Is Buddhism’s attitude towards accepted forms of knowledge sceptical? Are Pyrrhonian scepticism and classical Buddhist scholasticism related in their respective applications and expressions of doubt? In what way and to what degree is Critical Buddhism an offshoot of modern scepticism? Questions such as these as well as related issues are explored in the present collection, which brings together examinations of systematic doubt in the traditions of Buddhism from a variety of perspectives. What results from the perceptive observations and profound analytical (...) insights of the seven essays is a rich and multi-faceted picture of two families of philosophical systems—scepticism and Buddhism—that seem both akin and at odds, both related and distant at the same time. (shrink)

The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Scepticism. R. Bett (Ed.), New York: Cambridge University Press 2010, pp. 380+xii, ISBN 780521697545. -/- The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Scepticism, edited by Richard Bett, consists of an Introduction and fifteen papers written by international authors (three of them have been diligently translated into English by the editor). The volume presents the major figures of ancient skepticism and the major interpretational problems. Separate papers are devoted to Pyrrho of Elis (Svavar Hrafn Svavarsson), Arcesilaus and Carneades (...) (Harald Thorsrud), Aenesidemus (R.J. Hankinson) and Sextus Empiricus (Pierre Pellegrin). Agrippa seems to be the only missing figure on the list. Moreover, we can also find a lot of information about the minor figures of ancient skepticism. Mi-Kyoung Lee presents skeptical ideas in early Greek philosophy and Carlos Levy writes about the later academic skeptics, especially Clitomachus, Philo of Larissa and Cicero. Richard Bett in his Introduction lists the most important problems in interpreting ancient skepticism: What kinds of belief, if any, are open to a skeptic? Can a skeptic allow for choice and action and if so, then how? Is skepticism compatible with an ethical outlook? Is there a real difference between the Academic and Pyrrhonist varieties of skepticism? Casey Perin takes on the first one, Katja Maria Vogt—the second, Richard Bett—the third, and Gisela Striker—the last one. We also have the next five papers presenting other important aspects of ancient skepticism. Paul Woodruff writes about skeptical modes, James Allen about the relation between Pyrrhonism and medical schools, Emidio Spinelli about the critique of specialized sciences, Luciano Floridi about the modern rediscovery of ancient skepticism, and Michael Williams about its Cartesian transformation. The Companion is very rich in content and very up-to-date, presenting the latest hypotheses. Here I would like to discuss the problem of Pyrrho’s place within the skeptical tradition. (shrink)

In this paper, I examine how the Mode of Infinite Regress functions in Pyrrhonian scepticism. I argue that it is used both to generate an infinite regress of reasons and to show that such infinite regresses are epistemically defective. I clarify precisely how this occurs while examining the Mode’s efficaciousness and whether ancient philosophers might have accepted infinite regresses of reasons. I ultimately argue that they would not for reasons which have hitherto not been adequately appreciated and which shed further (...) light on how the Mode of Infinite Regress functions, its efficacy, and the relevant notions of justification at stake. (shrink)

In thePhaedo, Socrates warns his listeners, discouraged by the objections of Simmias and Cebes, against becoming haters oflogoi. I argue that the ‘misologists’ are presented as a type of proto-skeptic and that Socrates in fact shows covert sympathy for their position. The difference between them is revealed by the pragmatic argument for trust in the immortality of the soul that Socrates offers near the end of the passage: the misologists reject such therapeutic uses oflogos. I conclude by assessing the relationship (...) of the positions of Socrates and the misologists in thePhaedoto those of later ancient skeptics. (shrink)

The purpose of the present paper is twofold. First, to examine what beliefs, if any, underlie (a) the Pyrrhonist’s desire for ataraxia and his account of how this state may be attained, and (b) his philanthropic therapy, which seeks to induce, by argument, ejpochv and ataraxia in the Dogmatists. Second, to determine whether the Pyrrhonist’s philanthropy and his search for and attainment of ataraxia are, as scholars have generally believed, essential aspects of his stance.

Scholarship on ancient skepticism has undergone a remarkable renaissance in the last three decades. Specialists in ancient philosophy have explored the complex history of the Greco‐Roman skeptical traditions and discussed difficult philological and exegetical issues. But they have also assessed the philosophical significance of the various ancient skeptical outlooks. In this first paper, I provide a general presentation of this area of study, while in the two subsequent articles I will focus on some of the topics that have been the (...) object of much attention in the recent literature on ancient skepticism. (shrink)

Pyrrhonism was one of the two main ancient skeptical traditions. In this second paper of the three‐part series devoted to ancient skepticism, I present and discuss some of the issues on Pyrrhonian skepticism which have been the focus of much attention in the recent literature. The topics to be addressed concern the outlooks of Pyrrho, Aenesidemus, and Sextus Empiricus.

The philosophical doctrine of Anaxarchus of Abdera is nowadays not very well known. This notwithstanding, Anaxarchus was a character of key importance in the development of Hellenistic philosophy. His ethics, in particular, is one of the first theories in stating that the ultimate goal of life is happiness. Moreover, he suggests that the only way to reach that goal is _adiaphoria_, i.e. ‘indifference’. However, the sceptic interpretation of _adiaphoria_ as denial of the criterion of truth will turn Anaxarchus into a (...) figure not related to sceptic thought, from the point of view of the sceptic philosophers themselves. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the way how Hellenistic and Roman tradition construed the role of Anaxarchus’ _eudaimonia_ and the place of this author in the development of thought in this period. (shrink)

Recently there has been a debate on whether Pyrrho’s philosophy could be influenced by Indian Buddhist philosophy. Discussions revealing striking similarities between them often point out Pyrrho’s complicated sentence, referred to as tetralemma, as one of the most striking similarities. The central question of this paper is whether Pyrrho’s sentence is of the tetralemmatic kind. Authors argue that if Pyrrho’s sentence is not fourfold in structure it could scarcely be classified as similar to the Buddhist tetralemma. A careful analysis of (...) the question is provided, arguing that the approach to the problem of tetralemmatic structure cannot be carried out solely on syntactic grounds. An aspect of a deeper philosophical meaning of the formula is applied, which alone enables us (if at all) to link Pyrrho’s philosophy to Buddhism. (shrink)

Neste artigo examino a noção de ataraxía tal como presente no ceticismo pirrônico de Sexto Empírico. Meu propósito é mostrar que, a despeito de conservar aspectos que parecem estar a ela associados desde a filosofia de Pirro, o sentido da noção de ataraxía muda substancialmente e passa a possuir, ao menos nas Hipotiposes, um aspecto fundamental de ordem “intelectual” associado à supressão de um tipo específico de perturbação filosófica. Pretendo igualmente mostrar que tal peculiaridade permitiria compreender como ele se relacionaria (...) de modo coerente com a noção de investigação cética pirrônica e, para tanto, como ele se associa com a noção de “terapia filosófica” e de “epokhé sobre todas as coisas” que se fazem presentes na obra de Sexto. (shrink)

Dans la première partie de son article « Une morale est-elle compatible avec le scepticisme? », Jules Vuillemin propose une interprétation du scepticisme de Pyrrhon d’Élis et s’interroge sur sa compatibilité avec une vie morale. La présente contribution s’attache à resituer la lecture de Vuillemin dans l’histoire du pyrrhonisme ainsi que dans les débats récents à son sujet, et à la discuter en la comparant au néo-pyrrhonisme de Sextus Empiricus. À suivre Vuillemin, Pyrrhon suspend son jugement par rapport à tout, (...) y compris ses impressions. Cette suspension universelle provoquerait une impassibilité totale et fournirait une ligne de conduite, mais serait assez difficile à adopter. Nous suggérons que suspendre son jugement sur ses propres impressions n’est pas difficile, mais impossible ; que la façon dont, selon Vuillemin, cette suspension fournirait au sceptique une ligne de conduite implique une contradiction ; et qu’il existe une autre façon d’expliquer comment le sceptique peut, dans certaines limites, maintenir une ligne de conduite. (shrink)

In Fear of Knowledge, Paul Boghossian presents a series of arguments against epistemic relativism and constructivism, doctrines that he considers to have exerted an overly unjustified influence over the human and social sciences in the past two decades. In the presentation of his arguments, Boghossian charts out a terrain that closely identifies relativism with skepticism. Yet, the relationship between the two does not seem to be a simple matter of entailment or implication. The purpose of this paper is to clarify (...) the landscape surrounding relativism and skepticism and thereby to highlight their difference. The implications of such a clarification will include illustrating that some arguments thought to be against relativism are actually against skepticism, that there are very different ways of understanding the relationship between relativism and skepticism, and that a commitment to either relativism or skepticism does not entail commitment to the other. The overall objective is to show that Boghossian's conception of the terrain is incorrect and to offer an explanation for this pervasive misconception about the connection between relativism and skepticism. (shrink)

Pyrrhonists provide a way of investigating the world in which conflicting views about a given topic are critically compared, assessed, and juxtaposed. Since Pyrrhonists are ultimately unable to decide between these views, they end up suspending judgment about the issues under examination. In this paper, I consider the question of whether Pyrrhonists can be realists or anti-realists about science, focusing, in particular, on contemporary philosophical discussions about it. Althoughprima faciethe answer seems to be negative, I argue that if realism and (...) anti-realism are understood as philosophical stances rather than particular doctrines—that is, if they are conceptualized in terms of a mode of engagement, a style of reasoning, and some propositional attitudes—the apparent tension between Pyrrhonism, realism, and anti-realism vanishes. The result is a first step in the direction of bringing Pyrrhonism to bear on contemporary debates in the philosophy of science. (shrink)

Neste texto examino algumas consequências da afirmação de Porchat de que o fenômeno no neopirronismo não precisa ser precisamente definido. Ao deixar o fenômeno variar ao sabor das circunstâncias, a abordagem de Porchat então parece deixar um dos elementos da dupla articulação que forma a epokhé neopirronista — a aceitação do fenômeno sem que ele comande crenças e que forma um par com a suspensão do juízo acerca do que não é fenômeno — imerso em imprecisões e, com isso, a (...) posição neopirronista vulnerável. Argumento que esta vulnerabilidade é uma de suas virtudes pois apresenta um ceticismo situado, dependente de circunstâncias variáveis e que combate sistematicamente a ideia de que uma tese que imunize a variabilidade do fenômeno pode ser concebida e eventualmente formulada. Para tanto detenho-me na ideia de que o fenômeno é antes de tudo uma manifestação circunstanciada das coisas e é precisamente a ele, em um irremediável torvelinho, que o neopirronismo é enfaticamente leal. (shrink)

Philosophy has four forms: wonder, faith, doubt and scepticism. These are not separate categories, but separate ideal possibilities. Modern academic philosophy has fallen, for several centuries, into an error: which is the error of supposing that philosophy is only what I call doubt. Philosophy may be doubt: indeed, it is part of my argument that this is undeniably one element of, or one possibility in, philosophy; but doubt is only one of four points of the compass. In this essay I (...) indicate the nature of each point of the compass as it has been found in the history of philosophy. (shrink)

This chapter considers the encounter of skepticism with the Kantian and post-Kantian philosophical enterprise and focuses on the intriguing feature whereby it is assimilated into this enterprise. In this period, skepticism becomes interchangeable with its other, which helps understand the proliferation of many kinds of views under its name and which forms the background for transforming skepticism into an anonymous, routine practice of raising objections and counter-objections to one’s own view. German philosophers of this era counterpose skepticism to dogmatism and (...) criticism, ancient to modern skepticism, and, importantly, conceptualize the transitions from one form to another, which forms the conceptual matrix in which new disciplinary forms, such as psychology, anthropology, and historicism contend for cultural-intellectual standing beside philosophy. I present this assimilationist trajectory by reviewing three well-known moments of this encounter of skepticism and idealism: (1) Kant’s idealization of skepticism as a floating position amidst various philosophical positions through the dialectic, polemics, systematics, and history of pure reason; (2) Fichte’s schematic conception of skepticism as a dispute of systems in the early Wissenschaftslehre following his review of the skeptic G. E. Schulze’s attacks on Critical philosophy; (3) Hegel’s historicizing conception of skepticism in the context of differences between subjective idealism and speculative thought and his early Jena review of another work by the same skeptic Schulze. (shrink)

Ancient Greek philosophical schools are said to share a common structure in their ethical theories which is characterized by a eudaimonistic teleology based in an understanding of human nature. At first glance, the skepticism of Sextus Empiricus as described in the Outlines of Pyrrhonism seems to fit into this model insofar as he describes the end of the skeptic as ataraxia, a common account of the expression of human happiness. I argue that this is a misunderstanding of Sextus’s philosophy for (...) several reasons. “The end of skepticism” cannot be eudaimonistic or teleological in the way that other ancient ethical theories are typically understood; moreover, ataraxia is not an end derived from a theory about human nature. For these reasons, the skeptical way of life is radically different than the ethical theories proposed by other schools. I argue that this difference is a result of the character of the skeptical enterprise which involves the implicit rejection of norms in both the epistemological and the ethical spheres. (shrink)

The question of whether the Pyrrhonist adheres to certain logical principles, criteria of justification, and inference rules is of central importance for the study of Pyrrhonism. Its significance lies in that, whereas the Pyrrhonist describes his philosophical stance and argues against the Dogmatists by means of what may be considered a rational discourse, adherence to any such principles, criteria, and rules does not seem compatible with the radical character of his skepticism. Hence, if the Pyrrhonist does endorse them, one must (...) conclude that he is inconsistent in his outlook. Despite its import, the question under consideration has not received, in the vast literature on Pyrrhonism of the past three decades, all the attention it deserves. In the present paper, I do not propose to provide a full examination of the Pyrrhonist’s attitude towards rationality, but to focus on the question of whether he endorses the law of non-contradiction (LNC). However, I will also briefly tackle the question of the Pyrrhonist’s outlook on both the canons of rational justification at work in the so-called Five Modes of Agrippa and the logical rules of inference. In addition, given that the LNC is deemed a fundamental principle of rationality, determining the Pyrrhonist’s attitude towards it will allow us to understand his general attitude towards rationality. (shrink)

This is a defense of Pyrrhonian skepticism against the charge that the suspension of judgment based on equipollence is vitiated by the assent given to the equipollence in question. The apparent conflict has a conceptual side as well as a practical side, examined here as separate challenges with a section devoted to each. The conceptual challenge is that the skeptical transition from an equipollence of arguments to a suspension of judgment is undermined either by a logical contradiction or by an (...) epistemic inconsistency, perhaps by both, because the determination and affirmation of equipollence is itself a judgment of sorts, one that is not suspended. The practical challenge is that, independently of any conceptual confusion or contradiction, suspending judgment in reaction to equipollence evinces doxastic commitment to equipollence, if only because human beings are not capable of making assessments requiring rational determination without believing the corresponding premises and conclusions to be true. The two analytic sections addressing these challenges are preceded by two prefatory sections, one laying out the epistemic process, the other reviewing the evidentiary context. The response from the conceptual perspective is that the suspension of judgment based on equipollence is not a reasoned conclusion adopted as the truth of the matter but a natural reaction to an impression left by the apparently equal weight of opposing arguments. The response from the practical perspective is that the acknowledgment of equipollence is not just an affirmation of the equal weight of arguments but also an admission of inability to decide, suggesting that any assent, express or implied, is thrust upon the Pyrrhonist in a state of epistemic paralysis affecting the will and the intellect on the matter being investigated. This just leaves a deep disagreement, if any, regarding whether equipollence is an inference based on discursive activity or an impression coming from passive receptivity. But this, even if resolved in favor of the critic (which it need not and ought not be), is not the same as confusion or inconsistency on the part of the Pyrrhonist, the demonstration of which is the primary aim of this paper. (shrink)

We offer a sceptical examination of a thesis recently advanced in a monograph published by Princeton University Press, entitled Greek Buddha: Pyrrho’s Encounter with Early Buddhism in Central Asia. In this dense and probing work, Christopher I. Beckwith, a professor of Central Eurasian studies at Indiana University, Bloomington, argues that Pyrrho of Elis adopted a form of early Buddhism during his years in Bactria and Gandhāra, and that early Pyrrhonism must be understood as a sect of early Buddhism. In making (...) his case Beckwith claims that virtually all scholars of Greek, Indian, and Chinese philosophy have been operating under flawed assumptions and with flawed methodologies, and so have failed to notice obvious and undeniable correspondences between the philosophical views of the Buddha and of Pyrrho. In this study we take Beckwith’s proposal and challenge seriously, and we examine his textual basis and techniques of translation, his methods of examining passages, his construal of problems and his reconstruction of arguments. We find that his presuppositions are contentious and doubtful, his own methods are extremely flawed, and that he draws unreasonable conclusions. Although the result of our study is almost entirely negative, we think it illustrates some important general points about the methodology of comparative philosophy. (shrink)

This paper presents the main features that Sextus Empiricus draws from those he designates as his predecessors and, at the same time, explains how this reading influences his own skeptical ideal. Specifically, we will point out the main characteristics of the way that Pyrrho and Timon are portrayed in the Sextan writings. We consider that a study of these figures in the Sextan corpus will result in a better understanding of the philosopher’s own skeptical ideal. In this way, our main (...) objective will be to show that Sextus uses different argumentative strategies to model much of his own skeptical stance. At the same time, we intend to claim Sextus as an authentic writer, since he has often been called a copyist without originality when he performs exegesis of this type on the aforementioned figures. (shrink)

In this paper I revisit Aristocles’ formulation of the objection of immorality addressed to the Pyrrhonists, as well as a possible skeptical answer transmitted by the same source. Concerning the objection, I will try to show that it is an ethical and not a practical charge, which should not therefore be confused with the objection of apraxia. Concerning the answer, I will argue that it is necessarily a de ationary solution, which leaves part of the accusation intact, simply because the (...) Pyrrhonist cannot and should not admit the terms in which it has been raised. (shrink)