Sextus Empiricus and Greek ScepticismPatrick, Mary Mills
Philosophy
Sextus Empiricus and Greek Scepticism
Patrick, Mary Mills
Sextus Empiricus; Skepticism
(vii) Based upon the quantities and constitutions
of objects.
(viii) Relation.
(ix) Based upon frequency or rarity of occurences.
(x) Based upon systems, customs and laws,
mythical beliefs, and dogmatic opinions.
[1] _Hyp._ I. 36-38.
Although Sextus is careful not to dogmatise regarding the
arrangement of the Tropes, yet there is in his classification of
them a regular gradation, from the arguments based upon
differences in animals to those in man, first considering the
latter in relation to the physical constitution, and then to
circumstances outside of us, and finally the treatment of
metaphysical and moral differences.
_The First Trope_.[1] That the same mental representations are
not found in different animals, may be inferred from their
differences in constitution resulting from their different
origins, and from the variety in their organs of sense. Sextus
takes up the five senses in order, giving illustrations to prove
the relative results of the mental representations in all of
them, as for example the subjectivity of color[2] and sound.[3]
All knowledge of objects through the senses is relative and not
absolute. Sextus does not, accordingly, confine the
impossibility of certain knowledge to the qualities that Locke
regards as secondary, but includes also the primary ones in this
statement.[4] The form and shape of objects as they appear to us
may be changed by pressure on the eyeball. Furthermore, the
character of reflections in mirrors depend entirely on their
shape, as the images in concave mirrors are very different from
those in convex ones; and so in the same way as the eyes of
animals are of different shapes, and supplied with different
fluids, the ideas of dogs, fishes, men and grasshoppers must be
very different.[5]
[1] _Hyp._. I. 40-61.
[2] _Hyp._. I. 44-46.
[3] _Hyp._. I. 50.
[4] _Hyp._. I. 47.
[5] _Hyp._. I. 49.
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