Sextus Empiricus
c. 160 AD – c. 210 AD
Sextus Empiricus lived in the late second or early third century AD — even this much is uncertain. He was a physician belonging to the Empiric school of medicine (hence his cognomen), and he was, more importantly, the last and most systematic exponent of Pyrrhonian scepticism. His two surviving works — the Outlines of Pyrrhonism and Against the Professors (Adversus Mathematicos) — preserve virtually everything we know about ancient Greek sceptical philosophy.
The Pyrrhonist position, as Sextus articulates it, is not that knowledge is impossible (that would be a dogmatic claim) but that for every argument there is an equal and opposite argument, and that the appropriate response is suspension of judgement (epochē). This suspension, paradoxically, produces tranquillity (ataraxia). Sextus catalogues the "modes" or tropes of sceptical argument with exhaustive thoroughness — arguments from perceptual variation, from cultural difference, from infinite regress, from circularity.
His works were rediscovered in the Renaissance and profoundly influenced Montaigne, Descartes, Hume, and the entire modern epistemological tradition.
A systematic assault on the claims of every branch of human knowledge. Across eleven books, Sextus Empiricus attacks the foundations of grammar, rheto...
The most complete surviving account of ancient scepticism. Across three books, Sextus Empiricus explains the methods, arguments, and way of life of th...