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  1. Experimental Evidence against Pyrrhonism: Attacking a Straw Man.Diego E. Machuca - 2022 - Dialogue 61 (1):123-138.
    In a recent article, Mario Attie-Picker maintains that a number of experimental studies provide evidence against Sextus Empiricus’s empirical claims about both the connection between belief and anxiety and the connection between suspension of judgement and undisturbedness. In this article, I argue that Sextus escapes unharmed from the challenge raised by the studies in question for the simple reason that he does not make the claims ascribed to him. In other words, I argue that Attie-Picker is attacking a straw man.
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  • Can the Skeptic Search for Truth?Diego E. Machuca - 2021 - Elenchos: Rivista di Studi Sul Pensiero Antico 42 (2):321–349.
    Sextus Empiricus associates the skeptical stance with the activity of inquiry or investigation. My purpose in this paper is to examine the Pyrrhonist's involvement in that activity because getting an accurate understanding of the nature and purpose of skeptical inquiry makes it possible to delineate some of the distinctive traits of Pyrrhonism as a kind of philosophy. I defend the minority view among specialists according to which (i) Sextus describes both the prospective Pyrrhonist and the full-fledged Pyrrhonist as inquirers into (...)
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  • Sextus on Ataraxia Revisited.Diego E. Machuca - 2020 - Ancient Philosophy 40 (2):435-452.
    My purpose in this article is to revisit an issue concerning the state of undisturbedness or tranquility (ἀταραξία) in ancient Pyrrhonism as this skeptical stance is depicted in Sextus Empiricus’s extant works. The issue in question is whether both the pursuit and the attainment of undisturbedness in matters of opinion should be regarded as defining features of Pyrrhonism not merely from a systematic standpoint that examines Pyrrhonism as a kind of philosophy, but mainly according to Sextus’s own account of that (...)
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  • (1 other version)Does Pyrrhonism Have Practical or Epistemic Value?Diego E. Machuca - 2019 - In Giuseppe Veltri, Racheli Haliva, Stephan Franz Schmid & Emidio Spinelli (eds.), Sceptical Paths: Scepticisms from Antiquity through Early Modern Period and Beyond. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 43-66.
    My purpose in this paper is to examine whether Pyrrhonian skepticism, as this stance is described in Sextus Empiricus’s extant works, has practical or epistemic value. More precisely, I would like to consider whether the Pyrrhonist’s suspension of judgment (ἐποχή) and undisturbedness (ἀταραξία) can be deemed to be of practical or epistemic value. By ‘practical’ value I mean both moral value and prudential value. Moral value refers to moral rightness and wrongness; prudential value to the value of well-being, personal or (...)
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  • De praktische en epistemische waarde van het pyrronisme.Diego Machuca - 2016 - Algemeen Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Wijsbegeerte 108 (1):73-98.
    This paper assesses both the practical and the epistemic value of Pyrrhonism as this stance is described in Sextus Empiricus’s extant writings. It first explores whether the Pyrrhonist’s suspension of judgment and undisturbedness make us behave in a moral or immoral way, and whether they allow us to attain those goals that would make it possible to live well. It then examines whether the Pyrrhonist’s suspension of judgment makes it possible to reach the epistemic goals of attaining truth and avoiding (...)
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  • A Neo-Pyrrhonian Response to the Disagreeing about Disagreement Argument.Diego E. Machuca - 2017 - Synthese 194 (5):1663-1680.
    An objection that has been raised to the conciliatory stance on the epistemic significance of peer disagreement known as the Equal Weight View is that it is self-defeating, self-undermining, or self-refuting. The proponent of that view claims that equal weight should be given to all the parties to a peer dispute. Hence, if one of his epistemic peers defends the opposite view, he is required to give equal weight to the two rival views, thereby undermining his confidence in the correctness (...)
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  • Conciliationism and the Menace of Scepticism.Diego E. Machuca - 2015 - Dialogue 54 (3):469–488.
    It is sometimes claimed that conciliatory views on disagreement ultimately lead to either global or widespread scepticism. This is deemed to be a serious problem for conciliationism either because scepticism of either kind is a patently untenable stance or because it poses a serious threat to our intellectual and social lives. In this paper, I first argue that the alleged untenability of both types of scepticism is far from being obvious and should therefore be established rather than taken for granted, (...)
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  • Suspension, Equipollence, and Inquiry: A Reply to Wieland.Diego E. Machuca - 2015 - Analytic Philosophy 56 (2):177-187.
    It is generally thought that suspension of judgment about a proposition p is the doxastic attitude one is rationally compelled to adopt whenever the epistemic reasons for and against p are equipollent or equally credible, that is, whenever the total body of available evidence bearing on p epistemically justifies neither belief nor disbelief in p. However, in a recent contribution to this journal, Jan Wieland proposes “to broaden the conditions for suspension, and argue that it is rational to suspend belief (...)
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  • ¿Moralidad sin competencia? Dos interpretaciones de la objeción de inmoralidad al pirronismo.Jorge Ornelas & Andrea Lozano-Vásquez - 2023 - Ideas Y Valores 72.
    Argumentamos en contra de dos intentos contemporáneos por rehabilitar el pirronismo debido a su incapacidad para resolver la clásica objeción de inmoralidad. Proponemos dos diferentes lecturas de la objeción: una débil, según la cual los pirrónicos son inmorales dado que sus actos mismos lo son —lo que constituye un cargo empírico—, y otra fuerte, donde la inmoralidad del pirrónico proviene del hecho de que, por diseño, no puede exhibir ningún tipo de competencia moral, lo que constituye un cargo conceptual. Concluyo (...)
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  • (1 other version)Again on Sextus on Persuasiveness and Equipollence.Diego E. Machuca - 2017 - Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 99 (2):212-228.
    This paper engages with Svavar Svavarsson’s recent essay, “Sextus Empiricus on Persuasiveness and Equipollence,” arguing against both ( i ) his interpretation of whether two rival arguments appear equipollent to the Pyrrhonist because he himself is equally persuaded by both of them, and ( ii ) his interpretation of the way in which the argument from possible disagreement is supposed to induce suspension of judgment in the Pyrrhonist. In so doing, I aim to dispel some serious misunderstandings regarding key aspects (...)
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