sceptic that Scepticism is uniquely correct both as a way of doing philosophy and as a way of life. He writes:

The first, basic point of a skeptical doctrine is that it provides an orientation in life so that one can seem to live correctly, not only in an ethical sense, but in a wider one, which concerns actions in general. The word "correctly" may be surprising, but it forms an integral part of the skeptical orientation, for the Pyrrhonist distinguishes a correct way to live from other ways that are not correct (presumably, dogmatic ways, but also everyday ways). Other passages confirm the idea that skeptics do think they have found the correct way of living or that right reason is with them (109).

Sextus says that the Sceptical λόγος shows the Sceptic how it is possible to live correctly, and what it shows is not one among many different but equally correct ways of living, but the way to live correctly. Hence, the Sceptical λόγος, and its normative component in particular, distinguishes the Sceptic from any Dogmatist and any non-philosopher living any version of an everyday life. On the line of thought I sketched above, however, this is not so: the doxastic norms embedded in the Sceptical λόγος are norms accepted or endorsed by the Sceptic and the non-Sceptic alike. To that extent the Sceptical λόγος is misnamed. It, or at least its normative content, fails to mark a difference between the Sceptic and the Dogmatist or any rational creature who forms beliefs rationally. Second, on Smith's interpretation the normative content of the Sceptical λόγος would have to be broad and robust rather than narrow and weak: it would include not only doxastic norms but norms of action, and these practical norms would not be exclusively or even principally ethical. Relevant here is Smith's claim that the Sceptical λόγος has two basic normative "aspects" (108-115). One aspect governs philosophical practice and prescribes suspension of judgment, another aspect governs all the many types of action undertaken in the course of everyday life and prescribes living according to appearances. Third - and this, I take it, is one reason Smith talks of the normative "aspects" of the Sceptical λόγος - Smith seems to think that the Sceptical λόγος can't have any normative content at all, at least not if that content is supposed to consists of norms that can be given anything like a precise formulation. And this because once formulated any norm becomes subject to disagreement, and where there is disagreement, there is Dogmatism (223-224). Hence, the Sceptic would suspend judgment about any normative content the Sceptical λόγος has, and it would be unclear at best why or in what sense that content is part of the Sceptical λόγος or what bearing it has on the Sceptic's philosophical practices or everyday life.

Another interpretative option, and one that directly connects the answer to (Q2) with the answer to (Q1), is to argue that it is not the content of a λόγος that determines whether that λόγος is Dogmatic, but the attitude taken toward it or its content. The idea here is, very roughly, that there are both Dogmatic and non-Dogmatic versions of the attitude of acceptance or endorsement. The λόγος the Sceptic accepts or endorses is no different in kind from the one a Dogmatist accepts or endorses: each has content, and that content, or at least part of it, is normative. Instead, the attitude the Sceptic takes toward the Sceptical λόγος in accepting or endorsing it is different in kind from the attitude the Dogmatist takes toward a Dogmatic λόγος in accepting or endorsing it. The philosophical task, and one not easy to perform, would then be to parse the distinction between the Dogmatic and the non-Dogmatic attitude of acceptance or endorsement.¹⁸ The latter attitude could be taken toward any λόγος, and so there would be no λόγος whose normative content precludes accepting or endorsing it without Dogmatism. The normative content of the Sceptical λόγος might then be broad and robust, consisting in norms that govern belief formation, ethical conduct, and every sort of non-ethical everyday action, and the Sceptic would follow the Sceptical λόγος just in the sense that she non-Dogmatically accepts or endorses it or the norms embedded in it.

Smith rejects this interpretative option as well, and (again, if I've understood him correctly) he does so for a reason that lies close to the heart of his conception of the Sceptical λόγος. It is not the kind of thing that is a possible object of acceptance, endorsement, or any relevantly similar attitude. And this because he thinks that the normative "aspects" of the Sceptical λόγος can't be expressed as a set or norms or principles. Consider in this connection what he says about the Sceptic's suspension of judgment and the necessity that, according to Sextus, characterizes it. Sextus says that the Sceptic (like the Dogmatist) must suspend judgment in response to an equipollent opposition of Dogmatic λόγοι. Smith thinks that the necessity here is not merely causal: it is not just that the equipollent opposition moves the Sceptic to suspend judgment, and her suspension of judgment is a mere effect of that opposition, but that the Sceptic rationally responds to an equipollent opposition by suspending judgment. The Sceptic must suspend judgment because reason or the requirements of rationality as she understands them require her to do so. Nonetheless, Smith claims, we can make sense of the idea that the Sceptic's suspension of judgment is rational in this way without attributing to the Sceptic any commitment to any explicit or precisely formulated norms of rationality that mandate suspension of judgment as the right or correct response to an equipollent opposition. With respect to the dispute over whether the Sceptic has normative commitments that explain why she suspends judgment and the sense in which she must do so, Smith writes (and here it is worth quoting him at some length):

In my view, any solution should avoid any precise formulation of an epistemic norm, for it leads to disagreement, and it should make sense of the skeptical persistence of the very same investigation after truth that he had undertaken initially. No doubt Sextus uses the idea that one should not assent to p, where p is an assertion about a non-evident object, unless one has good reasons for p and better reasons to affirm p rather than to deny it. But do we have take to take this as a "basic epistemic norm"? Can't we just see in it an everyday procedure, without any need to state it in the form of a principle or epistemic norm? I argued above that, from a skeptical point of view, it is enough to rely on ordinary practices and ways of thinking, without any need to develop a theory of epistemic norms (which would be disputable and thereby non- evident)...[the Pyrrhonist] is indeed committed to some everyday reasonings by which he realizes that, given equipollent opposition, it is rational to suspend judgment and that he suspends judgment because it is the rational thing to do. But so are all of us. Once one understands the skeptical view of equipollent opposition, one understands how suspension is rationally brought about without endorsing any explicit "principle" or "epistemic norm" (224, italics mine).

I'm not convinced by Smith's claim that any formulation of a norm will generate disagreement and thereby render acceptance or endorsement of that norm an instance of Dogmatism. If a norm can be given an explicit formulation, and acceptance or endorsement of that norm is a condition on engagement in some activity, and someone engages in that activity, then he accepts or endorses that norm 3⁄4 even if he claims to reject or to suspend judgment about it. Someone of this sort would suffer from a distinctive failure of self-knowledge that is, in its turn, a product of his failure to understand the conditions on engaging in an activity in which he engages.

Smith's remarks raise a more important issue, however. He asks whether we can't see the Sceptical λόγος as simply an everyday procedure, and one that bears some sort of connection with certain ideas about the conditions under which one should assent to or suspend judgment about candidates for belief about the non-evident, without describing this procedure by reference to a set of explicit norms or doxastic principles the Sceptic accepts or endorses. I confess that I can't see how we can answer Smith's question in anything but the negative 3⁄4 at least if we think, as Smith does, that the Sceptical λόγος guides the Sceptic in virtue of its genuinely normative character. Talk of an "everday procedure" might mean no more than something the Skeptic habitually does, that is, a recurring pattern of behavior or way of acting that, as it happens, satisfies or is consistent with certain norms. In this case the Sceptical λόγος might describe what the Sceptic does, but that description would not be one under which the Sceptic does what she does. It wouldn't capture how the Sceptic conceives of what she is doing when she suspends judgment or performs any of an assortment of actions in the course of living her life. As a result, the Sceptical λόγος wouldn't explain the Sceptic's behavior. But this is not Smith's view. In the context of discussing whether the Sceptical λόγος is purely descriptive and what Sextus means when he says that Sceptic (or his way of life) "follows" (ἀκολουθεῖ) that λόγος, Smith writes that

it is not a matter of simply 'cohering' with something external, but it is a matter of following something in order to produce something else. In one case, the dogmatist follows his logos (his reasonings, his arguments) to build his philosophical doctrine. In the other, the skeptic follows his ti logos to live his life and produce suspension of judgment (117).

Smith thinks that, in both forming her doxastic states and acting in her everyday life, the Sceptic follows the Sceptical λόγος (or, what amounts to the same thing, the Sceptical λόγος guides the Sceptic). "From now on [once the philosophos recognizes himself in the skeptical description of his experience] he will be guided by such a logos: the description of what happened to him allows him to order his future everyday life and philosophical researches as a skeptic" (118). The Sceptic reasons, suspends judgment, and behaves not only in conformity with but because of the Sceptical λόγος. The worry here is, in short, that if the normative aspects of the Sceptical λόγος can't be explicitly formulated as norms the Sceptic accepts or endorses, Smith's talk of the Sceptic following, being guided by, and reasoning and acting because of the Sceptical λόγος is completely opaque. This worry is two-sided. On the one hand there is a question about what exactly the Sceptic is said to be following, guided by, or reasoning and acting because of. If it is not a set of norms, or something that can be formulated as a set of norms, then what is it and why should we think of it as genuinely normative? On the other hand, there is a question about what exactly it means to say, as Smith following Sextus does, that the Sceptic follows or is guided by the Sceptical λόγος. If that is not a matter of the Sceptic accepting, endorsing, or in some other way being committed to the Sceptical λόγος, and its normative "aspects" in particular, what is it? Of course, these are just versions of our original questions (Q1) and (Q2). I don't mean to suggest that these questions are unanswerable, or that Smith's general interpretation of Scepticism lacks the resources to answer them, but only that, so far as I can tell, Smith hasn't yet given us those answers.

In the absence of answers to (Q1) and (Q2) we might find it difficult to discern the relevant differences between the Sceptical and a Dogmatic λόγος, and for that reason between Scepticism and Dogmatism. The Sceptical λόγος, no less than a Dogmatic one, is genuinely normative, and for all Smith says the Sceptic follows it in just the way the Dogmatist follows his λόγος. The difference between the two consists only in their prescriptions for how to conduct a philosophical investigation and how to live an everyday life. And that difference at least appears to be a Dogmatic one, that is, a difference that distinguishes one variety of Dogmatism from another. Smith is alert to this worry, and in response to it he appeals to what I take to be the fundamental and organizing thesis of his book. He believes that the Sceptic can say something positive as a Sceptic, and what she says is and is intended by the Sceptic to be prescriptive, without the Sceptic saying it in the way the Dogmatic philosopher says the positive and prescriptive things he says.¹⁹ That is why Smith thinks the Sceptic can have normativity without Dogmatism. "For Sextus," Smith writes, "positive claims in propria persona do not necessarily imply dogmatism" (120). I've suggested Smith hasn't yet made clear why, according to Sextus, this implication fails to hold. I want to close, however, with what Smith takes to be a significant upside to any interpretation of Scepticism that presents Sextus or the Sceptic as making positive claims in propria persona. Early in his book he writes that "If contemporary philosophers start to see the Pyrrhonian skeptic as a serious philosopher who held a solid position in the past and skepticism as a serious alternative in the philosophical scene, then I will be pleased" (16). I find Smith's remark surprising and somewhat at odds with what I take to be the tenor of much of his very rich and thoughtful book. The presupposition here is that being a serious philosopher, at least in the eyes of contemporary philosophers, requires holding "a solid position" and making positive claims in one's own voice that express the position one holds. Hence, Scepticism will count as a "serious" philosophy, contemporary philosophers will recognize it as such, and so they will countenance Scepticsim as an alternative to their own positions, only if Sextus or the Sceptic makes positive claims that express a position he holds. This is just the presupposition that philosophy must be Dogmatic, and as a presupposition about contemporary philosophy it strikes me as sound. It captures some of what's most unfortunate about academic philosophy (the only kind of philosophy there is today) and its increasingly narrow and absurdly professional preoccupations.

On the Dogmatic conception of philosophy it consists, above all else, in having a philosophical position, view, or doctrine. If someone is a philosopher, it makes sense to ask what she thinks or believes about this or that philosophical issue. And if someone holds no philosophical position and has no philosophical views, it is at best unclear why or in what sense she counts as a philosopher. This Dogmatic conception of philosophy seems to me neither mandatory nor especially appealing. Of course, most philosophers are Dogmatists. The have philosophical positions they express (with more or less clarity) by writing philosophical texts of one sort or another. But by itself that fact is no reason to think that having a philosophical position is essential to being a philosopher (even if it is a professional necessity for contemporary philosophers). Scepticism as Sextus describes it seems to me philosophically significant precisely because the Sceptic is supposed to be a philosopher without a philosophical position 3⁄4 something the Dogmatic conception of philosophy struggles to recognize as even a possibility. This possibility opens up as soon as we begin to think of philosophy as principally an activity whose point and purpose is not, or not necessarily, the philosophical position or view it produces 3⁄4 if it does produce a position or view. For, let's face it, more often than not, it doesn't.²⁰ Thinking of philosophy in this way invites us to ask a question left largely unasked by contemporary philosophers, namely, how best to characterize the activity, or cluster of related activities, with which one might plausibly identify philosophy. Sextus should be taken seriously by philosophers today because reading him prompts us to ask just this question.

4 Responses to Stéphane Marchand and Casey Perin

Plínio Junqueira Smith

Federal University of São Paulo, Brazil

Researcher of CNPq

1. I would like to say how much I admire Casey Perin’s book on Sextus (2010) and Stéphane Marchand’s book on ancient skepticism (2018). So, it is an honor for me to be commented on and criticized by them. I thank both of them for their careful and critical reading.

The book’s main point was to call attention to the crucial role played in Pyrrhonism by a “skeptical logos.” Perin and Marchand seem to agree that, without an explanation of this notion, our understanding of Pyrrhonism will be, at best, incomplete and, at worst, defective. However, neither accepted the book’s interpretation of this notion. I will begin with what Marchand has written since Marchand’s comments focus more on chapters 1 and 5 and Perin’s comments more on chapters 5 and 8. After that, I will move to Perin’s paper.

2. Response to Marchand

Marchand is right to begin by making some methodological considerations. What he says is true. My background is structuralist. An outstanding French historian of ancient philosophy like Marchand could not fail to perceive the methodology behind my book.

I thank Marchand for doing the research I should have done. I was confident that, even if there was no historical, contextual evidence that the division and titles were not made by Sextus, the internal, philosophical evidence was strong enough to establish the point. Annas and Barnes held that the division is drawn “probably” by Sextus. Their probability seemed to me much weaker than the internal textual evidence. It was enough if it was not sure that Sextus did the divisions and titles in PH 1.7-30. Happily, Marchand’s investigation brings me good news. Even if this is not conclusive evidence, it does reinforce the idea that the division might not be Sextan.

It is clear that PH 1.5-6 functions as a summary of the book. However, Marchand only partially agrees with the division I proposed. According to him, the five main topics in the characterization are to be divided as such: 1) conception (PH 1.8-11); 2) principles (PH 1.12); 3) logoi (PH 1.13-20); 4) criterion (PH 1.21-24); 5) goal (PH 1.25-30). The only difference between our divisions concerns PH 1.13-5.

The interpretation of what skeptical logoi in PH 1.5 and logos tis in PH 1.17 (and their connection) mean depends on it. Whereas in a division like mine, one will identify logoi/logos and try to explain why one is plural and the other singular and will perhaps have a ‘robust’ notion of a skeptical logos, in a division like Marchand’s, one will not identify logoi in PH 1.5 and logos in PH 1.17. One will get a deflated notion of skeptical logos.

Marchand thinks PH 1.13-15 is not part of the topic “skeptical principles,” but it belongs already to the topic “skeptical logoi.” If he is correct, it is even more incredible that no one ever saw this topic, for if it covers from PH 1.13 to PH 1.20, it would be the biggest one in Sextus’ characterization of Pyrrhonism!

Why would PH 1.13-15 belong to the topic of “skeptical logoi” instead of “skeptical principles”? Marchand’s argument is that Sextus is explaining what the skeptics can say: “It seems to me that there is a common feature of the content from §16 to §20 which is linked to what the skeptic can say (legein), and more precisely in what sense the skeptic will say what he says.” If so, one can move backward to PH 1.13, for “this is the case with the discourse on dogma: Sextus explains in what sense he can say (legomen, §13) that he has dogma or not.” And what we “say” (legein) belongs to logos, and logos boils down to mere discourse: skeptical logos is merely what skeptics say. It is not a way of reasoning or the like.

It is true that PH 1.13-15 concerns what Pyrrhonists say. Does it follow that it belongs to the topic of skeptical logos? First, note that PH 1.13 begins by explicitly explaining the second skeptical principle's conclusion, not introducing a new topic. So, let us see the previous discussion about skeptical principles. My point is that what Sextus says concerning the causal principle is mirrored by the structure concerning the main principle. This entails that PH 1.13-15 belongs to the section about skeptical principles.

Sextus first states the causal principle and then explains how it works and what it produces: imperturbability. Similarly, he states the main principle, describing how it works and what it produces: not dogmatizing (PH 1.12). Now, PH 1.13 clarifies what he means by “not dogmatizing”; Sextus indeed says what we skeptics say (legomen), but its point is not to determine what the skeptics say but to explain the sense of what is produced by the main principle. This explanation of the consequences of the main skeptical principle continues in the first sentence of PH 1.14, where Sextus changes his attention from the word dogma to skeptical expressions. In my view, Sextus’ point is to show that skeptics are not dogmatizing when they employ these expressions, and not dogmatizing is the consequence of the main principle. If so, Sextus is not focused on what the skeptics can say but still clarifies the consequences of the main principle. If I am right that, in both cases, what is at stake is the consequence of “not dogmatizing,” then, perhaps, there is no reason to interpret skeptical logoi in PH 1.5 as what the skeptics say, i.e., logoi as a plurality of sayings without much in common.

PH 1.17 is the best explanation in Sextus for the phrase “skeptical logoi.” Of course, one must also consider what he says in PH 1.18 and PH 1.19-20. I agree with Marchand that logos tis is somewhat vague, imprecise, and hard to define or explain. However, one should not give up trying to clarify this crucial notion in the singular as best as possible, for this is how Sextus uses it in the essential passage PH 1.17. My suggestion is that this logos tis has two aspects: one concerning philosophy, another concerning everyday life. This double-aspect interpretation tries to do justice to the plural in PH 1.5 without saddling Sextus with an apparent lack of precision or rigor.

Sextus says other things about skeptical logoi or logos tis. In PH 1.18, it appears that the skeptic has a discourse on physics (physiologia), another in logic, and another in ethics. If so, then one aspect of the logos tis becomes three logoi. In these logoi, the Pyrrhonist is guided by the skeptical main principle in philosophy: he argues on both sides. In doing philosophy, it is not only a matter of saying but also of arguing on both sides so that both sides match one another in terms of persuasive force.

In PH 1.19-20, Sextus refers to the other aspect of logos ti, the one concerned with everyday life, for he talks about what appears (to phainomenon), the skeptical criterion of action. Here, the point is to contrast what appears and the dogmatic logos. The skeptical logos ti follows the phenomena, but the dogmatic logos is tricky and try to abolish the phainomena, or “snatch away the appearances from under our very eyes” (PH 1.20, in Bury’s translation).

How many logoi a skeptic has? Just one (a logos tis)? Two (one in philosophy and another in everyday life)? In philosophy, how many discourses (logoi) he has? Three (one in logic, one in physics, one in ethics)? Or just one against dogmatists? How do you count logos? There are many ways in which a skeptic can employ his natural capacity to think (PH 1.24) or apply the skeptical main principle. I hope to have clarified this, especially in chapter 7, where I describe the plasticity of the skeptical logos in philosophy. The notion of a skeptical logos is very complex. I never intended to interpret it in a robust sense as a unified hypostatized faculty.

3. Response to Perin

Perin’s paper is very philosophical, and I am unsure I can adequately answer all his questions, remarks, and objections. His main point is that my book did not answer a fundamental question it raises. In my defense, I can plead what Barry Stroud (2018, p. 20) used to say about a philosophical question: “Answering it might be the worst thing to do with it.”

Perin takes as “the fundamental and organizing thesis of the book” that, in my view, “the Sceptic can say something positive as a Sceptic.” He says that “as a presupposition about contemporary philosophy it strikes me [him] as sound”. Just like him, I am very critical of academic philosophy, and I also think that the dogmatic conception of philosophy is not the only one and it is not “especially appealing.” We both think that the activity of investigation is more important than arriving at “positive results,” i.e., having philosophical doctrines (dogmata) and that skepticism is engaging, among other reasons, because it questions the nature of dogmatic philosophy: what is philosophy, after all? Once we understand what we are looking for, can we ever arrive at what we are seeking? Or are we doomed to a “metaphysical dissatisfaction” in Stroud’s words (2000, ch. 9)? Skeptics, at least, arrive at imperturbability, when they avow that, so far, they have not discovered a single truth about what is non-evident (the object of philosophical search).

Perin describes the exciting point about skepticism as follows: “a philosopher without a philosophical position.” But what is “a philosophical position”? For instance, Sextus says that there are three main kinds of philosophy. I consider this “a philosophical position”. Ask dogmatists which are the main kinds of philosophy, and they will answer you: Platonism, Aristotelianism, Epicureanism, Stoicism, Thomism, Cartesianism, Kantism, Hegelianism, Marxism, etc. They think that what really matters are the “philosophical doctrines” that define each main kind of dogmatism; for them, “a philosophical position” means adhering to a doctrine. Sophistry, skepticism, and other philosophies like those of Montaigne, Bayle, and perhaps even Hume and Nietzsche do not count as “serious” philosophies. But if philosophy is conceived as the activity of investigation (as Sextus does), the dispute among dogmatists is just a conflict inside one main kind of philosophy. From a skeptical point of view, having a “philosophical doctrine” is not essential to philosophy at all. It is just one possible result, but, as Perin says, “Let’s face it, more often than not, it doesn’t [produce a position or view].” Why be shy? So far, it hasn’t produced any philosophical doctrine, except perhaps in some formal problems in logic. Perin and I agree on this point.

Perin, however, will probably say that I was not able to distinguish sufficiently between having a skeptical position and a dogmatic one. But there is no doubt that Sextus saw a difference between them and that we must try to understand how he drew this line. For both of us, the most important point is that “a logos can be normative but non-Dogmatic if and because its content is normative but non-Dogmatic.” Perin rightly focuses on the idea of normativity without dogmatism and raises two questions: 1) what is the “skeptical logos”?; 2) in what sense is the skeptic following his skeptical logos? He thinks I didn’t answer these questions or that my answer is not good enough. We differ, perhaps, in explaining this crucial issue.

Perin (2010) explained normativity as relying on a weak principle (NB), so weak that both the skeptic and the dogmatist accept it. Being a kind of truism, this principle becomes universal. Here is the principle:

(NB) Rationality requires one not to believe p, if one believes there is no reason to believe p.

Now, when one does philosophy, one needs a reason to believe in a philosophical doctrine. Or, if we are disputing p, one needs a reason to believe p.

But does this principle apply to everyday life? Is it true that a reason is always needed to make a belief reasonable? Perhaps one could remember Karl Popper (1974) and his criticisms of “justificationism.” In Brazil, Oswaldo Porchat (2007, ch. 4), following Popper, Lakatos, and Gellner, questioned the idea that it is rational to believe only when we are justified. Moore accepted the premises of his proof of an external world without giving any reason; still, he thought it rational to hold “here is one hand” and “here is another.” For them, it is rational to believe even when we do not have a justification for some of our beliefs.

Why should all beliefs need a reason to be believed? According to them, this requirement emerged through time, a condition now universally agreed upon, but there is no need to be so. For them, such a view is not the only one about rationality and is not very appealing. They think that, for some p, even if one thinks that there is no reason to believe p, it is still rational to believe p. What is not reasonable is to always demand a reason to believe p.

Skeptics seem not to accept NB for all beliefs. Suppose I feel cold. Then I assent to the proposition “I feel cold,” i.e., I believe p (p = “I feel cold”). Now, I feel cold is a phainómenon for me, and the sentence p expresses this phainómenon. According to the skeptics, a phainómenon imposes itself on us; it establishes itself (M 8.357, 8.368). We need no reason to accept a phainómenon. If so, I believe I feel cold without any reason. The skeptic does not think the phainómenon p is a reason for the belief p. The phainómenon leads us to assent to it (PH 1.13, 1.19), but not as a “reason.” No one discusses whether the phainómenon appears as such; it is not open to question (PH 1.22), and there is no reason to give a reason for believing in what appears. Only what is non-evident must be inferred by an indicative sign or a demonstration.

This answer may not convince Perin. So, let me insist on this point from a different perspective. The idea is that when one makes an alleged hidden premise explicit, one makes the situation worse, not better. Let me give one example.

Sextus (PH 1.165) argued that there is undecided disagreement, so we should suspend judgment. Now, faced with this argument, some scholars (Barnes 1990, p. 21; Sienkiewicz 2019, p. 26, see also p. 129ff.) complain it is not a formally valid argument. So, they furnish the “occult” premise: “If there is undecided disagreement, we ought to suspend judgment.” And now we have a good argument!, for it is deductive: (P1) if there is undecided disagreement, we ought to suspend judgment; (P2) there is undecided disagreement; (C) we ought to suspend judgment. Is the Mode of Disagreement better? The informal argument, though it does not have a logical form, is highly plausible. Making P1 “explicit” does not improve the inference, and it may offer a weak spot to the interlocutor, for he may focus on P1 and ask: is it always true? And, if it is not, then the argument is not good. The trouble, as Fogelin points out in his paper, is that the supplied premise usually turns out to be false (see, for instance, Sienkiewicz 2019, p. 17, 27, 80, 141).

I criticized Perin’s (2010) solution to rationality and normativity because he offered a precise formulation of rationality in terms of norms. He is not convinced that “any formulation of a norm will generate disagreement.” Maybe not. Maybe not all formulations will generate disagreement. But when we are doing philosophy, it just happens that every formulation of a norm turns out to be disputed. Perin says those who do not explicitly accept the norm “suffer from a distinctive failure of self-knowledge.” Maybe they do. But perhaps they don’t. Indeed, they will say that Perin was not able to give the right norm or the correct formulation of a norm. They will probably argue along similar lines as I did above. How am I to solve this disagreement?

I don’t think that Perin’s solution is meant to be dogmatic. He is right in trying to see points of agreement between skeptics and dogmatists in their philosophical investigation. I did the same in my book. First, they share the idea of a philosophical investigation; only the results are different, at least in the initial investigation, when one is not yet a skeptic, a dogmatist, or an Academic. Later, in their dispute, they seem to agree that the best philosophy is close to everyday life and that one should not precipitate (M 7.27; Smith 2022a, p. 123-5). My interpretation that rashness is a criterion for deciding their dispute is not far from Perin’s idea of NB and SJ. The difference is that I tried to pick out the agreement from what Sextus himself says.

The Pyrrhonist does not need to find a precise formulation of these conditions for them to be normative. He doesn’t fight for words (PH 1.195). If one dogmatist does not accept one formulation, the Pyrrhonist will offer another in a Wittgensteinian spirit. Depending on the interlocutor, he may provide different formulations. Perhaps the vital point is to note that suspension’s rationality does not depend on a precise, explicit formulation of a “condition”; it depends on our epistemic everyday practices. Even if we eventually arrive at a suitable formulation (say, Perin’s NB is agreed on all hands), that’s fine, but this is not necessary for explaining its rationality. One reaches suspension of judgment irrespective of whether one has found an exact formulation of the “condition.” Skeptics don’t need to wait until this day finally arrives, and the principle will explain the rationality of suspending judgment.

Still, our positions are not very far from one another. For three reasons, he thinks I can’t accept his solution that the skeptical logos has normative content.

First, Perin says that norms are universal, while I conceive “of the logos as something that reveals to the Sceptic that Scepticism is uniquely correct both as a way of doing philosophy and as a way of life.” However, to be “uniquely correct” does not mean that all norms belong only to the skeptical logos. They may be shared. They are shared. Dogmatic norms belong only to those who share the dogmas. The skeptical logos is the only one faithful to the shared norms.

There may have been an ambiguity in my book. It was unclear whether the skeptical logos was already present in everyday life or something that emerged from the Pyrrhonist’s skeptical experience. In one sense, it results from this experience, for only after this experience of suspending judgment on all philosophical topics can one recognize this skeptical logos. But this does not mean this skeptical logos is wholly new, or that this experience creates it. This logos (this way of reasoning) was all along present, but the Pyrrhonist was not aware of it as such. Only after his experience can he acknowledge and describe it, not before.

Second, Perin claims that, in my view, the skeptical logos is both broad and robust, while in his proposal it is narrow and weak. Yes, in my view, it is broad: broad in the sense of encompassing both philosophy and everyday life, as well as both reasoning and actions in general. He seems to confine it to philosophy. If so, I don’t understand why he thinks the skeptical logos does not concern everyday life and actions. It is not a merely epistemic logos.

Lastly, Perin attributes to me the idea that the skeptical logos has no normative content: “the Sceptic would suspend judgment about any normative content the Sceptical logos has.” Here, he recalls my idea that precise formulations generate disagreement, so skeptics suspend judgment about them. But it does not seem to me that, to have normative content, there must be precise formulations of norms.

The skeptical logos has normative content. Take the skeptical logos in its everyday life aspect. It consists of “everyday observances,” and there are four kinds (PH 1.21-24). There are norms. If one is a medical doctor, like Sextus, he will “observe” what is prescribed by (empirical) medicine: if the patient has a fever, he should eat A, drink B, and rest.

Moreover, the skeptical logos that guides the skeptic has other things besides ‘norms’ (in a narrower sense). There is “nature’s guidance,” and it doesn’t seem to me that this guidance is composed of “norms”: it is natural perception and thinking. In this aspect of the skeptical logos, there is also the “necessitation of feelings”: we eat when hungry.

Consider now the third kind of observance: laws and customs. Now, laws are norms. And they get formulations; sometimes, the more precise, the better (sometimes perhaps not, and the judge will apply to particular cases). So, in my view, the skeptical logos does have normative content and even many precise formulations of norms. Customs are not usually explicitly formulated, or at least not written down. But they are normative as well.

But, at the same time, skeptics suspend judgment about laws and customs (PH 1.145-163). So, both a law and a custom can be both something that appears and something non-evident. But it seems that mythical beliefs and dogmatic conceptions can only be dogmatic (the case of orientations is not so clear, for skepticism itself is an agoge). This suggests that some norms are intrinsically dogmatic (some contents can only be dogmatic), whereas others can be dogmatic or non-dogmatic. Of course, skeptics suspend judgment concerning the first ones, but they may accept the second ones.

Something similar might be said about the philosophical side of the skeptical logos. In chapter 5 of my book, I was not trying to depict a more precise interpretation of this logos, but only describing what Sextus had explicitly said. In chapter 6, I intended to show that it does lead one to a specific procedure in philosophical investigation: it determines an order through a method and a rhythm to it. Next, in chapter 7, I tried to show how varied this logos is. Lastly, in chapter 8, I found that it is indeed rational to suspend judgment. So, in my explanation, skeptical rationality was not confined to the conclusion drawn from philosophical argumentation but also on how one should conduct his investigations and develop a variety of skills.

Perin’s second question is: “what exactly does it mean to say, as Sextus does, that the skeptic follows this logos?”. Perhaps he wants an explanation of why one should follow those practices that govern our actions and philosophical investigation. If that is what Perin has in mind (I don’t think it is, for this is a dogmatic interpretation of his question), the skeptic has no answer to offer. Sextus thinks that we should follow skeptical logos or logoi, but he doesn’t give any explanation of why he does so, in the sense of giving a philosophical doctrine to explain it. According to him, the skeptic is happy with everyday practices, they do not need dogmatic foundations (M 7.443, M 8.368).

However, one may take Perin’s second question in a non-dogmatic way (as I think it is meant to be). One just has to show how the skeptic acts. There may be many ways in which the Pyrrhonist follows skeptical logos. Sometimes, this will happen consciously, at other times, unconsciously.

For instance, the skeptic, like everybody else, has followed commemorative signs throughout his life. How could it have been otherwise? Before becoming a philosopher, he didn’t know anything about them, as much as a farmer or a sailor has no idea of what a commemorative sign is. Still, they go on reasoning based on empirical correlations. Now, as a philosopher, he knows that he follows commemorative signs and suspends judgment concerning indicative signs. If, perchance, he had accepted some opinion concerning a non-evident object based on an indicative sign, now he suspends judgment about it. He corrects and methodizes his views.

In the case of everyday life, the skeptic follows his logos by acting in accordance with phainomena. As I take it, this means, at least in part, to follow experience. If I am crossing a road and see a car coming in my direction, I run to the other side quickly, for it won’t stop (in Brazil, maybe not in England). This is an example of following the logos. I use my natural capacity of perception; I foresee what may happen, I feel fear, etc. There are more complex examples. As a physician, Sextus follows his logos by applying the rules of medicine that he has learned.

If this is what Perin has in mind, there is a line of research that might help, especially if one wants to develop neo-Pyrrhonism for the current day. Though every single chapter of my book begins with a quotation taken from Wittgenstein, it was not clear to me how vital Wittgenstein’s considerations on Rule Following to understand Pyrrhonism. To obey a rule is a custom (PI, 199). Obeying a rule is a practice (PI, 202), but does this explain why we follow a rule? Moreover, what is the relation between rules and rule-formulations? We follow them “blindly” (PI, 219), but what exactly does that mean? This sounds very Pyrrhonian, but the issue is so complex that I do not think I have a solution.

References

• Marchand, Stéphane. 2018. Le scepticisme. Paris: Vrin.
• Perin, Casey. 2010. The demands of reason: an essay on Pyrrhonian scepticism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Popper, Karl. 1974. Conjectures and refutations. London: Rouledge and Kegan Paul.
• Sienkiwiecz, Stefan. 2019. Five modes of skepticism: Sextus Empiricus and the Agrippan Modes. Oxford: Oxford University Press .
• Smith, Plínio J. 2022. Sextus Empiricus’ Neo-Pyrrhonism: Skepticism as a Rationally Ordered Experience. Cham: Springer.
• Stroud, Barry. 2018. Seeing, Knowing, Understanding. Oxford: Oxford University Press .
• Stroud, Barry. 2000. The quest for reality: subjectivism and the metaphysics of colour. Oxford: Oxford University Press .
• Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 2009. Philosophical investigations. Translated by G. E. M. Anscombe, P. M. S. Hacker, and Joachim Schulte. Oxford: Blackwell.

• 1
  Plínio J. Smith, Uma visão cética do mundo: Porchat e a filosofia (São Paulo: Editora UNESP, 2017), 291‑95.
• 2
  Perhaps it is not unnecessary to recall that the French positivism of Auguste Comte had been very influential in the development of Brazilian Philosophy since the end of the XIXth century and that until recently the Brazilian intelligentsia spoke French fluently.
• 3
  Transl. From Julia Annas et Jonathan Barnes, Sextus Empiricus : Outlines of Scepticism (Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994)
• 4
  For a complete study of the transmission of Sextus’ text, see Luciano Floridi, Sextus Empiricus : the Transmission and the Recovery of Pyrrhonism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002).
• 5
  https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b11004909q
• 6
  https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b11004869t ; this Parisian folio which contains two pages of PH III 258 sq. is a part of a single codex that has been dismembered, see Floridi, Sextus Empiricus : the Transmission and the Recovery of Pyrrhonism, 22.
• 7
  , Hermann Mutschmann et Jürgen Mau, Sexti Empirici Opera. I : Pyrroneion hypotyposeon, libros tres continens, Bibliotheca scriptorum graecorum et romanorum Teubneriana (Leipzig: Teubner, 1958), xx. This summary
• 8
  Emidio Spinelli, « Sextus Empiricus », in Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques, éd. par Richard Goulet, vol. VI (Paris: CNRS Éditions, 2016), 289.. REF A REVOIR ; on the Sextus’ latin translation Roland Wittwer, « Sextus Empiricus’ Outlines of Pyrrhonism in the Middle Ages », Vivarium 54, n^o 4 (18 novembre 2016): 255‑85, https://doi.org/10.1163/15685349-12341327.
• 9
  See Parisinus lat. 17400 (https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b9066717h). On this manuscript, see Stefania Fortuna et Outi Merisalo, « The First Latin Translation of Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism (i) », Scripta 10 (2017): 57‑67.
• 10
  Bett’s translation.
• 11
  As we saw, the passages with logos skeptikos admit a "general" interpretation; but not in the sense of a general method, rather in the sense of a discourse. The word logos seems to accept the same shift than « discourse » by which we can refer to one discourse of someone, and to « the kind of discourse someone is able to make », or the shift that there is between « argument » and « argumentation ». There is, in my view, a skeptical argumentation (which contains also the modes) but there is not a skeptical reason as such.
• 12
  Here as elsewhere, and for ease of exposition, I use 'Scepticism' and 'Sceptic' with a capital 'S' to refer to the form of Pyrrhonian scepticism described by Sextus Empiricus in the Outlines of Pyrrhonism.
• 13
  I follow translators like Benson Mates in thinking that αἵρεσις at PH 1.16-17 isn't best rendered by 'school' or 'sect'. It refers instead to what is supposed to make a philosophical school or sect the philosophical school or sect that it is and so distinguish it from other philosophical schools or sects. Rendering αἵρεσις by 'doctrine' might seem to foreclose a possibility Sextus wants to leave open, namely, that there can be a philosophical school or sect, because there can be a kind of philosophy, without dogmas. But I'm inclined to think Sextus has no objection to speaking of Sceptical doctrine if 'doctrine' is given the meaning it specifies at PH 1.17.
• 14
  I take it that the feature of a Dogmatic αἵρεσις Sextus has in view here is, at least in the first instance, the consistency of its constituent δόγματα, both with one another and with those evident matters that constitute evidence of the truth of these δόγματα and are in turn explained by them.
• 15
  Any translation of λόγος will prejudge the answers to those questions that, as I suggest below, PH 1.16-17 raises. For this reason I leave it untranslated.
• 16
  This remarkable passage hasn't received the attention it deserves, as Plínio Junqueira Smith argues, and it is one of the many merits of his Sextus Empiricus' Neo-Pyrrhonism (Springer, 2022) that he places it at the very center of his ambitious interpretation of Scepticism. References to Smith's book will be parenthetical by page number.
• 17
  See my The Demands of Reason (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 40-43. There I argued that, according to Sextus, both the Sceptic and the Dogmatist accept and aim to satisfy the most basic, and so the very weakest, rational requirements on belief formation. Smith claims that these requirements 3⁄4 or at least the one I dub (NB) and that requires one not to believe p if one believes there is no reason to believe p 3⁄4 are in fact very strong (222). (Smith mislabels my (NB) as (SJ), but if he thinks (NB) is strong, I don't see why he would think (SJ) is any weaker.) However, Smith says little by way of support of the alleged strength of (NB). He expresses doubt that I need a reason to believe that I am sitting in front of my computer, but he leaves the source of this doubt unexplained. Isn't he having certain perceptual and sensory experiences? Why don't those count as reasons to believe he's sitting in front of his computer? Doesn't he recall his intention yesterday to spend the morning today in front of his computer? What disqualifies these considerations from being reasons for belief? He also cites Clifford's infamous pronouncement that it is wrong always and everywhere to believe without sufficient evidence. But the infamy of Clifford's pronouncement is not a matter of his insistence on having sufficient evidence for what one believes, but his claim about the kind of error 3⁄4 moral error 3⁄4 one makes when believing without sufficient evidence.
• 18
  For what I take to be a version of this interpretative strategy, though its details are obscure, see Michael Frede, "The Sceptic's Two Kinds of Assent and the Question of the Possibility of Knowledge," in Myles Burnyeat and Michael Frede, The Original Sceptics: A Controversy (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1997) 127-151 at 133-138.
• 19
  How does the Dogmatist say the positive and prescriptive things he says as a Dogmatist? Presumably in Smith's view the answer to this question is that the Dogmatist says these things in a way that makes them a doctrine in just the sense that, according to Sextus, the Sceptic eschews. The Dogmatist's utterances would express claims or "tenets" about the non-evident (the normative falls within the scope of the non-evident) that bear certain robust inferential connections to one another. See Smith's description of a Dogmatic λόγος at 106-107.
• 20
  I discuss the Dogmatic conception of philosophy and its impact on the way we read Plato in the Postscript to my forthcoming book (Talking and Knowing) on the Gorgias.

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  16 Aug 2024
• Date of issue
  2024

History

• Received
  11 Mar 2024
• Accepted
  01 Apr 2024