The little which is known of Pyrrho’s teaching may be summed up in the
three following statements: We can know nothing as to the nature of
things: Hence the right attitude towards them is to withhold judgment:
The necessary result of suspending judgment is imperturbability. He who
will live happily—for happiness is the starting-point with the
Sceptics—must, according to Timon, take these things into
consideration: What is the nature of things? What ought our attitude to
things to be? What is the gain resulting from these relations? [1398]
To the first of these three questions Pyrrho can only reply by saying
that things are altogether inaccessible to knowledge, and that whatever
property may be attributed to a thing, with equal justice the opposite
may be predicated. [1399] In support of this statement Pyrrho appears
to have argued that neither the senses nor reason furnish certain
knowledge. [1400] The senses do not show things as they are, but only
as they appear to be. [1401] Rational knowledge, even where it seems to
be most certain, in the sphere of morals, does not depend upon real
knowledge, but only upon tradition and habit. [1402] Against every
statement the opposite may be advanced with equal justice. [1403] If,
however, neither the senses nor reason alone can furnish trustworthy
testimony, no more can the two combined, and thus the third way is
barred, by which we might possibly have advanced to knowledge. [1404]
How many more of the arguments quoted by the later Sceptics belong to
Pyrrho it is impossible to say. The short duration and diffusion of
Pyrrho’s School renders it probable that with him Scepticism was not
far advanced. The same result appears to follow from its further
development in the Academy. The ten τρόποι, or aspects under which
sceptical objections were grouped, cannot with certainty be attributed
to any one before Ænesidemus. [1405] Portions of the arguments used at
a later day may be borrowed from Pyrrho and his pupils, [1406] but it
is impossible to discriminate these portions with certainty.
[(2) Withholding of judgment.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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