New Essays on Ancient Pyrrhonism (Philosophia Antiqua)
Diego E. Machuca
Language: English
Pages: 208
ISBN: 9004207767
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Scholarship on ancient Pyrrhonism has made tremendous advances over the past three decades, thanks especially to the careful reexamination of Sextus Empiricus extant corpus. Building on this momentum, the authors of the eight essays collected here examine some of the most vexed and intriguing exegetical and philosophical questions posed by Sextus presentation of this form of skepticism. The essays explore in a new light the skeptical interpretation of Plato, the differences between Pyrrhonism and Cyrenaicism, the Pyrrhonists stance on ordinary life, religion, language, and ethics, Sextus discussion of our access to our own mental states, and the relationship between Pyrrhonism and epistemic internalism and externalism. These new essays represent a substantial contribution to the advancement of scholarship on Pyrrhonian skepticism.
interest in this argument is in Sextus’ defence of the contention that the only way in which it is possible to acquire knowledge of what pain is like by nature is through experiencing it. In that case, Cicero’s argument is of no significant further use to the inquiry in hand since it does not share this feature. Further, Sextus defends this important thesis about the only means of acquiring knowledge of pain through replies to two imagined counter-proposals, both of which suggest a way in which
otherwise rather eccentric Epicurean view. This would allow the argument to be pertinent to a much wider range of potential opponents and it would indeed follow, on such a view of the relationship between pleasure and pain that god could not experience pleasure without also experiencing pain. We should recognise also that, interpreted in this manner, Sextus bypasses a further potential obstacle to the argument as it does appear in the text. We can ask whether it is impossible to recognise that
another. Having no such contradictions to resolve is in fact an essential component of the skeptic’s tranquility. For the ordinary religious believer, by contrast, there is an ever-present possibility of confronting the troubling contradiction between the impression that the gods are powerful and provident, and the impression that injustice exists. The skeptic’s indifference to whether his impressions cohere may seem scandalous or at least epistemically irresponsible. But the Pyrrhonist does not
anonymous supporters of the identification between Academics and Pyrrhonists. Ioppolo (), suggests Favorinus of Arles, but one may also think of adversaries of skepticism such as Epictetus, Numenius, and Galen (just to mention some names), who used to regard the two philosophies as two versions of a pyrrhonian plato? begins the analysis of Plato (the “Old Academy”), and three options are taken into account, namely, that he was dogmatic, that he was aporetic, and that he was partly
introduttive al pirronismo antico. Roma: Lithos. Stough, C. (). “Sextus Empiricus on Non-Assertion,” Phronesis : –. Striker, G. (a). Essays on Hellenistic Epistemology and Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ———. (b). “The Ten Modes of Aenesidemus,” – in Striker (a). ———. (c). “Ataraxia: Happiness as Tranquillity,” – in Striker (a). Svavarsson, S.H. (). “Pyrrho’s Dogmatic Nature,” Classical Quarterly : –. ———. (). “Pyrrho’s